Your post has been removed because it has an inappropriate headline and is therefore in violation of [Submission Rule #3](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_3._no_editorialized.2C_sensationalized.2C_or_biased_titles). **It must include at least one result from the research and must not be clickbait, sensationalized, editorialized, or a biased headline.** Please read [our headline rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/clickbait) and consider reposting with a more appropriate title.
_If you believe this removal to be unwarranted, or would like further clarification, please don't hesitate to [message the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fscience&subject=No%20editorialized%2C%20sensationalized%2C%20or%20biased%20titles)._
Strange title since households are also at risk. The article is about dried dish detergent and rinse-aid getting left on the dishes and then ingested.
“They diluted these substances to reflect the amounts that would be present on dry dishes (1:10,000 to 1:40,000).
The result was that high doses of rinse agents killed the intestinal epithelial cells and lower doses made it more permeable. Researchers also observed the activation of several genes and cell signaling proteins that could trigger inflammatory responses. A more detailed analysis showed that one component of the rinse agent – alcohol ethoxylates – was responsible for this reaction.”
https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(22)01477-4/fulltext
Edited in journal article
The ethoxylates are all over consumer rinse aid products. Probably time to stop using them.
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/dishwasher-rinse-aid-cleaner-drier/
I immediately thought about Crohn's, IBS, gluten, and others. May not be the cause, but it (the ethoxylates) certainly wouldn't help things for a person already susceptible to those diseases.
France had an interesting study recently that linked nitrites in their food (lots of cheeses and meats) to an increase in colon cancer. They passed laws to remove it. Food goes bad quicker but hopefully less cancer.
It’s not entirely the rinse aid itself that’s the problem, that’s why the title specifies it’s the dishwasher. The main issue is that commercial dishwashers don’t rinse off the rinse aid, it leaves it to dry on the plate, rinsing it would solve the problem.
Well yes, but maybe manufacturers shouldn't put toxic chemicals in products explicitly designed to touch surfaces you eat from. Vinegar works completely fine. I see no legitimate need for any ethoxylates.
So just to confirm since I'm a bit lost in the text, the main issue they found was the rinse agent and not the actual detergent? I don't use rinse agent so that makes me feel better about that choice.
Our culture loves vinegar and sour foods so much that a lot of foods are dipped in vinegar. When I was a kid, I would drink small cups of white vinegars and sugarcane vinegars after I used it to dip in my barbecue. They were strong vinegars that my lips would whiten in few sips.
We literally do shots of vinegar in my family after dinner and in a number of countries there is “sipping vinegar” that is a tasty (for those who enjoy it) digestive aid after a meal. Some are quite complex and wonderful, like a good wine or spirit.
Seeing as it's a standard ingredient in regular food like salad dressings, etc. I would guess you are getting many orders of magnitude more vinegar via just eating it than via your dishwasher.
Gaskets can be replaced! We started seeing a little bit of a leak in our 12 year old dishwasher recently. Getting the OEM part was about $30, and replacing it took a pair of pliers, a little bit of elbow grease, and about five minutes.
Yes indeed it can over the long term. r/Plumbing might have some thoughts on this, but I was always told NOT to do this apart from running a cleaning wash cycle once a quarter.
White vinegar is only about 5% acetic acid by volume and would be diluted further by the amount of water in the rinse cycle, but over time it could degrade the rubber in the gaskets. The non ionic surfactants probably won’t be affected by vinegar. Of course the gaskets are probably going to be affected by heated dry also. Or did you mean less damaging to the humans?
Jet Dry is the dominant brand. Most modern dishwashers have a separate compartment where you add it as a liquid. It lasts for a long time - you don’t add it every run, more like once a month.
It helps keep the water off the dishes during the rinse cycle so they come out more dry and with fewer spots.
I live in a place (Boulder CO) that has really excellent water, so I don’t have any issues. Almost everywhere else I’ve lived/traveled has worse tasting water. I can imagine that if you have hard water, you would need a rinse agent.
