mamasaysmine

Ok, so I’ve written before about how I tried to use an eco-friendly dishwashing detergent and how that little experiment crashed and burned. (see here)

Since I am nothing if not well-intentioned, I decided to try not rinsing my dishes before putting them into the dishwasher.

Did you hear me, internet? I PUT TOTALLY DIRTY DISHES IN THE DISHWASHER.

Let me back up for a moment. I have lived in some pretty awful apartments, and those that had dishwashers had, predictably, pretty awful dishwashers. The kind that even if your dishes were essentially CLEAN when you put them IN the dishwasher, somehow CREATED FOOD DEBRIS (I hesitate to even imagine where these came from) so that sometimes dishes would come out DIRTIER THAN THEY WENT IN.

So putting DIRTY DISHES in the dishwasher was kind of a big deal, ok? And by a big deal, I mean that I walked into this experiment knowing fully well that it may eventually include vomit.

Here’s the verdict: after a month of doing this, there has been little to know food residue on the clean dishes. I think it happened twice, and then only on one or two dishes, not the whole load.

Huh.

And I’ve become VERY AWARE of how much water I was wasting rinsing out the dishes. I’m thinking gallons.

I gotta say, this is one worth trying IF you have a newer dishwasher. Hell, maybe even if you don’t, because technology has to have improved since I was living in those crappy apartments.

(sidenote: my dishwasher is a GE Energy Star and is almost three years old)