The other day my husband came up to me with his serious face.
“Light of my life,” he said. (Okay, he didn’t really say that. He normally calls me “babe” or a diminutive of my name.) “I have been doing lots of reading about dishwashers.”
(He had not really been doing a lot of reading about dishwashers.)
“Well, not a LOT of reading about dishwashers,” he admitted. “But what I have read says that we are doing it wrong.”
“Oh?” I said, a bit perplexed because I was in the middle of editing a large report and was unsure why he’d chosen this very moment in the middle of the day to approach me about this subject… and also a bit defensive, because who wants to be told they’ve been operating a dishwasher incorrectly for the past bazillion years?
“We should just be rinsing off the bigger bits of food and putting the dishes in the dishwasher dirty,” he told me.
Internet, you know me. I am squeamish, especially when it comes to food and food related things. I am that girl who inspects her fork at every restaurant before using it. And I have been known to Purell my silverware if it has been sitting directly on a restaurant table. (I mean, have you ever SEEN the rags waiters and bus-people use to clean off the tables?)
(Also, let us not detour into What Is Gross About Restaurants lest I end up never leaving my house again.)
(And let’s also avoid the topic of What Is Wrong with Putting Purell on Your Silverware. Believe me – my husband has already had this talk with me.)
Anyway, squeamish. So the thought of putting dishes with Food Crud on them into the dishwasher didn’t sit well with me.
However, the idea of not having to thoroughly scrub each dish before putting it into the dishwasher DID seem lovely.
So I agreed with my husband that we would try it out.
My husband says that there are three main reasons to do the dishes this way:
1) We will use less water.
2) The dishwasher will supposedly function better and do less damage to our dishes.
3) We will spend less time doing dishes.
But I’m very suspicious.
I envision glasses with bits of food stuck in the bottom. And there is almost nothing worse than drinking half of a glass of water and then spotting some Food Crud in the bottom of your glass that has been flavoring the water the entire time.
Blech.
It just seems WRONG to me to put dirty dishes into the dishwasher. I know, I know – that’s what it’s FOR. It’s just that I’ve operated all these years under the belief that I was the food scraper and the dishwasher was the germ destroyer. We’ve had a lovely relationship, the dishwasher and I. I’m afraid that it will dislike having to work harder at its job and will seek revenge in the form of Food Crud everywhere. And then I’ll have to scrub Dried-On Food Crud off of all my silverware and plates, which is much harder to remove than Fresh Food Crud.
Sigh. First-world problem, I get it. Some people don’t even have DISHES, let alone a DISHWASHER.
And it’s not like this is an actual PROBLEM. I mean, if there is a serious Food Crud issue, we will just revert back to the Old Way.
But it seems momentous, in some way, since I have been a die-hard pre-washer since MIDDLE SCHOOL. That’s, like, nearly TWO DECADES of washing dishes one way. And it’s hard to change a habit you’ve formed over two-thirds of your life.
And yet, I am going to give it the old college try. Partly because it seems like it could save us time and water. Partly because I need to be better about Trying New Things.
This is a good indicator of how un-exciting our lives are right now, that the biggest New Thing we are trying is related to washing dishes.
But interview season is starting, which will bring many much bigger New Things and their accompanying stress and anxiety. So I am going to relish the calm while it lasts. Perhaps in a few years I will come back and read this post and laugh at my 2011 self whose biggest worry was whether or not to pre-wash the dishes.
You know, I’ve heard this from other people too. Let me know how it works. My husband is a MEGA pre-washer.
I’m really bad about wiping the dishes clean before going in the dishwasher. I oftentimes find myself thinking, “if I’m cleaning them off this much, why don’t I just go ahead and hand-wash them?”…ahhh the humanity!
I’m curious to know how this goes for you! Good luck 🙂
I am a huge pre-dishwasher dish cleaner and Brian is not. I have recently moved to his version of dishes and believe it or not, they do end up clean….with a few exceptions of course:
1) If you drink OJ w/pulp which we do, you have to rinse out the pulp. If you leave it to dry and then put it in the dishwasher some pulp will remain.
2) The same goes for dried on cheese – has to be rinsed immediately. If you leave it to dry and attempt to dishwash, it won’t come completely clean.
Other than that, I hate to admit, Brian’s way works!
Happy Dishwashing!!!
I’m not a pre-washer, per se, but I do give every dish a good, hot rinse (and I mean HOT!) before putting it in the dishwasher. I don’t like too much food gunk going in there… especially if it’s dried on. If I can still see some spots, that’s ok, but if it can be rinsed off, it will be. But I’m pretty neurotic about inspecting every dish as it comes out. If there’s anything left on (almost never), I just run it again. Hello, wasteful!
LOL you’re funny. We don’t pre-wash our dishes unless there’s something sticky that will dry like cheese or sauce. Those get a rinse. And purell on silverware. LOL!!!! I can’t stop laughing.
OMG I was laughing out loud at this!! Me and my husband just had the same conversation a couple months ago!! He claims that the dishwashers are built to remove the crud and actually work better the dirtier they are. I don’t get that logic but whatevs. We have tried it and it seems to work about the same, so I don’t know, there might be something to it.
I guess I’m somewhere in between the rinser and the pre-washer…kinda depends on what exactly is on the dish. I figure why do all the work when I’m putting them into a DISH WASHER. Right? Taking the easy way out is always my forte.
