Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Short Stuff: Handwashing vs Dishwashers

Transcript

Short Stuff: Handwashing vs Dishwashers · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck over there, and this is short stuff and
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: we're shorten it up stuff person. Yeah, this one is Uh,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: it's amazing, especially when you're a listener of the Judge
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: John Hodgman episode Um from our Old Pal or Old
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Pals Jesse Thorn and John hodgment. How many cases come
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: through and not major cases they do the smaller sort
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: of just email cases at the end about couples fighting
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: over dishwashing. Yeah, I can totally see that, because this
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: is one of those things where you're just like, it's
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: intuitively correct one way or another. But this is one
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: of those beautiful and rare things where it's like, no,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: the one is demonstrably correct the thing you should be doing,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and even better, it's the thing that you wouldn't think
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: would be the correct thing to do. It's a beautiful thing. Chuck,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna stop talking vague terms and let's really
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: drill into this. Yeah, and beyond what we're going to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: mainly talk about, which is is it better to hand
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: wash dishes or use your dishwasher? Uh, the nitpicky how
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to load a dishwasher thing is the subject of It's
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: just sort of one of the most age old arguments
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: you can have in a marriage, because people come into
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the marriage or a relationship or partnership with very strong
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: ideas on how to wash dishes, how do so how
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: to load a dishwashers in dispute like should you hang
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: from the ceiling or lay on the floor? Oh sure?
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Like should you do half of a dishwasher load? Do
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: you load the silverware? Times up or times down? Or
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: does it even matter times up unless you're like some
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: sort of deranged criminal. Is it knives up or knives down?
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Knives up? Oh? So leave those stabby things just pointing up. Well,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: if it's an actual knife, you shouldn't be washing those
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: in your dishwasher anyway. But I'm talking about like a
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: dinner knife or a butter knife. Oh no, what do
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you mean? You shouldn't be washing the steak knife. You
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: don't want to run a good knife through a dishwasher, pal,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I don't care what the energy your water savings. This
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: is because it wears them down. And also usually if
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you have a good knife, you have a probably a
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: knife with a good handle on it, and they're not
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: usually made to be run through the dishwasher, they start
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: to crack or if it's would it becomes problematic. And
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: there's no faster way to doll a knife than to
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: run it through a dishwasher. Yeah, what does it? I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: believe particulate matter, uh, beating it, kind of sand blasting it,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and then also just the water, the effect of the
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: water over time. These are you don't want to do that.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: You don't want to do that that People debate incessantly
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: in marriages about dishwasher Emily and I go back and
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: forth about dishwasher stuff all the time because we both
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: do it a little bit, and it seems like one
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: of those things in a partnership where one person just
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: should just be in charge and the other other person
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: should stay out of it. I see, Yeah, there are
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: things like that. You mean, I have laundries once. She's like,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I am doing the laundry. Emily won't let me do laundry. Yeah,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: but dish washing, we've never really had a problem with. Um,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: do you both load it? No? We both hand wash.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Oh no, you don't know, it's true. We both handwashed.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Like I've been researching this and I notice some cass
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Gate commercials and was like is that true? And then
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: that actually prompted me a cass Gate commercial prompted me
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to pick this one, and um, it was like like
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: when I researched it, it it was like, no, the cass
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Gate commercial tells the truth, and this is something I
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: should not be doing anymore, which is handwashing dishes. So
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: you have a dishwasher and you would still handwash all
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: your dishes. Yeah, we have a nice dishwasher too, and
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: how would you still handwash? Well, one one reason why
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: is we thought that it was it uses less energy, water,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: all that stuff, which it turns out is just wrong.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: And then the other reason why, as I remember seeing
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: like the guy who created the hygiene hypothesis or we
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: talked about his study once where people who eat off
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: of plates or used utensils that have been run through
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: the dishwasher had higher incidences of allergies to like food
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and other things than people who hand washed because they
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: were exposed to slightly more germs. So we were hand
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: washing because it's dirtier. Basically is that is how you
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: can kind of boil it down. But now I'm kind
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: of like, man, this is this seems like the wrong
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: thing to do. Handwashing dishes, and I did it like
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: all the wrong ways, water running the whole time, the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: whole shebang. All right, Well, I think that that actually
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: turns out to be a set up, and we'll take
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a break and we'll come back and even though you
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: kind of spoiled it, uh, will reveal the real truth
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: right after this. Alright, Chuck revealed the truth. Well, it
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: is a big misconception that using a dishwasher, even and
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: they say you should really load that thing full, but
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I have seen statistics that even doing like more half
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: loads per week is still a lot less water than
