Credit: Jake Likes Onions
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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As someone who lives in a house of 11 people, yes
As someone who lives with just their significant other, also yes.
When I lived in a very small apartment in a very large city, I quickly learned to clean as I cook. A few dishes can take up all the counter space when there's so little to begin with. Since then I've moved to a smaller city and a larger place but I've taken that habit with me. Now when I'm done cooking I only have a few dishes left and a sink of hot water to wash them in. Took some planing and a few mistakes to figure out how but I think it is a skill I should hold on to.
Still trying to get this discipline down. Seems like all it takes is one or two bad days and then it's fully off the rails again. Keep trying to avoid letting a 10 minute job turn into a 30 minute job. Pretty sure I stretch myself too thin between work and being pretty active in my socials and hobbies.
Never feels like I have enough time to maintain a tidy home.
It's always interesting to see random activities highlight how different people's lives can be. As of the time I'm posting this, half of the comments mention a dishwasher.
I've never been in a house with a dishwasher, and literally just realized I couldn't tell you if I've ever seen one, outside of a screen. To my perception, they're like a magical tool that supposedly exists... somewhere. Maybe.
That's not a complaint, and not really noteworthy. I'm pretty sure most of humanity doesn't have one, after all. I just think it's funny when you stumble into another bubble, inside your bubble.
I know that I, too, enjoy things that don't seem real to someone else. Even being able to read this post is a privilege. Now, that's funny.
My mom taught me to always wash dishes by hand. She hated dishwashers, because they would leave spots, and that wasn't acceptable. For the longest tine, every dish I washed had to pass her inspection. If they looked anything less than perfect, she would point it out and/or rewash then herself. Eventually she trusted me enough to not double-check, and honestly my eyesight was better anyway.
I have to this day never used a dishwasher.
Correctly used dishwashers are generally better at cleaning dishes than cleaning by hand, plus they are way more energy/water efficient than cleaning by hand.
Can you tell me how to correctly use mine? It doesn't actually clean my dishes properly unless I pre scrape, scrub, and rinse most things...and then at that point it seems almost pointless to be using the dishwasher.
Yeah honestly I never used them cause I thought they sucked and wasted water. After being educated about modern dishwashers I started to use them more often. Now I pretty much only use dishwashers for all my dishes (except non dishwasher safe stuff). Looking back, it's a game changer. The time saved is amazing and the dishes look amazing.
She hated dishwashers, because they would leave spots, and that wasn’t acceptable.
FYI, rinse aid is a thing these days.
Yeah, but studies have shown it's not great for us https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36464527/
This is a very useful link, thanks. I may have even experienced this effect in 2021 (hard to be sure though)
If you have hard water, look in to citric acid. Rinse aid alone still left my dishes cloudy no matter the quantity of detergent I tried. A bit of powdered citric acid leaves them shiny.
Now, that's funny
I'd call that more sad than funny, but you're absolutely right. And it's a good thing to sometimes have a fresh look at what seems a given
Also, dishwashers don't really work. You have to wash the dishes before they go in - best it can do is a glorified rinse and then a dry.
That's not true at all.
It is in my experience. If I just throw shit in unrinsed, the food particles harden and then don’t all come off in the wash. Nasty.
Are you using detergent for both the two cycles the machine runs? Are you softening your water using salt (if applicable to your machine)? Is your machine decently clean?
All of the above will contribute to cleaner dishes, in approximate order of importance.
Happened a couple of times with my dishes, but to be fair it was a couple of times out of a few years of usage, so your mileage may vary
It’s possible some people just have better dishwashers, and that because the one that came with my apartment is not high end it can’t do what other washers can.
That isn't true for modern dishwashers. You shouldn't even rinse your plates before putting them in, as the detergent needs stuff to grab on.
Whenever I try this, it does not work at all. Granted, I don't have a super new model or anything, but still. The food will harden and sometimes get permanently get stuck to the dishes as a sort of white soap-crust looking entity.
Maybe I should add that I'm vegetarian. Perhaps animal fat and proteins are harder to clean in a dishwasher.
Pro tip: Peanut butter and egg yolks become immune to water when they dry. They don't go in the dishwasher.
Have you ever... tried this?
Yep, I have kids though, so the dishwasher runs every day or 2. I sometimes "rinse" the dishes just to get them a little wetter before I put them in.
Everytime I leave food/sauce particles on utensils and dishes, the dishwasher doesn't get it all off because it hardens after a day or two while it sits in there waiting for the next run. So I rinse everything off by hand and then use the dishwater to get every last molecule of food and idk, kill germs I guess. Plus it then drys everything for me.
What this needs is some good music or the radio
I'm usually doing dishes with headphones on. But not even music is enough to lift up my morale sometimes
i don't entirely mind doing the dishes, cleaning is relaxing to some degree. but emptying the dishwasher drives me fucking nuts, puttering around the kitchen opening all the drawers knowing it'll get dirty again within the day
I find washing the dishes far more sisyphean than emptying the dishwasher. I feel like I've gotten out ahead since the dishwasher did the vast majority of the work for me.
Neither of the tasks bother me that much these days though, by the power of podcasts I can accomplish any mundane task.
I work 12 hour shifts so my sink becomes an abomination the days i work. But get me stoned and I'll have everything in the drying rack put away and everything in the sink cleaned.
There's the two dishwasher solution: Have two of them side by side, use up the clean stuff from one and load dirty stuff into the other and vice versa - when the dirty one is full let it run, and after that this is the clean one.
Works like charm and saves a lot of space in the kitchen, no cupboards required.
I'm the opposite, though I remember quite vividly flipping out as a young teenager because I hated being assigned the dishwasher daily. I definitely still hate the chaos of it, but having wet/soapy/rashy hands and a sore lower back come with washing dishes and I don't care for that either.
The biggest issue in my household is that I clean the house daily, cook 6 out of 7 days per week, and I load/unload the dishwasher once or twice each day. Yet the following day comes along I almost always find myself hand-washing the damn pots anyway because my wife couldn't set aside ten minutes of her previous day to clean them. It's as though she has a cleaning disability. I still love her, though, and she's a great mom.
A lot of us are dish challenged 🥲
It's good that this doesn't create a discord in your love
That's kinda funny. I'm the opposite. I kinda like putting the dishes away. Everything goes from a state of disarray to nice and orderly. Doing the dishes I have to get my hands wet and potentially touch other people's uneaten food. I'd rather not.
I don't mind cleaning freshly dirtied dishes, but dishes that others have let dry in over the past hour? Yeah, that's your problem.
Always leave the workstation in the same state or cleaner than how you found it, and if I have to clean up or fetch dirty tools from the dishwasher then there'll be no cake for you! >:(