Cohousing-L Mailing List: dishes

[Casey Morrigan (cjmorr]

The use of chlorine to sanitize dishes works.  And making and using 
chlorine isn't good for the environment.  Both are true.

Why do dishes "have" to be sterilized?  They don't have to be, in 
non-commercial settings.  In commercial settings, it's the law, because 
food borne and person-to-person illnesses can be transmitted that way and 
there is some public agreement that people eating in commercial 
establishments shouldn't bear that risk.

It's not a question of "have to", rather, it is a question of what kind of 
risks one wants to take.  Sterilizing dishes lowers the risk, in a group, 
of disease.  It is always hardest to plan for these "low-incidence, 
high-impact" risks.  You end up sterilizing a lot of dishes that are ok in 
the hope that you clean that one special one! And, one almost always argues 
a lot over whether the action one takes is worth the effort (or the 
environmental destruction, in this case).  There is always someone whose 
risk tolerance is higher than yours, who wouldn't mind risking the disease, 
which might not happen anyway.  Of course, anyone who has lived through a 
bout of food poisoning loses some of their tolerance to risk.

Anyway, to get unstuck on dish sterilization:  it's important to have a 
package of things you do to keep food prep and dishes clean and safe for 
your community.  Dish cleaning, safe food prep, safe food storage, safe 
serving, and routine handwashing are parts of the package.  All of these 
lower risks of getting or transmitting a disease in the community.  You can 
choose to believe or disbelieve the science. You can have a higher risk 
tolerance than your neighbor.  I know my risk tolerance is low for 
preventable illness, and I consider it an act of caring for my community 
when I reduce their and my risk by engaging in these behaviors.

Casey Morrigan
Two Acre Wood
Sebastopol, California

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sharon Villines [mailto:sharon [at] sharonvillines.com]
> Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2003 9:56 AM
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_Universal Design and Co-housing
>
>
>
> On 6/21/2003 12:16 AM, "Elizabeth Stevenson"
> <tamgoddess [at] attbi.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > No. I want to know why dishes have to be sterilized.
> Washing them and
> > letting them air dry, or washing them in a dishwasher is
> perfectly safe.
> >
> > Chlorine, on the other hand, is a poison.
>
> I don't think any public health officials agree with this. Disease
> transmission by insufficiently cleaned eating utensils is one


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