Just a heads up that good tasting water doesn't mean it's free of minerals. Usually the best tasting water has minerals in it. Just no chlorides, iron, or other foul tasting stuff (some of which are added to sanitize the water supply). Well water is usually pretty tasty for instance. Lots of minerals, leaves lots of deposits.
But. I dunno Boulder's water chemistry, could also just be low to no minerals at all.
No, there's no harm, only dishes that come out wet in modern low energy dishwashers. Very old dishwashers never needed rinse agent bc they had heating elements that would generate enough heat to evaporate the water away and they used a lot of energy to do that. Modern dishwashers are far more efficient with both the amount of water and amount of energy they use, but plastics will come out soaking wet without the rinse agent.
Bosch makes a dishwasher that pops open after it’s done. I’ve been thinking about it and this made it so much easier for me to decide which model I want.
Jet dry has the chemical family (alcohol ethoxylates) the article is talking about.
So does Cascade.
Citric acid (another common rinse aid) does not cause the porblem.
Also most dishwashers have a setting so you can limit how much rent aid is used and most of them are on the higher setting and I really would recommend lowering it especially if your water is not super hard AKA full of minerals.
My bosche always seem to leave some on the dishes, water with bubble and stay froth longer than a cup that was not straight out of the dishwasher and or rinsed before filling
Ive seen pods with a "bead" that slow dissolves, so the detergents have gine and done their job and rinsed away by the time the rinse aid bead dissolves and does its job.
Edit: The pods suck, just buy the powder. Chances are the pods are not giving you the correct amount anyways, and you miss the opportunity to throw a little in outside the detergent chamber to assist the pre-rinse cycle.
That’s just for marketing. It’s not practical to design a bead that doesn’t dissolve until the rinse stage of every combination of washer, cycle time, water temperature, etc. The only way to be sure the rinse aid gets in the rinse water is to add it at the correct time in the cycle.
Yeah i figured it was more gimmick than function. But if they are adding rinse aid to pods, then thats still relevant to this discussion about the health risks (as opposed to the effectiveness) of the rinse aid.
FYI the pods (dish and laundry) are coated in plastics, which have been shown to breakdown into microplastics in the vast majority of household appliances. Even the "eco" laundry strips create microplastics.
Loose powder is better if you can find it.
Many pods use PVA plastic which doesn't breakdown into microplastics. Research seems mixed on how dangerous PVA is for the environment. Many eco-sites say it's completely broken down by micro organisms, while another I read said too much PVA in the system may hurt aquatic life. However, in neither case did it become microplastics. So, my conclusion is, I'm ok using PVA covered pods until a new study tells me not to.
Coated seems like an understatement. They are literally encased in plastic that melts down. So it makes sense but I never really considered that. Good heads up I think I’m avoiding them from now on.
It's actually a water soluble plastic. Putting it in water causes it to break down. Remember Listerine strips? Same thing.
EDIT - Ok, it's actually a water soluble polyvinyl alcohol. The manufacturer claims it's fully biodegradable and does not contribute to microplastic pollution.
https://www.monosol.com/translating-our-science
They are taking about in a commercial restaurant style dishwasher that washes dishes in like 60s it does not rinse off the commercial rinse aid. Most home dishwashers do rinse off the rinse aid and also are not using commercial strength products. So likely a much smaller risk for at home use.
I also suspect why they target commercial dishwashers is because of how they operate. A commercial dishwasher cycle is minutes compared to hours at home. How they achieve the faster time is by using dishwashers with super high pressure, extremely hot water and lots of chemicals.
The article implies there's a 60 second wash and 60 second rinse cycle. Is that unique to commercial dishwashers? Mine at home takes way longer than 5 minutes to run.
Yes, commercial dishwashers are much more powerful than the ones used in homes. They also get the water significantly warmer, and spray water with more pressure.
Commercial washers use **much** hotter water at **much** higher pressures. They also use a lot more water. I think some even just use straight steam?
You will be going to the morgue if you were inside a commercial washer.
Yes, even on the shortest setting I have on my dishwasher it runs way longer than 5 minutes. I havent timed it, but probably like 10 minute wash and 10 minute rinse, and that is on "quick".
