The germiest place in your kitchen isn’t what you expect

When people think about germs in the kitchen, they probably have a few items in mind: the sink, cutting boards, refrigerator door handles, garbage cans, and dishwashing sponges. However, a recent study found that there is another place that harbors more bacteria than any of those: spice jars. When I saw the title of the article and tried to guess what this unusual place was, spice containers were not among the items I envisioned.

The study asked participants to prepare raw turkey patties, which were inoculated with a microorganism called MS2. After the participants finished, researchers swabbed a dozen areas in the kitchen to test for MS2 remnants. They offered several reasons why spice jars turned out to be the items harboring the most microorganisms. First, the jars were placed near the raw turkey. Second – and the part that boggled my mind – participants didn’t wash their hands between handling the raw turkey and using the jars. The third bad practice was going back and handling the spice jars again after touching the raw meat. Finally, participants failed to wipe down or clean the jars when they were done using them.

Careful mise-en-place can virtually eliminate this contamination. When I make a dish, I usually measure the spices into pinch bowls before I start prepping any raw ingredients. This does two things: keeps me from dirtying the spice jars, and makes it less likely that I will forget to add something. It isn’t 100% effective – I sometimes discover an unused pinch bowl of ingredients hiding behind a container – but it does lessen the odds. Another benefit is that you don’t have jars and bottles cluttering your workspace. After reading this article I have an urge to go through my spice drawers nonetheless to ensure they they are not housing any unwanted guests. It’s almost spring, which is one of the times I inspect spices and discard any old spices into the compost pile, so I might just get a head start this year.