THE DIRTIEST THING IN YOUR KITCHEN IS YOUR SPICE JARS?

If you caught someone cleaning these, you’d call them a germaphobe.  But have you ever cleaned them?

A study published in the “Journal of Food Protection” found the spot in your kitchen that gets the germiest while you cook is your spice jars and salt-and-pepper shakers.

Researchers had 370 people prepare the same meal, turkey patties and a salad.  Once they were done, the team swabbed all the surfaces in their cooking space to look for bacteria from the turkey.  And spice jars were where they found it the most often.

They found it 48% of the time, more than twice as often as every other surface.  And there was more of it too.  The only other spots that came close were the cutting board and the lid of the trash can.

We don’t always wash our hands well enough while we’re cooking.  And we use salt, pepper, and spices a lot, but never clean them.  So if you want to be safe, wipe them down every once in a while.