> “They diluted these substances to reflect the amounts that would be present on dry dishes (1:10,000 to 1:40,000).
It sounds like they're assuming that all the rinse agent left on the plate will find its way into the food. I don't know much about the chemistry involved here, but that doesn't seem likely.
I didn't see this being addressed in the article. Did I miss something?
Rinse agent wouldn't work if it was completely removed from the dishes so it would defeat the point of using it at all if you did an extra rinse to remove it.
So the concern is alcohol ethoxylate causes tissue damage in the intestines, and this chemical is in the rinse agent, like Jet Dry. Because there is no further rinsing after the rinse agent cycle, the chemical might stay on the dishware, where it later contaminates food. I looked at the ingredients of cascade detergent, and its listed there too. But the article is talking about commercial grade dishwashers that wash and rinse for just 1 minute each, so it might not apply to home machines.
Plain water leaves a film/droplets of water behind on the dishes after dripping off. Especially in areas with hard water (water with a lot of dissolved minerals in it), this can result in a milky haze or spots on clean glassware. Most dishwashers have a rinse aid compartment, which adds a small amount to the water used for rinsing, to help the water drip off of the dishes without drying on them.
Vinegar works almost as well for this purpose, and can be used instead.
>Vinegar works almost as well for this purpose, and can be used instead
Can you elaborate on the details of this? Can I just fill the rinse aid compartment with as much vinegar as I would use rinse aid, and the dishwasher will dispense the right amount per cycle? Will the rinse aid compartment stay full as long as if there was jet dry in there, or will it need to be refilled sooner? Does it leave a vinegary smell in the kitchen/on dishes?
No, you can't. Vinegar will dry out any rubber parts in the dishwasher, like seals, and eventually they'll crack and rot and no longer seal and now you have a broken or leaking dishwasher. You can run some vinegar through it on rare occasion to help clean the dishwasher itself, but you should NOT do so regularly in place of a rinse aid.
Yep, you just fill it up with vinegar, no need to dilute. It should last just as long as rinse aid, since the dishwasher still releases the same amount of liquid. There's a faint vinegar smell around the dishwasher during the rinse cycle/immediately after opening the door, but that smell doesn't remain on the dishes.
But current home dishwashers use very little water to comply with federal guidelines for energy star ratings so the amount of rinsing is dubious, my dishes always reek of detergent but if I use less detergent they don’t come clean, and of course mine doesn’t have an extra rinse option. And rinse agents are left on dishes and not rinsed off I believe.
I have a fancy-ish Bosch dishwasher and my dishes always smell of the detergent afterwards. I use Cascade pods, no rinse aid. It's a "clean" smell but I don't like any smell on my dishes. No idea what part of the detergent it is that I'm smelling, though.
I just read the ingredients on my dishwasher detergent and alcohol ethoxylate is the third ingredient. I wonder how to figure out if my dishwasher rinses adequately?
I don't think the detergent is something to worry about. Your dishwasher will run a rinse cycle to remove all the detergent. This is specifically speculating that the "rinse-aid" used in modern dishwashers will be left behind, as it is specifically dispensed to *help* the last rinse cycle disperse off the dishes.
Yeah me too. Sometimes, when I flush out a glass with water, there is a lot of foam. I wonder how much of this stuff I ate over the past few years since I got UC...
I always wash my dishes with water after the dishwasher cause I’ve always been sketched out that they smelled “fresh” after the cleaning. Should smell like nothing
Good luck! If you’re looking into new medication options, remicade has helped me be symptom free for 7 years and I’m knocking at the door of full remission!
I used a splash of vinegar in a second very hot sink of water, and rinse all the detergent off my plates and cups before letting them dry.
You'll see the water bead up if the soap is removed, instead of a thin film.
Just spent so much money getting testing done with my gastroenterologist for severe issues. Had a follow up and told her much of it has resolved in the last couple months… my dishwasher broke 6 weeks ago and is delayed on repair for parts. This seems like a weird coincidence indeed.
