Does using air-dry affect the cleanliness of my dishes?

Question

My mother always told me that using the heat-dry setting on my dishwasher was important in sanitizing my dishes. One reason I assume for this is to make sure the "bad stuff" you can get from raw meat, etc. is killed.

I know my mom said it was important to use for things like baby bottles, etc. but one time she got mad at me for turning the heat-dry setting off. Now my roommate says it will save us money (which is true) BUT I cook a lot and want to make sure that I'm not doing anything wrong by turning off the heat-dry setting.

Anyone with some good background on this issue would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

So the millions of people who hand wash and use a dishrack are not cleaning their dishes?   That's air drying.

Answer 2

People washed dishes by hand for a long time and air-dried them without any special problems. Some of us still do. I'm 55 and have never owned a dishwasher, never got food poisoning. Before dishwashers, if you wanted to make very sure something like a baby bottle was truly sanitized, you boiled it, but the average healthy adult doesn't need to go that far. If the dishes are clean before they dry, they'll be fine.  

Answer 3

The dish detergent/hot water combo is what kills the bacteria. The hot water breaks up globs of food and basically causes the soap to spread more effectively/efficiently. Most dishwashers have a temperature booster, which heat up the incoming hot water (if necessary). I believe the recommended temperature for the dishwasher is 140 degrees. Most hot water heaters are set around 120 degrees. The booster heater on the dishwasher will heat the incoming water the additional 20 degrees. This temperature ensures that globs of food are broken up into small pieces, thereby allowing the soap to sanitize nearly everything. The water temperature alone does not kill bacteria. 140 degrees might kill some types of bacteria, but not all. There are bacteria that can survive when exposed to boiling water or even bleach. The soap is really doing the sanitizing...soap breaks fats/lipids down into smaller pieces. It just so happens that the cell membranes of bacteria are made of lipids. And if the cell membrane is broken apart, the bacteria dies. Virtually no sanitizing is occurring during the heat-dry step, as the vast majority of bacteria were killed during the wash cycle. And yes, I said vast majority...you will never kill all of the bacteria. Your goal is simply to reduce the population of bacteria (especially the bad strains like E. coli, etc) so that your body can handle (kill) the rest without being overwhelmed by the exponential reproduction rate that bacteria exhibit. Kinda crazy to think that we all eat E. coli bacteria...but one or 2 of them won't hurt because our bodies can normally kill them off before their population explodes and causes us to get sick. My point is this...as long as you use soap and the water is adequately hot, don't stress over bacteria. You've killed nearly all of the bacteria. There is no need to run the heat-dry setting unless you just want to waste energy AND increase the humidity in the house (which in turn makes your A/C work harder).

Answer 4

As long as the water temp is high enough to kill the gems air drying will be okay.Dishwashers use a lot of power to heat the element to dry dishes.FYI most dishwasher heat the water as well as the water coming into the system is hot.Hope this helps.