Dirty sink?!?!
I think this is an interesting discussion, because it’s a good example of how we think about risks, even though we don’t really know what the risks are, exactly.
Do you always wear your seatbelt in the car?
Do you always check your shoes for spiders before putting them on?
How do you decide whether the risk of harm is high enough to justify the time and effort to protect against it?
She keeps her sink clean, I think.
And we are washing and cooking and eating fruits and vegetables she has grown herself, usually in raised beds, without pesticides, so they haven’t been exposed to too much nasty.
I was under the impression washing a sponge in the dishwasher spreads all the germs around, and that if you want to clean a sponge it should go in the washer / dryer. I could easily be wrong though.
I have checked my shoes for spiders… But after some scary Africa movie or James Bond.
How hard is it to rinse off veggies or fruits?! I put then in a (clean) commander, swish, drip dry while I do something else. Not obsessive.
Seatbelts - yes.
Shoes checked for spiders - no (see my avatars).
Washing hands after traveling on Metro - yes.
Washing commercial produce - yes.
Washing steaks - no (they are seared to perfection on my grill).
Kitchen sponge - rinse with soapy water and wring dry without rinsing the soap out. Residual soap keeps the bad stuff in check.
Seatbelts - yes
Check shoes for spiders (and other bugs) - yes - I live in the country. Bugs get in my shoes. I shake out my nighgown before I put it on, too, after a bad experience.
I don’t think of these so much as risk avoidance as just habits. It’s automatic.
eta: I guess I do have some underlying anxiety about bugs in my shoes and clothes, since it happens pretty regularly. We have seasonal invasions of different kinds of bugs and insects. One day I may agree to storm windows over my antique windows.
Seatbelt - yes. Check shoes for spiders - never occurred to me. I don’t get freaked out if there is a bug in the house either. I just escort it either outside or to a watery death 
Don’t really use a kitchen sponge all that much - use dishtowels that get washed frequently. But I’m pretty low-key / not germaphobic. My H on the other is very insistent about washing one’s hands before eating and nags me to do so (and I comply).
oh great. Never thought of spiders in my shoes. Thanks for the “one more thing I now have to do”. 8-|
I just counted up the dead bugs on the floor under just one of my south facing windows: about two dozen ladybugs, 3 wasps, 6 stink bugs. I vacuumed day before yesterday and guess I will again today. I kind of don’t mind the small spiders if they stay up at the top of my walls/ceiling and catch the moths and gnats and flies and occasional mosquito. I don’t like the hairy black spiders almost as big as my fist that live under my corner cupboards. The bug man comes monthly to spray inside and out. fwiw.
On the plus side - no roaches in this house.
Washing the fruit is for a number of things, it will help to a certain extent in removing bacteria, it will remove any other stuff on them (dirt, other detritus). The other reason to wash the fruit is to remove surface concentrations of the insecticides that are used on fruit , especially fruit imported from Chile and other places in South America. Those compounds are generally water soluble, so can be rinsed off somewhat effectively, and given that they are organic compounds that tend to be not exactly good for you, it makes sense to try and get as much off as possible. I would rather “waste” water to wash a fruit, then ingest any more insecticides than I have to or any more bacteria than I have to shrug.
For me, it’s not just about risk assessment. There’s also just a yuck factor. I don’t want Joe Schmo’s hand sweat, trace amounts of his urine or stool (not all people wash their hands after they use the toilet, that’s a fact), nose or mouth residue he got on his hands when he rubbed his nose or mouth, etc. on my produce.
Haven’t you seen how people man handle produce at the grocery store? It’s personally worth it to me to spend a short amount of time and water to rinse other people’s body fluids and dirt off things that I’m going to eat. Clearly YMMV.
I’m pretty sure all the bugs in my house are invasive species. The ladybugs aren’t native ladybugs. I think maybe all these bugs and insects came in with all that foreign unwashed fruit.
My exterminator is really interested in invasive species. He has been on alert for a few things he saw in a different part of the state, and he’s sure I’ll see them first when they show up in our neighborhood. He gives me descriptions and asks me to pay attention.
“I don’t like the hairy black spiders almost as big as my fist that live under my corner cupboards.”
Where do you live @alh so I know never to move there?!
I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, the rural south, but there are a lot of bugs and insects and varmints.
Ask the people at Chipotle.
For people confusing dirt with pathogens-dirt is tiny bits of sediment and organic matter. Pathogens are bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites that can kill you. Dirt isn’t always dirty (says the germaphobe gardener).
My yard is not great for growing veggies, I can do herbs in the front yard but the HOA would get me for a giant zucchini patch growing into the road. I’m looking into a communal garden, but if the guy in the plot next to mine is using Round Up or whatever ghastly stuff is out there to fertilize his plot, I may as well just get stuff from the supermarket.
Like a lot of other people, I won’t buy ground produce from central america…
@anxiousmom I didn’t know that about melons. That’s a total bummer.
If you have a dishwasher with an internal heater and a “sanitize” option your dishes and your scrubby pad are clean. I have both a dishwasher and a washing machine that goes to Ludicrous Hot. That, steam mops, bleach, and hydrogen peroxide are my cleaning agents of choice.
I’ll do a hydrogen peroxide bath on some veggies to clean them:
http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2015/11/hydrogen-peroxide-magic.html
The worst that could happen to you if you don’t get it all off is you’ll barf, and it doesn’t have the distinctive odor of bleach that would ruin foods.
Not quite the same risk as not washing your fruit and veggies. In additionally, it’s the law in many places! I haven’t been in a car without a seatbelt in pretty much forever, probably since the late '50s when the '58 Chevy my parents had didn’t have seatbelts!
Agree with nrdsb4 here. The yuck factor is just too great not to wash what all those yucky hands have touched. I remember being at a potluck lunch with a group of very close friends when I saw one of them putting her salad together and cutting up mushrooms without washing them. I couldn’t believe it. Talk about yuck. Needless to say, I passed on that salad.
I may have been Harvard material had I only washed my berries.
I think Unwashed Berries is an awesome name for a rock band.
ALWAYS. The last time I didn’t wear a seatbelt was in 1984. I was driving on a curvy road, and as I rounded a bend, I came across a car stopped in the road. I didn’t even have time to put my brakes on before I hit her. My face hit the steering wheel. It felt like someone hit me in the face full force with a baseball bat. How I didn’t lose all my teeth is beyond me. I did have a small hole in my chin that revealed my teeth underneath. When I saw that, I almost passed out. Thanks to that accident, I now have TMJ. When I’m chewing, my jaw pops sometimes, though not every time. DH thinks it’s amusing to say “Pipe down over there!” when my jaw is acting up.
So yeah, seatbelts.