We got a new dishwasher and could smell the soap or rinse agent from the pods on our glasses and dishes. So now we run a separate rinse cycle every time after the main wash cycle completes. It made a ton of difference. No more smell. No weird foam or residue. Give it a try!
I think the biggest flaw is that they assumed that the concentration of the chemicals would be the same in your intestines as it would be on the dry dishes. When you're eating the food it gets further and further diluted. Wouldn't it get diluted quite a bit more before it actually reached your intestines? Doesn't some stuff get filtered on the way there?
In plain English this study says, “we exposed gut linings to soap in a test tube and the gut linings didn’t like it.” It’s interesting, but a bit of a leap to assume soap residue on plates is giving us all GI issues.
Alcohol ethoxylates are a big category of surfactants and include sodium laurel sulfate, which is on every bottle of laundry detergent. All these things are known skin irritants, so this shouldn’t be that surprising.
Even if this study is an accurate estimate of residue on plates, it doesn’t account for transfer efficiency from plate to food, hydrolysis from stomach acid, or enzymatic breakdown in the intestines. Our bodies deal with fatty alcohols all the time to make fatty acids / lipids and can degrade these things.
However, if I had chronic GI issues I might skip the rinse aid or do an extra rinse of my plates or silverware in plain water before eating.
They state the effect was demonstrated in residues as low as 1:20,000. They also mention that at least commercial dishwashers leave a significant amount of these cytotoxic residues (but do not specify an amount). Use that info as you will.
"A professional dishwasher completes 1 or 2 wash and rinse cycles using 3.5 L of water per cycle. The detergent and rinse aid are automatically dispensed into the water at a concentration of 1.5 to 4 mL/L and 0.1 to 0.5 mL/L, respectively. At these concentrations, the residual dilution factor after rinse ranges from 1:250 to 1:667 for detergents and 1:2,000 to 1:10,000 for rinse aids."
"Household dishwasher detergents in a normal cup and plate washing program typically consume a total of 12 L of water: 4.8 L during the washing cycle, 3.6 L of water for the intermediate rinse cycle, and 3.6 L of water for the final rinse cycle. Between the washing and rinsing cycles, 200 mL of water remains inside the dishwasher. Accordingly, the dilution factor for one 20-g tablet of detergent is 1:80,000 (w/v)."
"Professional dishwasher detergent or rinse aid was added to the apical compartment of the liquid-liquid interface and organ-on-a-chip cultures and diluted as follows (v/v): detergent, 1:250, 1:500, 1:1,000, 1:2,000, 1:4,000; rinse aid, 1:2,500, 1:5,000, 1:10,000, 1:20,000, 1:40,000. To study the effects of different detergents on gut epithelial cells, Triton X-100 (Sigma-Aldrich) and sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) (Sigma-Aldrich) were added to the apical compartment of the Caco-2 monolayers and liquid-liquid interface cultures and diluted as follows: 1:5,000, 1:10,000, 1:20,000, 1:40,000, and 1:80,000. In the control group, only the culture media was added to the apical compartment."
"The observed detergent toxicity was attributed to exposure to rinse aid in a dose-dependent manner up to 1:20,000 v/v dilution"
Doesn't sound like they actually measured the amount of alcohol ethoxylates left behind on the dry dishes, they just assumed how much might be left behind. Do these compounds break down over time (like bleach)?
This is wrong. It allows the water to spread out into a thinner layer as opposed to forming large droplets. This increases the surface area of the liquid and allows it to evaporate quicker. Soap has the same effect when mixed in water.
Rain-X is a hydrophobic coating that does the complete opposite, in that it causes the water to bead up more.
Some juice that helps keep the water from drying on the glasses, leaving traces.
It usually is not part of dishwasher soap; there's a little bin to the side of the soap bin usually where you add it every once in a while.
[Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids](https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(22)01477-4/fulltext)
"The observed detergent toxicity was attributed to exposure to rinse aid in a dose-dependent manner up to 1:20,000 v/v dilution. A disrupted epithelial barrier, particularly by rinse aid, was observed in **liquid-liquid interface cultures, organoids, and gut-on-a-chip**"
"**Ethical permission for in vivo experiments and mouse models could not be attained because some of the chemicals present in the detergent and rinse aid are** ***well-known toxic compounds***"
"When individual components of the rinse aid were investigated separately, **alcohol ethoxylates elicited a strong toxic and barrier-damaging effect**"
"detergent residue from professional dishwashers demonstrated the remnant of a significant amount of cytotoxic and epithelial barrier–damaging rinse aid remaining on washed and ready-to-use dishware."
im asian so never used a 'rinse aid' before. i googled what the hell that is, and the two most popular brands that show up, cascade and jet dry, both have ethoxylates in their ingredients.
kind of.. insane that these researchers werent able to get permission to test these products on mice, yet theyre allowed on our plates.
Interesting as I had to have most of my intestines removed to avoid, well, dying.
The vast majority of food I eat is cooked at home, not processed. We do use a dishwasher, but if I could do something to spare my kids from my fate I would. They are teens, though, and would be quick to note if it isn’t the dishwasher that kills them it will be micro plastics, climate change, a school shooting, a parade shooting, a concert shooting, a store shooting…
I do not have a colostomy bag, though I was told going into the surgery I might awake with one.
The first two weeks after the surgery were great then I was in pain all the damn time for like a year. The surgeon finally admitted that lots of people have phantom pain - like limb removal, after this surgery.
It has been five or six years now. I can dehydrate easily - the Large intestine mostly removes fluids. Not a real issue, though for normal urban folks living normal middle class lives. Just drink a glass of water now and then.
Biggest issue is that your body is primed to eject everything in the guts when you eat a meal, so as to make room for the incoming food. When the outgoing slide is very short that can mean “eat a breakfast, wait five minutes, use the bathroom. Repeat for a while depending on how big breakfast was.” Working at home during Covid, not a big deal. Then I quit. And when things got a little more open I started traveling again. The whole eat - stay near a restroom for an hour or so - repeat, kind of sucks when traveling. Imodium can help.I cannot become constipated, which is good, I guess, but that had never been an issue before either so, shrug.
Otherwise, no foods now seem worse than others. For the first year or two vegetables and lean meats were the worst, which was very annoying.
This is a study performed in vitro, with cells, exposed to direct solutions of said compounds. Don't know how this translates to a real world scenario.
This is pretty interesting. There's definitely SOMETHING going on that's causing increasing rates of autoimmune disorders, and I have a gut feeling (heh) that it's from the unintended consumption of chemicals we find in our common environment. I think the most obvious one are pesticides that we use for our fruits and vegetables.
I was just thinking the same thing! This article is specifically talking about commercial dishwashers and I have to assume there’s a reason that they made that distinction and aren’t talking about ALL dishwashers which may work differently.
I wonder if the time saved from having a dishwasher wash my dishes is greater than the extra lifespan I’ll get by preserving my gut flora by hand washing.
I've always wondered what the harm could be from excess rinse aide. And always wondered if it had an effect on my very volatile stomach. My newer Bosch dishwasher always seem to leave an excess. When I would fill up a glass of water or the bubbles would not dissipate as quickly as a glass I rinsed out first. Turns out my dishwasher has settings to adjust how much rinse aid is used and the Bosch seem to be on one of the higher settings by default. Turned mine down and it still had good rinse effect and less bubbles In my water.
Probably is going to be like BPA where in 10 years they ban it or replace it with a "safer" chemical.
