Microwave Your Sponge!

This was covered in one of my very first posts, and now there's more research to confirm it. It does make you wonder, though, what microwaving might be doing to your food. This, from Dr. Weil.com:

Microwaving Decontaminates Sponges, Scrubbing Pads
No doubt about it, sponges and scrubbers are common carriers of bugs that cause food-borne illnesses. Kitchen pathogens from uncooked eggs, meat and vegetables get from the foods onto countertops, utensils and cleaning tools and from there to the sponges and scrubbers used for cleaning. Now a new study has demonstrated that zapping your kitchen sponges and scrubbers in the microwave will kill any bacteria and viruses they may harbor. Researchers at the University of Florida soaked sponges and scrubbing pads in dirty water containing a disgusting mix of fecal bacteria, viruses, parasites and bacterial spores, including pathogens that can survive efforts to destroy them with radiation, heat and toxic chemicals. They then zapped the filthy, wet sponges in an ordinary microwave for various lengths of time. Results showed that two minutes at full power killed more than 99 percent of all the bad bugs (however, hard-to-kill Bacillus cereus spores needed four minutes). The researchers advised microwaving your sponges and scrubbers every other day. Make sure the sponges and scrubbers are completely wet before you zap them. The study was published in the December 2006 issue of the Journal of Environmental Health.