When it comes to washing up, the majority of us will hand wash our dishes up. Yet when it comes to washing up our dishes, we have always been told that you should use hot water in order to be able to get the food stains off our dishes.
In addition, we know that high temperatures will kill any nasty germs that remain on our plates as well.
Although, new research has now made people start to question whether we really need to use hot water to wash our dishes. In this article, we will be discussing whether you can use cold water to wash your dishes withl.
Using Cold Water To Wash Your Dishes
There is an art to making sure you clean your dishes properly.
It is all about using the right detergent to be able to wash those tricky stains off, and then normally we would use hot water to remove any grease remaining and properly sanitize the dishes.
Hot water is needed to be able to remove any dirty areas completely.
Generally, hot water is a lot more effective than cold water. However, for proteins such as eggs or oats, cold water is much better to be able to clean the dishes more effectively.
This is due to the fact that proteins will dissolve a lot more easily in cold water than hot water. When proteins come into contact with hot water, they will stick to your dishes, which is why they are much more difficult to clean.
Thus, you should rinse them off with cold water and then use hot water to wash the dishes.
Sanitization And Cold Water
As you can see, you can wash your dishes in cold water, however the only issue is sanitization. Cold water will cause germs on your dishes to become inactive, which should stop them from spreading.
However, cold water won’t kill the germs. Therefore, to make sure that the germs are properly killed, and no bacteria is left remaining, hot water needs to be used at some point on the dishes.
As a result, you can still wash your dishes in cold water, however to make sure they are completely sanitary then you will rinse the dishes at the end with hot water.
The rinse with hot water will remove any remaining soap that is still on the dishes, and will kill around 99% of any germs or bacteria on your dishes.
With that being said, some new studies have found out that cold water could remove just as much bacteria from your dishes compared to using boiling hot water. It is all about the type of detergent that you are using.
This is because it is the detergent that is the key item which will help your dishes become as clean as possible.
Although, the majority of detergents on our shelves are surfactants. This means that they work much more efficiently in hot water rather than cold.
Using Cold Water On Greasy Dishes
As a lot of the foods that we cook contain fats, we sometimes have to deal with greasy dishes. When we cook any food in butter or oils, this will make the dishes oily or greasy.
Trying to remove grease or oil from dishes with cold water is pretty much impossible. This is because oils and fats will become viscous and thicker when they come into contact with lower temperatures.
Removing grease with cold water can be achieved, but only if you are using a scrub and good detergent. However, by doing it this way will take you a lot longer to achieve a spotless pan. Therefore, when it comes to grease, hot water is the way forward.
Stains On Dishes And Cold Water
When we cook something for a long time, it can leave stubborn stains on the sides of the dishes. However, if you try to wash these stains in cold water, the stains will become much harder.
As a result, you will then need to put in a lot more effort to get the dishes spotless.
It’s not impossible to clean stains and stubborn spots with cold water. It’s just that it will require a lot more time and effort from you.
Cold Water Can Cause Cloudy Surfaces
If you wash your dishes in cold water, you will notice a thin cloudy layer appear on your dishes at the end. This is because detergents and soaps struggle to dissolve properly in cold water, as they do in hot water.
As a result, your dishes could be left with a layer of soap if they are not rinsed off.
Therefore, to make sure all soap and detergent is removed from your dishes, you will need to rinse your dishes twice under more cold water.
Or you can just rinse them once under hot water. However, this will then require you to use a lot more water, which could see an increase in your water bill over time.
Final Thoughts
Hot water has always been the go to when it comes to washing anything, including dishes.
However, you can use cold water to wash your dishes, but only if you are using a superb detergent. Otherwise, you will find that the cold water isn’t as effective as the hot water.
When using cold water to clean your dishes, you will need to spend a lot more time and effort on making sure that they are spotless. In addition, you will still rinse your dishes afterwards under hot water to make sure they are free from bacteria or germs.
As a result, we hope you have found this insightful and now understand whether you can be using cold water on your dishes.
We waste water in so many ways, like leaving the faucet on while we brush our teeth, bathing instead of showering, and watering our lawns more than we need to.
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