How do YOU do your dishes?

[smittenbyu]

So, water wastage is my big pet peeve. Recently, I ran into this article about not prewashing dishes before dishwashing. I usually build up dishes in the sink. They kind of get soaked in the water I use to wash hands, vegetables, etc. And then I scrub off with a little cold water (no soap and sometimes running water on low) before loading. I just can't seem to get myself to just stick plates with food on them in the dishwasher. I don't know some of the interviews claim they get peanut butter off. But ours doesn't get sunflower seed butter off. And somewhere else, I read their challenge is dried up rice. Well, we have some component of rice in all our meals. The other thing we can't get off are the milk-tea stains on the steel dish we use.

Plus am wondering if they use predominantly ceramics, glass, & plastics? Most of our dishes are steel & glass. I don't know. Our dishwasher is newly purchased in 2011 by the management. Can't find the user manual. But I am working on it. I wish they were more specific about what they mean as "modern" dishwashers.

ETA: I am not questioning the use of dishwasher. I am questioning the use of the pre-washing/rinsing method. I find it so amusing at how difficult this one change has been for me. I just can't get myself to just put plates/dishes in without rinsing! :P 

Comments

[voyageofdreams.livejournal.com]

M *hates* how I stack the dishwasher. --- the way I do it: just chuck it all in! No pre-rince. No plan. I will put one plate in each slot. I never skip slots. I like to load that baby up!!! --- He, on the other hand will leap from his dinner seat in the middle of a meal and come micro manage my stacking. This usually leads to him unpacking what I've done, and then *always* re-stacking. My care factor on how a dishwasher is stacked is zero, so I usually just leave and relax in the longe (win, win for me!!!). How M stacks: first of all he does not like dishes stacked in the sink. Ever. He will pull them out and set them on the side. (I always stack in my sink, and never in an orderly way). When it's loading time he may rince a little, but not normally. Mostly he loads the dishwasher like a true engineer would - Leaving spaces/slots between pieces so every piece gets the most efficient wash possible.

My husband is an engineer in every way possiable. I tend to fully exploit this, when I can, with several domestic chours. Muahahaha. .... I think he know this though. :/ lol

[twicet.livejournal.com]

I always rinse off first, my daughter just puts them in, I just find I don't get them clean if I don't rinse first, but we don't run the machine every day.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

We run water over them under the faucet to rinse off the main food mess, then put them in the dishwasher. We run it every two or three days. We never have trouble with it not getting the dishes clean unless they were stacked badly, where something blocks another dish.

Our dishwasher is two or three years old.

Back in the seventies, my mom would clean the dishes before loading. That is, she'd run the dishes under the faucet, and wipe them clear with a rag.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/garden/21fix.html?_r=1&
“Dishwasher detergent aggressively goes after food,” Mr. Edwards said, “and if you don’t have food soil in the unit, it attacks the glasses, and they get cloudy,” a process known as etching that can cause permanent damage.

[echomyst.livejournal.com]

We... erm... hand wash our dishes. Dishwasher's used as drying rack, like in many Chinese-in-N.America households, it seems.

Growing up, my mom taught me to add a squirt of dishwashing soap to a sponge and sponge down all the dirty dishes. Then rinse with running water.

Jas taught me to fill up a sink with hot soapy water (with just enough hot water to cover a bowl in the sink), wash the dishes, then rinse using a sink of water.

This uses less water than rinsing with running water, but really... the method I use just depends on how dirty the dishes are.

If we use the dishwasher (once every couple of months), we scrape dirty stuff off before sticking them into the washer. There is never a bunch of food scraps left on our plates anyway. My parents' vigilance with zero food waste have ensured every grain of rice is eaten, every bit of sauce soaked up w/ rice or pasta or whatever.

No peanut butter is ever left on our plates either. Always scraped off with bread and eaten!

[echomyst.livejournal.com]

I find that the problem with using a dishwasher is that inevitably we'd need something from it before it's fully loaded and washed. It's just much easier to clean right after we eat.

[echomyst.livejournal.com]

Plus, we don't like putting large items like pots and pans and rice cooker bowl into the dishwasher, and if we're going to prepare hot soapy water to wash those, we might as well do the rest of the dishes!

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

By hand, ALL BY HAND, and 6 months of this after ~3 years with a dishwasher means one of the things that is absolutely going into the kitchen in our new house is a dishwasher.

I'm also of the "pile things in the sink, the water that runs over them will help before we get to actually washing them", but it bugs the heck out of my husband, because he can't navigate the sink to actually wash the dishes when it's so full. (I do not pretend to understand why not.)

[jaelle-n-gilla.livejournal.com]

Our dishwasher runs almost every day, so the problem of dried up food doesn't arise. There are very few things it doesn't get off. Yes, sticky rice is one of them, so when I cook it, I soak the pot in a handful of water until it's time for the dishwasher to run. It still gets stuffed in with all the food attached. Just... soaked.

I have a dishwasher so don'T have to wash by hand. :)

I hear the same complaints from the green people over here. Yet, even though fresh water is a problem worldwide, it is not in Germany. We get tons of rain and our water (as in our part of the city) gets the water from a mountain spring that will run down the hill, if I use it or not. It's a luxury, but it does affect my way of doing this.