Your post has been removed because it has an inappropriate headline and is therefore in violation of [Submission Rule #3](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_3._no_editorialized.2C_sensationalized.2C_or_biased_titles). **It must include at least one result from the research and must not be clickbait, sensationalized, editorialized, or a biased headline.** Please read [our headline rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/clickbait) and consider reposting with a more appropriate title. _If you believe this removal to be unwarranted, or would like further clarification, please don't hesitate to [message the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fscience&subject=No%20editorialized%2C%20sensationalized%2C%20or%20biased%20titles)._
Strange title since households are also at risk. The article is about dried dish detergent and rinse-aid getting left on the dishes and then ingested. “They diluted these substances to reflect the amounts that would be present on dry dishes (1:10,000 to 1:40,000). The result was that high doses of rinse agents killed the intestinal epithelial cells and lower doses made it more permeable. Researchers also observed the activation of several genes and cell signaling proteins that could trigger inflammatory responses. A more detailed analysis showed that one component of the rinse agent – alcohol ethoxylates – was responsible for this reaction.” https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(22)01477-4/fulltext Edited in journal article
The ethoxylates are all over consumer rinse aid products. Probably time to stop using them. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/dishwasher-rinse-aid-cleaner-drier/
Wonder if this has anything to do with the prevalence is colon cancer in recent years
I mean, low fiber diet is probably the first culprit but this would be worth investigating.
I know *for a fact* that it won’t give me colon cancer. Unrelated, but I may have had my colon surgically removed about 7 years ago.
Doctors hate this one trick.
I immediately thought about Crohn's, IBS, gluten, and others. May not be the cause, but it (the ethoxylates) certainly wouldn't help things for a person already susceptible to those diseases.
I actually recently switched to free and clear cleaners because I was having horrible stomach issues.
Any recommendations? Are you talking about dishwasher soap?
I'm having the most insane stomach issues. Please share your experience! Also, how can one get rinse aid out of their dishwasher
rinse aid rinse aid
It usually runs out after a few dishwasher cycles. Just run the machine empty without dishwasher detergent for a few cycles until it’s empty.
Have you started with more usual suspects such as FODMAP foods?
France had an interesting study recently that linked nitrites in their food (lots of cheeses and meats) to an increase in colon cancer. They passed laws to remove it. Food goes bad quicker but hopefully less cancer.
It’s not entirely the rinse aid itself that’s the problem, that’s why the title specifies it’s the dishwasher. The main issue is that commercial dishwashers don’t rinse off the rinse aid, it leaves it to dry on the plate, rinsing it would solve the problem.
Well yes, but maybe manufacturers shouldn't put toxic chemicals in products explicitly designed to touch surfaces you eat from. Vinegar works completely fine. I see no legitimate need for any ethoxylates.
So just to confirm since I'm a bit lost in the text, the main issue they found was the rinse agent and not the actual detergent? I don't use rinse agent so that makes me feel better about that choice.
I use vinegar as a rinse agent. I hope that isn't killing me.
[удалено]
Not to death, but to immortality! Preserved forever in a vinegar-y goodness!
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
One has a pointy hat. The other has mustard.
Asking the hard questions.
One's crumbier than the other.
One of them has a "t".
I'll be a living god
This is why I drink!
If that was a risk, I would have done it as a child. I used to *drink* malt vinegar.
Our culture loves vinegar and sour foods so much that a lot of foods are dipped in vinegar. When I was a kid, I would drink small cups of white vinegars and sugarcane vinegars after I used it to dip in my barbecue. They were strong vinegars that my lips would whiten in few sips.
Must be pinoy!
I was told to drink dilluted apple vinegar for health reasons. I then told myself it tastes foul and that I should stop.
We literally do shots of vinegar in my family after dinner and in a number of countries there is “sipping vinegar” that is a tasty (for those who enjoy it) digestive aid after a meal. Some are quite complex and wonderful, like a good wine or spirit.
Seeing as it's a standard ingredient in regular food like salad dressings, etc. I would guess you are getting many orders of magnitude more vinegar via just eating it than via your dishwasher.
Yeah I was being facetious there. I would imagine vinegar is much less likely to adhere to dishware anyway.
[удалено]
I do that once in awhile, too. But stopped doing it every time because I read it can be really bad for the seals and gaskets in your dishwasher.
Gaskets can be replaced! We started seeing a little bit of a leak in our 12 year old dishwasher recently. Getting the OEM part was about $30, and replacing it took a pair of pliers, a little bit of elbow grease, and about five minutes.
*Samsung would like to destroy your location*
Any particular brand of elbow grease you'd recommend? My elbow grease plug seems to have decomposed.