I don’t know about the “dishwasher will work better” argument (the dishwasher is a MACHINE that is likely unaffected by the thickness of grime on the dishes…lol), but I don’t pre-wash my dishes. I do believe that the type of soap/detergent you use does make a difference in how much particulate matter can potentially stay stuck, though. (I’m a fan of Finish with the powerballs. It works!)
Anyway, if this is any consolation to the germaphobic part of your brain, I think the actual disinfection part of the dishwasher comes in the drying. The washing part is pretty routine and the water isn’t hotter than what you would use to handwash. It’s that super hot and steamy DRYING that kills off the residual germs. So, prewashing (or lack thereof) isn’t going to impact the overall sterility of the dishes afterwards. Yay!
I wash off our dishes too. I rinse and have a scrub brush. I don’t use soap or anything, but our old dishwasher really sucked and I got in the habit of getting everything pretty clean before putting it in.
I definitely laughed at this post. Not in a laughing AT you kind of way, but in a laughing because I know these feelings all too well. I MUST PRE-WASH EVERY DISH BEFORE IT GOES IN. I don’t even do it for the germ factor, but simply because I am a control. freak. and a small part of me believes that unless I do half of the dishwasher’s job, it will not do nearly as good of a job as me. Ridiculous, right?
HAHAHA! you are too much! If it makes you feel any better, back in the days when I had a dishwasher I put them in with all sorts-o-crap. My dishes usually came out pretty nice…except when I left large chunks of food- don’t do that..lol…sorry I just grossed myself out.
You would have died growing up at my house! We never even pre-rinsed the dishes! My mom swore the dishwasher could handle it and they always looked clean when they were done so I never questioned it! Now, I live in a house built in the 30’s and sadly have no dishwasher. You would most likely be appalled at my dishwashing skills now too… 🙂
I hear ya! It does seem bizzare that a a dishwasher would work better with bits of food on the dishes, but the manual for my dishwasher ( Bosh) actually instructs you to do that very thing! “do not completely rinse the dishes before loading (or words to that effect) the dishwasher works best when bits of food are left.” The only time this doesn’t seem to work is when, as another reader mentioned, there is cheese on the dish and egg in any form must be rinsed.
The dirty rag that restaurants use to clean the tables, ack!
Disgusting; I notice it especially in diners and chain restaurants. What are they thinking??? I’v been known to leap across the table and snatch food out of my kids hands if they dare try and eat anything that fell off of their plates and onto the table in a restaurant ! Now they know better.
We do pass the purell around the table after handling the menus, but I’ve never purelled the silverware. You’ve given me something to think about! I have also asked for my drink in a paper “to go” cup if the glasses look especially grungy. My husband thinks I am over the top sometimes with the hand washing ,etc., but we have managed to dodge the bullet of the dreaded stomach virus that goes around every year so we will keep washing and purelling until someone can give me a concrete proven reason not to.
It’s comforting to know there is a kindred spirit out there!
We pre-wash nothing. Stuck on polenta, baked on cheese from lasagna – it all goes in the dishwasher. Strangely enough, the only thing our dishwasher seems to have trouble with is peanut butter on knives. So I wash those by hand.
But (and this is a big but) we hand wash all our fancy knives and all our drinking glasses (so they don’t get scratched). Well, most of the time my husband does those dishes because I have a “skin condition” that means I shouldn’t have my hands in hot water. (The actually problem has cleared up, but I like to watch my husband do domestic chores.)
I also read (like your husband) that if you put, essentially, clean dishes in the dishwasher… what is the soap going to be working on? The soap is meant for food particles and germs… not for ruining your dishes.
I’m sure this isn’t a problem for you – but keep your jet-dry full. My grandmother swears by the pre-washing… but she also never fills her jet-dry.
Good luck! We went the first few years of our marriage with out a dishwasher. Now we have one and it’s the best!
So you would wash off the dishes completely and then put them into the dishwasher? That’s so much work! I hope this new way works for you. 🙂 You’ll have so much extra time!
You need to report back on the experiment. My husband and I actually bicker about this subject because he says I don’t pre-wash enough! Enjoy the calm!
I’m with you. My hubs is with your hubs. I don’t think we’ll ever see eye to eye on the pre-rinse. HAHA!
We both grew up NOT using dishwashers, so it’s actually rare for us to even use the one we have now. In fact we use the dishwasher as a dry rack for the dishes we washed by hand. Don’t worry. We all have prewash/dishwasher issues.
(PS: New blog reader here, husband is an MD/PHd student and I’ve been lurking a bit–will be back!)
Ha, my husband and I are always having this same argument. He’s in your camp. He thinks that if we don’t rinse the dishes, the bits of crud will stay in the dishwasher for all of eternity. Oh, and we’ve only had the dishwasher since we moved into our new house about 3 weeks ago, so I suppose this isn’t an age-old argument for us yet. But seriously–I barely rinse the dishes and they all come out clean! I have yet to drink a clump of crud! (ew)
I am totally late to this party, but I have read the same thing about not pre-washing, and it seems to be that older dishwashers did require the prewashing, but the newer models don’t, which is why people who have had dishwashers for a long time are so used to having to pre-wash. But it’s true that it works better with some food left (whether “it” is the soap or the dishwasher itself, I don’t know).