Prewashing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher

[desura]

Okay, so I don't get this. What is the point of having a dishwasher if you need to prewash the dishes anyways? Half the time I put dishes in the dishwasher, they end up with food still on them and not cleaned worth a damn.

Prewashing takes about as much time as it would to just handwash them.

So what's the point?

 

[Newbian]

I suppose if you have a older dishwasher it may be needed but I never have to do it and it cleans the dishes fine.

 

[Tweak155]

My wife washes and then dishwasher washes them. She claims the sink water doesn't get hot enough to kill everything (germs).

 

[nickbits]

I only scrape the chunks off. No problems. If something doesn't come clean (rare) it goes in for another round. If it still isn't clean then it gets hand washed.

 

[lxskllr]

I agree. I have a dishwasher, and don't use it. I wash everything by hand.

 

[IronWing]

This is why we don't have a dish washer. Also, put bleach in the rinse water to kill anything the soap/detergent missed.

 

[Rakehellion]

Okay, so I don't get this. What is the point of having a dishwasher if you need to prewash the dishes anyways?

If you have a shitty dishwasher it won't clean them very well.

 

[Rakehellion]

My wife washes and then dishwasher washes them. She claims the sink water doesn't get hot enough to kill everything (germs).

It doesn't, which is why the dishwashing detergent contains sodium hypochlorite to disinfect.

 

[bbhaag]

I usually scrape the plates with any left over food into the garbage then rinse the small stuff off in the sink. Load it up in the dishwasher and let it do its magic. No way in hell I'm pre washing dishes in the sink before I wash them again in a dishwasher.

 

[BoomerD]

I always pre-wash (or seriously rinse) dishes before they go in the dishwasher. I don't want dirty water full of food swirling around the dishes...IMO, no dishwasher does a GOOD job cleaning the food off of plates and such.

 

[ch33zw1z]

lol, i'm patiently waiting for a drain pump and flapper for our dishwasher. scrape/rinse that shit son!

 

[ThinClient]

Okay, so I don't get this. What is the point of having a dishwasher if you need to prewash the dishes anyways? Half the time I put dishes in the dishwasher, they end up with food still on them and not cleaned worth a damn.

Prewashing takes about as much time as it would to just handwash them.

So what's the point?

Get a less-shitty dishwasher. If your dishes are going to sit in the dish washer, clean them off. Dishwasher sanitizes, not just cleans. Even if you have to clean it before washing, your cleaning still won't sanitize like the dishwasher will.

 

[lxskllr]

Dishes don't need to be sanitized. If you do a competent job washing, there won't be enough germs to worry about after they dry. No food to eat=no germs. No water to drink=no germs

 

[OutHouse]

necro repost

http://forums.anandtech.com/archive/index.php/t-1457620.html

i know there was another thread about this not long ago but cant find it.


my wife used to bad about washing dishes before she put them in the dishwasher. i would always have to ask are these clean or dirty as im looking for any speck of food or dribbles on the inside of the door.

** EDIT** lol not 5 min after this post my wife goes in the kitchen and sees my son taking the dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them away, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING! THOSE ARE DIRTY!!" LOL LOL LOL

 

[ThinClient]

Dishes don't need to be sanitized. If you do a competent job washing, there won't be enough germs to worry about after they dry. No food to eat=no germs. No water to drink=no germs

Haha, right, like germs aren't immediately all over everything everywhere constantly :awe:

There are so many germs floating in the air that simply picking up the dish from the dishwasher plants hundreds of billions of new germs on it with your touch and collects even more passing through the air on the way to the cupboard.

This is why clean rooms exist.

 

[OverVolt]

Scrape and rinse(no soap), then washing machine and they come out perfect.

Its really just about not putting giant chunks of food into the washing machine.

Alot of items I prefer to just wash by hand. Usually bigger dishes, oddly shaped stuff like spatulas.

 

[lxskllr]

Haha, right, like germs aren't immediately all over everything everywhere constantly :awe:

There are so many germs floating in the air that simply picking up the dish from the dishwasher plants hundreds of billions of new germs on it with your touch and collects even more passing through the air on the way to the cupboard.

This is why clean rooms exist.

Point? Why would you "sanitize" your dishes when they get germed again? Properly washed dinnerware won't have appreciably more germs than the default state of the room. Germs are a fact of life, and people need to get over the pointless obsession of killing them all, cause guess what; it doesn't work.

 

[ThinClient]

Scrape and rinse(no soap), then washing machine and they come out perfect.

Its really just about not putting giant chunks of food into the washing machine.

Alot of items I prefer to just wash by hand. Usually bigger dishes, oddly shaped stuff like spatulas.

This.

Food in the dishwasher clogs water flow up, too.

 

[Red Squirrel]

A quick rinse is still faster than actually cleaning it properly by hand to bring it to a sanitary state. Half the time when the dishes go in my dishwasher they still have some food on them, I just removed the worse of it, especially spegatti type food that stains the dishwasher and everything inside, if left as is.

 

[NetWareHead]

I scrape the rinse the food off the dishes before loading them in the dishwasher (don't use soap, just hot water). My reasoning is that it takes some time, usually a few days, to generate a full dishwasher load. I don't want food in the dishwasher that will smell up the kitchen. Plus food debris in the dishwasher will clog it up. Lastly, if you take a minute to prep the dishes this way, you don't need to run the dishwasher on the normal cycle. My dishwasher has a quick wash option that gets them clean. The cycle runs for less than half hour whereas the normal cycle needs 80 minutes.

 

[JMapleton]

I wash all my dishes in the dishwasher twice. Once with a drop of bleach based dish soap and dishwasher soap. And then a second time to get all the soap off (it produces a very soapy mixture).

Wash your dishes a second time and open it while it's running to see if there are still soap bubbles in the water at the bottom. Digesting the soap can be just as bad for you as the food.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I wash all my dishes in the dishwasher twice. Once with a drop of bleach based dish soap and dishwasher soap. And then a second time to get all the soap off (it produces a very soapy mixture).

Wash your dishes a second time and open it while it's running to see if there are still soap bubbles in the water at the bottom. Digesting the soap can be just as bad for you as the food.

Do you not see how stupid that is?

 

[nageov3t]

scrape and rinse.

I only run the dishwasher about once/week and I don't want food residue sitting around attracting pests.

 

[ThinClient]

scrape and rinse.

I only run the dishwasher about once/week and I don't want food residue sitting around attracting pests.

You run the risk of mold growing on porous material like some plastics and wood.

 

[JMapleton]

Do you not see how stupid that is?

How can I see if you don't tell me?