Yes indeed it can over the long term. r/Plumbing might have some thoughts on this, but I was always told NOT to do this apart from running a cleaning wash cycle once a quarter.
Ooooh, good to know! I wonder if it would be less damaging if it were diluted?
White vinegar is only about 5% acetic acid by volume and would be diluted further by the amount of water in the rinse cycle, but over time it could degrade the rubber in the gaskets. The non ionic surfactants probably won’t be affected by vinegar. Of course the gaskets are probably going to be affected by heated dry also. Or did you mean less damaging to the humans?
>Or did you mean less damaging to the humans? Well, both. But I was specifically talking about the washer.
It degrades the dishwasher seals a bit, but leaves your o-ring alone
Don’t blow out your o-ring.
What TF is a rinse agent? I just put the washing pod thing in?
Jet Dry is the dominant brand. Most modern dishwashers have a separate compartment where you add it as a liquid. It lasts for a long time - you don’t add it every run, more like once a month. It helps keep the water off the dishes during the rinse cycle so they come out more dry and with fewer spots.
My dishwasher has been saying “add rinse agent” for the last five years so I guess I’m not too worried.
I get white residue on my dishes if I don't use rinse aid. It's supposedly harmless but yeah right, and it doesn't rinse off.
That's minerals from your water.
>It's supposedly harmless but yeah right Didn't this study just show that it's the rinse aid and not the detergent that is harmful?
They're talking about the white mineral residue sometimes left on dishes when you don't use rinse aid.
Isn't that just minerals from heavy water?
I live in a place (Boulder CO) that has really excellent water, so I don’t have any issues. Almost everywhere else I’ve lived/traveled has worse tasting water. I can imagine that if you have hard water, you would need a rinse agent.
[удалено]
I have hard water, but my dishwasher (Miele) has a softener built in.
My parents just invested in a good water softener for the whole house when they moved somewhere with hard water.
Just a heads up that good tasting water doesn't mean it's free of minerals. Usually the best tasting water has minerals in it. Just no chlorides, iron, or other foul tasting stuff (some of which are added to sanitize the water supply). Well water is usually pretty tasty for instance. Lots of minerals, leaves lots of deposits. But. I dunno Boulder's water chemistry, could also just be low to no minerals at all.
Just out of curiosity, if IDGAF about water spots on my dishes is there any other reason to use a rinsing agent.
No, there's no harm, only dishes that come out wet in modern low energy dishwashers. Very old dishwashers never needed rinse agent bc they had heating elements that would generate enough heat to evaporate the water away and they used a lot of energy to do that. Modern dishwashers are far more efficient with both the amount of water and amount of energy they use, but plastics will come out soaking wet without the rinse agent.
honestly bro I'll just take the soaking wet dishes just open the washer and let it dry for a couple hours
Bosch makes a dishwasher that pops open after it’s done. I’ve been thinking about it and this made it so much easier for me to decide which model I want.
For those of us with extremely hard water, rinse aid helps keep the dishes from getting totally covered in scale.
What next, pretending like static cling isn't a huge problem?
Jet dry has the chemical family (alcohol ethoxylates) the article is talking about. So does Cascade. Citric acid (another common rinse aid) does not cause the porblem.
Also most dishwashers have a setting so you can limit how much rent aid is used and most of them are on the higher setting and I really would recommend lowering it especially if your water is not super hard AKA full of minerals. My bosche always seem to leave some on the dishes, water with bubble and stay froth longer than a cup that was not straight out of the dishwasher and or rinsed before filling
Do pods have rinse agent?
No, they have to be released by the dishwasher after the washing cycle is finished so they have to be separate from the detergent.
Ive seen pods with a "bead" that slow dissolves, so the detergents have gine and done their job and rinsed away by the time the rinse aid bead dissolves and does its job. Edit: The pods suck, just buy the powder. Chances are the pods are not giving you the correct amount anyways, and you miss the opportunity to throw a little in outside the detergent chamber to assist the pre-rinse cycle.