[smittenbyu]

Could you send him over to help me figure it out?! :) Just once or twice and then I will do it. I am sure he will go nuts if I send a picture of my loaded dishwasher! ha ahah....

P.s. you are not exploiting! You are letting his expertise shine through! :)

[smittenbyu]

that's what I do. For while I was rinsing off under a running faucet but that drives me crazy. So, now I try to use the water that's collected in the dishes/pots, etc. and occasionally running water.

And I do notice that if I do not rinse off, the glasses do get all cloudy and already see it looking bad! So, I go back to how I was doing it before! ugh..

[smittenbyu]

I don't have huge scraps of food left on the plates, etc. The little stuff. I guess, I don't scrub either, just sponge it down.

I didn't start using the dishwasher till 5 years ago. I just felt like I spent the whole day doing dishes! Some reason, we get lots of dishes! I end up using it everyday (on weekends) and every other day on weekdays. So, no am not going to go back to hand washing. :S I do hand wash pots/pans, wooden ladles, and whatever doesn't fit the full load and is still leftover in the sink at night. I can't leave dishes overnight unwashed in the sink! :P

And is there a reason for using hot water washing dishes? Since hot water is such a luxury, I never grew up with that and so I never use hot water for even rinsing/washing dishes that I do hand wash. It's something I see here. I can understand lukewarm water in the colder months. It seems the detergents these days are so much more efficient in that I don't know why I would use hot water?

[smittenbyu]

I was my family's dishwasher since I was 13 years old. I only started regularly using dishwasher 5 years ago! :) I Just felt my life was being spent at the sink! :(

And my hubby does get bugged about it too. So, there's a standing rule, that he is more than welcome to clear the sink - load the dishwasher or hand wash himself or not complain! :P

[smittenbyu]

our dishwasher also runs everyday from Thursday-Sunday (once a day) and every other day on weekdays (when I am working - I don't cook as much). And I realize rereading my post, that I seem to come across questioning the use of dishwasher...No, I am questioning my use of pre-rinsing :) I am green as much as I can but I also realize that every method used has its drawbacks. So, am not going to judge.

I guess, I just need to put faith and give it my all and try it. I do see the difference in the newer model vs. the previous one we had! There's clearly a lot less water used and this one gives us more options - we skip the heated dry all the time. I just leave the dishwasher open before going to bed and it's all dry in the morning to reshelf.

As for the water cycle, I am not sure about Europe, but here in the US there hasn't been much rains and they are predicted for the droughts to get worse. So, I am for using of resources, but using them responsibly. :)

[echomyst.livejournal.com]

That's true. I do spend too much time washing dishes. And cleaning up in general.

I find that hot water helps with getting stuck-on food/sauces off easier. I use cold water for rinsing.

Do the new dishwashers not use hot water? Ours is 15+ yrs old (judging from the purchase date of other appliances in this house) and doesn't have the Energy Star label on it, so I'm pretty sure hand washing is more energy & water efficient, but not time efficient! :-)

[sistrmoon.livejournal.com]

I've tried it because I read the same thing. The dishes didn't get clean and the dishwasher got clogged. Pre rinsing and dishwasher is still less water than washing completely by hand. We have a HE dishwasher that takes 3 hours per load!

[sistrmoon.livejournal.com]

I hate when the sink is so full that you can't fill up anything with water from the faucet. And it is definitely harder to wash with an overflowing sink:)

[smittenbyu]

I must admit, I have gotten better in it. I clear the sink usually twice a day now instead of waiting till end of the evening, so it's never overflowing. But you do have that spray-pipe-tap-attachment-thing, you could use for filling things up! :P he he he

[sistrmoon.livejournal.com]

Haha we've lived here 2 years and I was sure we didn't have one of those but we do! And it works!

[jaelle-n-gilla.livejournal.com]

It's always a good thing to use resources responsibly! I usually make a judgment call for everything I do. I do recycle our waste with four different waste bins, but I won't go to the length of carrying waste home with me from the city just so I can dump it in the right container (which J does...). For me there are limits of practicability. :)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Joel is the primary dishwasher in the house; it's one of those things that I never notice until he's away, and then, gosh, they pile up quickly!

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

I usually rinse once, but nothing on top of that. I've seen some people scrub with a sponge (no soap), but I feel like that would ruin the sponge too quickly.

[smittenbyu]

Oh imeant "you" as in generic you, as why would one do it. Makes sense. I do use it when i use ghee in my cooking/serving. The dishwasher in our previous apartment used hot water by default. Current one is probably a ten year old model? It has an option to do hot water pre-rinse, and regular wash and short wash as options - i use short wash as default since hardly any scraps are on. But I do hear a difference...the older one is also smaller.

[echomyst.livejournal.com]

I used our dishwasher last night and it felt like such a treat to have the extra time to do other things! :-)

The thing with dishwashers is that I wish they could wash the big, clunky pots and pans that I don't want to hand wash (technically you can, but supposed to be not great for them, plus maybe only one or two will fit anyway), and leave the easy plates for me to wash.