Nowadays, a “chopstick disinfector” is placed in many fast food chains and snack bars, with buttons such as “disinfect” and “take out chopsticks”. Customers can get the disinfected chopsticks by simply pressing “take out chopsticks” or directly extracting them. This looks safe and hygienic, and gradually replaces the use of disposable chopsticks. However, recently, the food and Drug Administration of Nanning City, Guangxi Province conducted a spot check on these chopstick disinfectors. The results showed that none of the 10 samples was qualified, and all of them were found to be E. coli.
At present, there are two kinds of chopstick Disinfectors on the market: one is made of stainless steel, the box is marked with “ultraviolet disinfection”, and the price is about 70-80 yuan; Another kind of plastic fuselage is more common, which claims to use ozone disinfection, and some also claim to use microcomputer disinfection, with prices ranging from 200 to 300 yuan. So, what is the disinfection effect of these disinfectors?
For this reason, the reporter visited a ramen restaurant in Chaoyang District of Beijing and found that although some chopsticks were disinfected by a disinfection machine, there would still be obvious oil stains on them; Some chopsticks have even just been washed, and they have only been stored in the disinfection machine for a while, and there are still traces of water on them. In fact, it takes more than half an hour for chopstick disinfectors that use ozone to disinfect, and more than 15 minutes for chopstick disinfectors that use ultraviolet rays to disinfect. Therefore, this kind of practice of putting only the washed chopsticks into the disinfection machine to “go through the motions” undoubtedly provides favorable conditions for the breeding of bacteria and viruses.
On March 19, Nanning food and Drug Administration issued an emergency notice, asking all catering service units to suspend the use of chopstick disinfectors and use thermal disinfection to ensure that tableware meets the hygiene requirements in view of the potential safety hazards of chopstick disinfectors.
Tan Liangzhi, head of the Health Supervision Institute of the Haidian District Health Bureau of Beijing, told the life times that high-temperature cooking is the simplest and safest way to disinfect tableware. Chopsticks and other tableware should be disinfected once a week. Boil the cleaned chopsticks in boiling water for 30 minutes, or heat them in a microwave oven for disinfection for 2-3 minutes. It can also be chemically disinfected, that is, 84 disinfectant and water are mixed evenly in a ratio of 1:200, and chopsticks are soaked in it.
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