Bah! These are the five places in the supermarket with the most bacteria
Even now that bottles of disinfectant are hanging everywhere and everyone is washing their hands properly (right?), there are still places in every supermarket where bacteria grow and thrive. There’s no need to become germophobic, but be a little careful around these five filthy spots in the supermarket.
Most bacteria are found on places that everyone touches with their fingers. The handles of carts, the mangoes and avocados everyone gives a quick squeeze, menus in restaurants and the buttons on the payment terminal: all breeding grounds for all kinds of bacteria and other filth. Research by the American CDC shows that many people become ill when they touch those filthy places and then touch their eyes with their fingers or put something in their mouths. Be warned: these are the five filthiest places in the supermarket.
Checkout
Just think of everything that passes through here. Many people put their bag on the checkout counter—and that bag has also been on the floor in the bathroom or in the car park. Not very hygienic.
Conveyor belt
A leaking container of chicken breast, melting ice cream and cans of soft drinks: it all ends up on that belt. And it’s never really cleaned, apart from a quick wipe-down at the end of the working day. What’s more, the belts are made of PVC, are somewhat porous and impossible to clean thoroughly. The US Food and Drug Administration investigated what was on those conveyor belts and found yeast strains, moulds and various bacteria on one hundred percent of the belts they examined.
Payment terminal
Contactless payment is a blessing, because those little buttons on the payment terminal are too disgusting to touch. Every now and then, a cashier runs a cloth over them, but of course that does nothing.
The slicer
Does your supermarket have a butcher’s counter where cold cuts are freshly sliced? Or does that happen at the factory, with everything pre-packaged on the shelves? That slicer is a difficult machine to clean, and usually it is only thoroughly cleaned at the end of the day. This means that scraps of fresh, raw meat remain on the blade and inside the machine, where they sit simmering at room temperature all day. No, thank you.
Fruit section
You should wash fruit before eating it, and not just because there may be pesticides on the skin. No, everyone naturally paws at the apples, pears and oranges. Giving a mango a quick squeeze to see whether it’s fresh, or grabbing a bunch of bananas to pull one off. And as mentioned: anything lots of people touch gets dirty quickly.
Read also:
- Why some children call HelloFresh ‘Hello Vies’
- You’d better stop using bamboo tableware
- 13 products supermarket employees have no idea what you’re talking about
Source: Huffington Post
