Scrubbing Up: Your comments

The BBC News website is launching a weekly column where leading clinicians and experts outline their views on health topics.

In this week's column, Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, warns of the hidden dangers in our kitchens.

Read the full article

The following is a selection of the comments we have received:

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After lunch in primary school the dinner ladies would scrub the counter surfaces with a stiff brush and hot soapy water. No one ever got ill from food poising.

I don't understand the modern obsession with killing germs in the sink pipes and toilet, we don't consume food from these after all.
Steve, Birmingham

When I was a child I used to eat packed lunch after plying in the woods all morning and getting covered in mud and tree sap. As a cancer patient with poor immunity I've still got by with normal hygiene practices - nothing special.

Our immune systems are stronger than the bleach advertisers would have us believe. Food poisoning isn't nice and some practices are very bad, but we don't need to take it to excess either.
Richard, Leeds, UK

Professor Pennington's words are, as usual, spot on. HACCP (pron. "hassup") has made a real difference to food production and retail - your local butcher will have carried out this process or a very similar one.

I will disagree with Prof Pennington on one point. Using a washing-up bowl is sometimes the only way to wash certain implements such as pans and (some) knives. Aluminium does not like dishwashers.

If knives in particular are washed in the bowl, a rinse in VERY hot, clean water afterwards will remove the vast majority of bugs.

This is the basis of the two-sink method used in catering.
Mark, Long Eaton, Derbyshire, UK

Some perspective is needed. There are 360,000 cases of Campylobacter infection each year in the UK, but the population of the UK eats around 65.7 billion meals each year (based on 60 million population eating 3 meals a day). That's an incidence rate of a very small fraction of 1% (0.0005%). In other words, 99.9995% of the times we use our chopping boards and washing up bowls, there's no problem. I'm not saying hygiene isn't important - just that there is indeed some truth to the suggestion that in some quarters we're overly obsessed by it. I've had food poisoning once in my life, and that was caused by food from a restaurant that should have been checked by the local environmental health department, not my own cooking in my own kitchen.
Alex Cameron, Loughborough, UK

I was trained as an SRN in the days when food hygiene and kitchen safety was taught, and am amazed at the number of people who remain ignorant.

Dishwashers and indeed very hot washing in the correct order plus no drying clothes and separate chopping boards have long been taught and now lost as info for the young and untaught in schools .answer as ever education!
Gina Osborne, Mayenne, France

More an more people are being encouraged to make the home a more hygienic place mainly through the media and this in turn is given by scientists/clinicians.

Hygiene should indeed be encouraged although being of scientific mind I fully agree that an over emphasis can pose a threat to the human immune system.

What we should remember is that bacteria can't be fully eliminated therefore we can assume there presence at a particulate nature will still contribute to a healthy immune system.
David Galli, RNAS Culdrose, UK

I fear cases of OCD are going to rise dramatically after this item hits the general populous. Wash those hands 50 times a day everybody.
Steve, Cambridge,UK

There's an easy solution to all this - become veggie. It seems to be much harder to poison yourself with vegetables than animals. I've never managed it.
Sue, London,UK

More scare-mongering. Does this guy have shares in dishwashers or something? He makes some good points about basic hygiene and care in the kitchen but I'm pretty sure that a bowl of hot soapy water will be adequate to disinfect the chopping board sufficiently. Certainly I've been doing it regularly for several years and can probably count the number of times I've had food poisoning on one hand.
Rachel Brierley, Bristol, UK

I have never suffered from food poisoning from any meal that I have prepared myself. But then, my father was a bacteriologist and taught me how to handle hazardous materials such as food. I am horrified at the unhygienic practices displayed by TV chefs; now I know which restaurants to avoid.
Tony, Birmingham, UK

Thanks for this article, my already vermin-o-phobe boyfriend just e-mailed me the link along with a message saying 'this is why I run everything under the hot tap after it's been washed up'. So now, thanks to you, more of my time will be spent boiling the dishes to draw him out of the corner where he cowers in case a bacteria gets up his nose. I might also get our internet disconnected so that he can't find out anymore about this. I think the BBC should buy me a dishwasher as compensation.
Zhenya, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, UK

About the seagulls!

Aren't they too many in the south coast anyways..!

A way could be to do like they do in Paris with the pigeon problem:

Is to feed them with grains containing the Pregnancy pill within.

They would then reproduce less for the time being and stop the spread. f Frank
Frank, Brighton, UK

I was astonished when I moved to Scotland 17 years ago to discover that most people I knew - even very highly educated people - never rinsed their dishes after washing them. The dishes went straight from the washing-up bowl to the draining rack - covered in soap suds and filthy water. Nothing has really changed in 17 years, except more people have dishwashers now. So, I'm not surprised anymore when I see this happening. However, what continues to surprise me is that when you point out to people how unhygienic this practice is, and gently suggest that they rinse the dishes in hot water after washing to prevent the spread of bacteria, they just ignore you.
D. Griesbach, Crieff, Scotland

I live in constant fear of something like this: our shared house is a nightmare. Rotten meat left in the fridge, chopping boards used and re-used for raw and cooked foods, a cursory wipe of the worktops with an already filthy cloth...