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: hand washing dishes. Yeah. Um, which is a real big surprise.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons why I didn't understand
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: this because you and I grew up with dishwashers that
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: were terrible as far as efficiency and water uses concerned.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: But unbeknownst to us, even though I have a pretty
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: new dishwasher, I'm guessing you probably do too. Um that
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: they they they have advanced by leaps and bounds in
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the last few years and now they're actually like lean
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: mean energy and water saving machines. They are the Energy
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Star program in the United States, the government getting involved
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and regulating things across the board. The Energy Star program
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: has been a massive success, and a certified Energy Star
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: dishwasher in the US uses less than four gallons of
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: water per cycle, the whole thing, the whole thing, and
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: you can go through four gallons of water every two
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: minutes off your handwashing. Yeah, they have efficiency, high efficiency
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: faucets now that typically come in and about one and
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: a half gallons per minute. And I don't think it's
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: legal to have a faucet more than two and a
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: half gallons in the United States or two point two
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: gallons per minute. But even still, like like I did
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: a little math, and like you were saying, you've seen
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: before where even if you run half loads multiple times
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: a week, Um, if you're doing like a quarter of
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: a load of dishes and you're using all four gallons,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: you're still probably using less water than you would to
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: wash that cord load by hand, because it's probably going
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to take longer than two minutes to do all those dishes.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So if you have the water running the whole time,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: even running a quarter load is still going to save
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: more water than if you were doing the dishes by hand. Okay,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: but hey, you're not using anything on your power bill.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: You're not burning any coal or even using any solar
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: to use your hands. So it's clearly better to use
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: your hands and not that energy consuming dishwasher right now
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: because that hot water. Thank you for sending me up
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: to look like the smart one here. I appreciate that.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Because the hot water that's coming out of your tap
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: comes from your hot water heater. Uh. If you're using
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: a hot water heater, in fact, you're actually using a
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: lot of energy to heat that water, and it's going
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: on constantly, whereas a high efficiency or just a regular
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: new dishwasher um uses kind of targeted uh hot water,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: not throughout the whole time. So it's not that water
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: is not being heated the whole time while you're washing
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the dishes. If you use the dishwasher, it is while
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: you're doing it by hand. That's right. With an energy
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: star dishwasher, you can use that thing four times a
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: week and it will only cost you and run up
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: about a hundred and thirty dollars worth of energy a
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: year a year. And that's even assuming eleven kill a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: watt eleven cents to kill a watt hour I saw,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: which is that's all less than average. Yeah, so dishwasher efficiency.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: This is where Emily and I really get into most
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: of our scrapes. It's not times upper, times down, it
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: is uh my, um, you know, I'm I'm sort of
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the family packer. I'm the tetris master. So when I'm
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: packing a car for a trip, or packing when we've
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: had to move and stuff like that, she leaves that
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: stuff to me because I'm really good at like making
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: the most efficient use of a space, and I carry
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: that over to the dishwasher. I can tetris that thing.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: So it's so full, it's like can barely even hold
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the amount of stuff on a rack. And it just
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: makes me so happy. Whereas Emily will get in there,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: she'll be like she'll use the juicer in the morning
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: and maybe the food processor that you know, these things
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: have large, sort of multiple components and that's it. You
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: got like two glasses and then that stuff to run
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: a dishwasher load. And it drives me crazy because then
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the stuff is stacking up in the sink and uh.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: I try to be like, honey, you gotta put more
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: stuff in here, and she's like, no, it's better just
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: to run up more. You just gotta stay on it. Huh. Well,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that popped up to me is,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just you, me and Momo and I here.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: So we have a limited number of dishes um that
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: we use and that we even have in some cases
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: we kind of try to trim it down to whatever
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: we need, not like you know, we each have one
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: fork or anything like that, but you know, like the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: number of cops and that kind of stuff that we
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: have hanging around is limited to where we couldn't do
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the dishes just once a week, like you just can't.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: So that's it's kind of like still run the dishwasher.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: No you can't, Yes, of course you can. You come
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: over anytime you want. That's my dream, dude. If Emily
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: wouldn't think I was crazy, I would assign each family
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: member a cup before, a spoon and knife, and a
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: plate in a bowl, and I would throw everything else
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: out because we have She'll go through eight water glasses
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: in a day because she just sits them down and
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: then goes and gets another one, and it drives me bonkers.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: So you're decorating an inspiration is like re education camp. Man.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: It makes me crazy, and then kids like you'd be
