Poll Results

I want to thank those of you who participated in my poll regarding the dishwasher.  Apparently most of you are like me and pre-rinse your dishes before you put them in the dishwasher.  Only one of you said that you didn't.  Hmm... I have an idea who that is, but not positive.  Want to admit who you are to see if I am right? 

Anyways, that poll idea was sparked in my mind after I read an article about it.  I have a yahoo email account, and every time I sign in to check my mail, it has news headlines and articles and such.  Well, this one day it caught my interest because the headline said something about needlessly rinsing your dishes.  Now, I have heard this many times before, but never pay much attention to it.  I come from a long line of "pre-rinsers."  My mom, my grandmother all pre-rinse.  That's where I learned it!  And I have passed it on.  My husband now pre-rinses, and my mother-in-law (who has never had a dishwasher until about a month and a half ago) pre-rinses because she knows that's what I do!  Wow.  The simplest things we can influence people!

So, I read the article.  Now, obviously it was written from a "green" perspective.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm all about conserving things and doing our best to not waste and such, but I am not all super environmentalist"y" or anything.  But the article did bring up some good points.  It said that, when you pre-rinse your dishes you can use as much as 27 GALLONS of water!  Wow.  Now that is a lot of water.  This was compared to the average dishwasher that, during its whole washing and rinsing cycles uses about 5 gallons.  That's a lot LESS water (yes, I did okay in math in school - ha!).  And the article said that "studies showed" (whatever "studies" they actually did) that the dishes were never any cleaner when pre-rinsed verses non-pre-rinsed.  So I decided to conduct my own "study."

For a whole week, I went against everything in my being to not pre-rinse the dishes, but rather just scrap off all the large pieces of food and then just put it in the dishwasher.  As funny as it may sound, it was very hard for me to do that.  I kept finding myself starting to turn on the water, and catching myself halfway there.  Of course, the harder "cooked on" stuff I did rinse off a bit first.  But other than that, I did NOT pre-rinse my dishes for a whole week.

I am pleasantly surprised to report that the article was RIGHT!  My dishes looked exactly the same when I did not pre-rinse as when I did.  And, I figured out that I was saving myself approximately 15-20 mins a day by not pre-rinsing, sometimes more.  And yes, I was saving water.  I found myself not dreading the dishes because I would just plop them in the dishwasher.  I know, those of you who do not have a dishwasher may be laughing at that statement since you have to wash all your dishes by hand.  But I used to dread the dishes because I had to wash them all off before putting them in.  How silly now that I think about it!  That is what a dishwasher is for!

So, for those of you who said yes, you pre-rinse your dishes, I challenge you to conduct your own "study" and see what you think.  There are a few things that the article suggested that I will mention to you.

  1.  If you will not be running the dishwasher right away, and are concerned about the dishes smelling or something, you can run just the rinse cycle.  This will only use a few more gallons of water, but still much less than pre-rinsing.
   2.  Even if you have an older dishwasher, this all still applies.  So go for it!

I am sure that not everything, all the time, will get off your dishes, but I think that we are wasting our time, those of us that have dishwashers, by pre-rinsing.  So I DARE you to try it!  If you do, let me know how it works out!  And just a tip for you that was told to my mom by a plumber.  He said that liquid detergents are the best for your dishwashers.  And, from my own experience, it does for sure make a difference if you use a product like JetDry or something similar.  You won't have many water spots on your dishes and the dishes really do come out drier!  Just some food for thought!

So that is my newest revelation in life.  Keep on the look-out for more polls soon to come!

Until next time...