You'd think these things were obvious to most people, but I'd be the first to offer up my housemates for a Health and Safety course. Please, come and get them!
Lorrie, Manchester, UK

I think these days that people worry far too much. Being over seventy years old, and never as far as I know ever suffered with a serious stomach upset. Now silly people are saying "Use a dishwasher". Next they will say take notice of use by dates on tins and sealed bottles. Never had time for such nonsense myself.
Nick Hoskinson, Havant, UK

There is far too much reliance on the fridge, disinfectant wipes and anti-microbial chopping boards. All organisms require CO2 and moisture to grow and organic matter of any kind protects bacteria. If the kitchen is clean and dry it is going to be safe, if you wash your hands. Another good idea is to use several chopping boards and regularly put them through the dishwasher or wash in hot soapy water. Washing up liquid is also a good bactericide without additional antimicrobials. In contradiction of your article a bowl of HOT water with washing up liquid in it will kill the bugs. The danger comes from the damp tea towel so washing up should be air dried.
Mike McCarthy, Basingstoke, UK

Admittedly HACCP wasn't an immediate success (initially it was scathingly dubbed "Have A Cup of Coffee and Pray"), but having introduced more people who are personally liable for food safety within the industry there have been stark reductions in food poisoning outbreaks and the necessity of voluntary recalls of products.

Now if only the public could adopt the same common sense en masse, quit asking your GP for antibiotics that will encourage further so-called "superbugs" (or antibiotic resistant organisms to more scientifically-minded readers) to thrive, and stop using so many antibacterial in hand soaps and household cleaning agents - then we might see a remarkable improvement in our health.
Sam, Derby, UK

Do we really need a professor to tell us this, surely it's just common sense?
Nick Walters, London, UK

I nearly went to Aberdeen to read microbiology specifically because Prof Pennington was there. This article is the sort of plain common sense that politicians either ignore or can't understand. Incidentally I had campylobacter once and its agonising. I thought my appendix was about to burst. Once you had it once you make sure you don't get it again.
Peter, Notts, UK

I thought this was a really well written article. The Professor added a real twist to make an interesting topic. Well done BBC.
Carson Peter Gray, London, UK

I noticed in the video that the Professor Hugh Pennington carefully washed his hands, but did not wash the tap, or mention that it needed to be washed.
Dunstan Keene, Czech Republic

The doctor's advice regarding the handling of raw meat and washing up is simply common sense and obviously sensible. I live in America though, and here, for some I know at least, I think hygiene in the home has gone out of control. Disposable anti-bacterial wipes on hand for every surface, every time they get a speck on them. Tea towels and towels washed after just a day or two of use, in bleach of course. Plastic gloves to hand out cookies to school kids. Hand sanitizer at the classroom door, to use a squirt each time the kids leave or enter. And of course, back to back antibiotics every winter for those darned ear infections that refuse to clear up. Raw chicken is one thing, every day bacteria is another.
Annie, New Haven, USA

The fear generated by these specialists is enormous. Most of us would be a lot healthier if we cooked more of our own food rather let big business do it for us. This kind of article just puts the fear into people and is more likely to discourage them from cooking rather than encourage them. My kitchen isn't big enough for a dish washer and I don't have a series of chopping boards for every occasion but I've been an enthusiastic cook for over twenty years and have fed countless other people and have never once given anyone food poisoning. The last time I had food poisoning was, surprise surprise, after a doner kebab in the 80s. Wash your hands and clean your boards and knives regularly also change washing-up water when it looks dirty and rinse things with running water (this takes less water than you might think). Simple and effective. Don't let the fear of bugs stop you.
Dave W, Norwich,UK

Why is it that, having washed one's hands after using the toilet in supermarkets and the like, you then have to grasp what must be a filthy door handle to get out and amongst the food again?
Tim, Exeter, UK

I was always told that your dishcloth has more bugs and lurking bacterial menaces than anything used to clean the loo ! I find it hard to believe, but I do microwave my disinfected dishcloth for two minutes just to try and give me a head start !!
Carole Brettell, Stoke Golding, Nuneaton, UK

The interesting thing is that the people I know who get stomach upsets most often are those who are fanatical about cleaning and disinfecting everything and hence have no resistance at all to the common bugs. Those who, like me, know where the major hazards lie but don't get obsessive about it can eat anything we please. I haven't suffered from a stomach upset for at least 20 years despite eating pretty much anything that doesn't eat me first, in all sorts of places all around the world.
Sally Marshall, Bristol, UK

Why does it matter using separate cutting boards etc for carrots and chicken when both will be cooked maybe in the same pot?
Mike Webb, Lyon, France