Kitchen Hygiene – How to fight effectively against pathogens!

Contrary to popular belief, the fastest-growing pathogens are in the kitchen.
The belief that the sanitation areas require special maintenance -mostly with toxic products- is popular concerning household hygiene.
We assume that the room where we cook the food and regularly wash the dishes is sufficiently clean. This is a fundamental error since pathogens contained in food products ending up in the kitchen often develop despite the traditional cleaning methods.
Mould, bacteria and viruses settle on every surface in contact with food or leftovers such as the sink, the worktop, the cutting boards or any utensils necessary for food preparation.
Mopping or cleaning with a sponge facilitates pathogen contamination. Cloths and sponges are the ideal environment for their proliferation. Against all odds, they spread in the most unlikely places. Even fresh food, recently unwrapped or washed, is contaminated while it was not infected before reaching the kitchen.

Dry steam cleaning the kitchen will easily eliminate the viruses

Pathogens proliferate in warm and humid areas but they also stand the cold and are at ease in a refrigerator at a temperature of -5°C. Wipe cleaning with a sponge is not enough to eradicate them. To fight them efficiently, according to the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), you need heat – the temperature of washing water is not hot enough.
Dry steam cleaning is particularly efficient in the kitchen at two levels: with its high dry steam temperature of 147° C, the Noel Mondo eliminates bacteria, viruses and limits the use of toxic cleaning products. Two-in-One – the Noel Mondo combines a dry steam cleaner with a vacuum. It features a closed and hygienic reservoir. Its cutting-edge technology eliminates completely any pathogen in the kitchen.

Easy and quick cleaning

Noel Mondo is delivered to you with all the necessary accessories to clean your kitchen efficiently and healthily. Worktops and surfaces like cutting boards are free of bacteria and spores, which would be impossible with a traditional cleaning method, especially for wooden or plastic cutting boards. The notches fill up with water and the bacteria mostly remain. In wooden utensils, the washing water preserves the bacteria since wood expands and traps the bacteria.
Dry steam, in comparison with the wet steam of a common steam cleaner, only contains fine water particles and it avoids this expansion. You clean via a high temperature steam absorbed by the vacuum as well as the dirt and germs.

What germs live in the kitchen?

Various germens and pathogens enter the kitchen via food. Most of them are very dangerous, especially for individuals with compromised immune system , elderly and children. Although we live in a time when we consider hygiene important, the figures provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) show the opposite:

Despite refrigeration and stronger cleaning products, the number of people who become intoxicated with food increases every year. Food is probably contaminated on the surfaces of our own kitchen, on which other foods deposited germs or the sponge captured them. This organization has been talking about an increase in foodborne illnesses since the last 20 years.

 Salmonellosis

Salmonellosis breed on chicken meat, egg or ice cream. Surely we have all heard that a sufficient fermentation of food protects from salmonellosis. However, not many will be aware that salmonella survives on surfaces that are dirty or superficially clean, and it can reach the body later through a meal without the originally contaminated meat.

Salmonella can cause serious infectious diseases. Nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, fever, and general weakening are among the symptoms. Healthy people can cope with such infections, even if the treatment with antibiotics causes problems for every fifth infected person: the pathogens are often already resistant, which is due to the antibiotic-related poultry nutrition.

If the infection is not easily released or is already pre-loaded with health, then there is a serious danger. Therefore, use dry steam and instead of cloths in order to avoid salmonellosis through a food handling or cleaning kitchen effectively and antiseptic.

 Mould

Mould is stubborn, dangerous and is often underestimated. If we see that the food is infected, in general mould is already completely impregnated with an invisible mould braid, that is, the fungal threads are transparent. Mould spores are everywhere, so the infestation of bread and other foodstuffs, not visible at first, lurks everywhere in the kitchen.

f he has visibly infested food, then they are usually also completely penetrated by an invisible mold braid, the fungal threads are transparent.

Poisonous mushrooms, known as mycotoxin, resist heat, so they are not removed when preparing meals, for example, by cooking them, and even some of these poisons are carcinogenic.

However Noel Mondo is able to break down mould spores thanks to the high temperature of its dry steam and, if there are no spores, your kitchen is out of the danger of mould.

Campylobacter

One million people are annually infeccted by Campylobacter in Germany. The infection lasts up to a week and its symptoms are diarrhea, cramps and fever. An unhygienic treatment of animals to produce meat or poor hygiene when milking favors the reproduction of campylobacter in household products such as minced meat, poultry and milk products.

If the Campylobacter extends during the meat preparation of the meat, it reaches working surfaces, cutting boards and, finally, the sink (where we wash the fruit and vegetables). But there is also a solution to this problem: avoiding it through efficient antiseptic cleansing.

Listeria

This bacteria is so unpredictable that it does not need any special conditions to survive. They can even contaminate heat-treated food and literally get into the kitchen in every way, because they are everywhere.

The listeriosis caused by them is fatal in 30% of the cases and it is especially dangerous for elderly people with compromised immune system  and also for pregnant women and their future children. We can eliminate listeria by reaching high temperatures, it is the most efficient method to exterminate them from the kitchen. The best method is dry steam, since it is not enough to use hot water when cleaning.

EHEC bacteria

 The lack of hygiene during food production, especially meat, is the reason why raw foods are potential carriers of the Escherichia coli virus. EHEC can also enter the organism via contaminated fruit. As with other pathogens, contamination can only take place in the own kitchen when fruit or vegetables come into contact with kitchen areas which previously had contact with infected meat.

EHEC causes intestinal infections with (partial bloody) diarrhea, nausea and fever. Five to ten percent of the illnesses are difficult and have consequentialdamages. These pathogens do not die by applying cold (such as freezing), but by applying enough heat.

Germ free kitchen with the dry steam cleaner

Kitchen hygiene can therefore hardly be overestimated. Cleaning with the usual procedures is in many respects a gamble, since one compete with salmonellen, mould, Campylobacter and other dangerous pathogens.

Noel Mondo really provides a germicidal cleaning thanks to its effective combination of dry steam, vacuum cleaner and combined filtration from water filter and Hepa filter. Germs do not survive cleansing with the Mondo and you can safely prepare healthy meals for your family in your kitchen.

Discover the Noel Mondo cleaning system in one of our presentation. Simply use the contact form or call us.