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: surprised at how much how many dishes a six year
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: old will go through it too. Oh yeah, no, you
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: totally can, especially if you have a lot of dishes
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: you go through, you know what I'm saying, Yeah, and
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: then they build up to they just kind of just accumulates. Dude,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: We've got like twenty five coffee cups and I don't
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: drink coffee. It's ridiculously like a cute coffee cups though,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: So what are you gonna do deny her her her collection? No,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: And I don't actually blame her because that is the
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: thing that we have the most of too, because you
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: can get cool stuff and we like our plates. We
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: have lovely plates that we like. But we also get
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: into it with the other things in the efficiencies, which
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: is resisting the urge to pre rense. I'll do a
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: scrape and throw it in the dishwasher and Emily he's like, no, man,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: you gotta rinse that stuff off really good or it's
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: not going to get clean. And they're saying, not true. No,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Emily is a demon from hell for even suggesting that. Apparently,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I'll tell her that, yeah, like you do not prerense
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: the dishes, that is Ah, as one of the guys
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: from the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, I think the senior
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: scientist his name is Noah Horowitz, says, it is a
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: complete waste of water and energy, and you're a demon
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: from hell if you do it. That's what the dishwasher
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: is for. That's what I always say. But there's another
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: thing that comes from our upbringing and our being eighties
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: and seventies kids too, is you That did not used
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: to be the case. Those things basically had to go
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: in sparkling clean for them to come out sparkling clean.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: And now dishwashers are just that much better, where if
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: you scrape the stuff off and you put them in there,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: they're gonna come out clean. Remember that ad for either
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: dishwashers or dishwashing detergent where they they baked in frosted
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: a cake and then put the whole thing with the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: plate on it in the dishwasher and ran it and
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: it came out clean. I don't remember that. One's gross.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: It's almost as bad as that lys Al commercial where
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: the woman uses the raw chicken to wiper counters down
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: rather than Oh, I haven't seen that either. Oh, it's
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: tough to watch this one. Was not nearly as bad,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: but in the same ballpark for sure. Well, they say,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: scrape it, fill it up as good as you can,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: don't do the pre rents. And then if you can
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: afford to upgrade from that that nineteen nineties model that
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: is using way more energy because you're you know, it's
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: gonna cost you in the long ground and with your
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: water bill and with your power bill. So if you
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: can scrape together the money to upgrade that to a
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: to a better, more efficient, newer machine than do so. Yeah,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: but it sounds like even those older machines, depending on
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: how many dishes you have to do, are still better.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: There's still save water compared to hand washing. Yeah, and
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I will I will admittedly hand wash um like really
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: big mixing bowls for salad bowls. I'll handwash that stuff
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: because going back to my pet peeve, that takes up
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a rack, uh right, it does, which is kind of inefficient.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: And plus also it's it's satisfying to washing them, dry
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: that off and put it back quickly. Yeah. I kind
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: of like that. You guys are neat like that too, Yeah, yea.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: If you if you have, you should come move in
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: with us, like you can all right, Um, we'll get
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: a draw un okay. Um, So if you don't have
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: a dishwasher, and you're like, well, I'd like to save
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: energy and water, you jerks, but I don't have a dishwasher. Um,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: there are things you can do to save water and energy,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: and that is uh if you can manage a two
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: uh tub sink you know what I'm talking about in
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the middle split tub nice, Um, you want to fill
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: one up with warm soap, you water, let the dishes
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: soak in that for a while, and then fill up
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the other one in clean water and rinse them off
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: in there and just put them up. Don't run that
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: water while you're doing it. That is good enough and
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: that should do the trick. That's the key. And don't
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: run water while you're standing there brushing your teeth. No,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I I came up with the biggest waste of water
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: that you can possibly do. It's where you dump ice out,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: so you're dumb, you're wasting water to begin with, and
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: then you run warm water over that to make it
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: melt fast. Oh no, I've done that before, and I
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: was like, this is the biggest waste of water you
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: could possibly do when making That's a great way to
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: do it. There's a lot of stuff you could do
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: just starting with the ice, but really try to make
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: it melt faster for zero reason whatsoever. Then it bothers
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: you that there's ice in the sink. That's a big
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: waste of water. I've learned my lesson ethic. Okay, well
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: is that it? Yeah? I think we admitted some things
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that didn't make us proud of ourselves, but we can
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: all move on to now. Well, thank you to everyone
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: for listening and short stuff is that stuff you should know?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.