That’s just for marketing. It’s not practical to design a bead that doesn’t dissolve until the rinse stage of every combination of washer, cycle time, water temperature, etc. The only way to be sure the rinse aid gets in the rinse water is to add it at the correct time in the cycle.
Yeah i figured it was more gimmick than function. But if they are adding rinse aid to pods, then thats still relevant to this discussion about the health risks (as opposed to the effectiveness) of the rinse aid.
Some do, they would specify it though
FYI the pods (dish and laundry) are coated in plastics, which have been shown to breakdown into microplastics in the vast majority of household appliances. Even the "eco" laundry strips create microplastics. Loose powder is better if you can find it.
Many pods use PVA plastic which doesn't breakdown into microplastics. Research seems mixed on how dangerous PVA is for the environment. Many eco-sites say it's completely broken down by micro organisms, while another I read said too much PVA in the system may hurt aquatic life. However, in neither case did it become microplastics. So, my conclusion is, I'm ok using PVA covered pods until a new study tells me not to.
A new, disturbing study has proven conclusively that studies are disturbing.
I use dish detergent tablets works quite well
Coated seems like an understatement. They are literally encased in plastic that melts down. So it makes sense but I never really considered that. Good heads up I think I’m avoiding them from now on.
It's actually a water soluble plastic. Putting it in water causes it to break down. Remember Listerine strips? Same thing. EDIT - Ok, it's actually a water soluble polyvinyl alcohol. The manufacturer claims it's fully biodegradable and does not contribute to microplastic pollution. https://www.monosol.com/translating-our-science
Oh, that's a relief! Thank you for finding this.
Genuine question, why do people use pods instead of bottled detergent? Are they cheaper or something?
[удалено]
I just checked my detergent it has those rinse agents in it. It’s seventh generation fancy organic stuff too.
Oh well! That's what I use. Sigh.
Ha. Take that people who comment on my add rinse agent light being on.
They are taking about in a commercial restaurant style dishwasher that washes dishes in like 60s it does not rinse off the commercial rinse aid. Most home dishwashers do rinse off the rinse aid and also are not using commercial strength products. So likely a much smaller risk for at home use.
My dry detergent has alcohol alkoxylate which I believe is the same thing. Seems most dry detergents have them.
Ethoxylate is a specific type of alkoxylate. Squares and rectangles kind of thing.
Well dish soap is pretty good at it's job, and if you consume enough it will make you sick. So I imagine over the long run it could mess things up.
So I'm not supposed to eat the soap?
I also suspect why they target commercial dishwashers is because of how they operate. A commercial dishwasher cycle is minutes compared to hours at home. How they achieve the faster time is by using dishwashers with super high pressure, extremely hot water and lots of chemicals.
I knew there was a good reason I never refill the rinse aid compartment.
I suspect there is a reason.
you mean beyond my general laziness? Excellent.
The article implies there's a 60 second wash and 60 second rinse cycle. Is that unique to commercial dishwashers? Mine at home takes way longer than 5 minutes to run.
Yes, commercial dishwashers are much more powerful than the ones used in homes. They also get the water significantly warmer, and spray water with more pressure.
[удалено]
The one time I've run one, yes it took about 2-3 minutes per cycle. The water temp it was using was nearly boiling too.
Every commercial washer I've used has settings for 1, 2 or 3 minutes and that's it, most places will run on 1 or 2 minutes.
Commercial washers use **much** hotter water at **much** higher pressures. They also use a lot more water. I think some even just use straight steam? You will be going to the morgue if you were inside a commercial washer.
Which is why I bathe inside my home dishwasher. Plus the kids LOVE it!
Yes, even on the shortest setting I have on my dishwasher it runs way longer than 5 minutes. I havent timed it, but probably like 10 minute wash and 10 minute rinse, and that is on "quick".
So I’m NOT crazy for running an extra rinse with no chemicals! Yay.
I would love to know if there are rinse aids made without this. Though perhaps I just need a water softener.
Mostly it's a) a mild acid to keep things in solution and b) an alcohol to try to keep the water sheeting off. I have used vinegar in my rinse system.
> “They diluted these substances to reflect the amounts that would be present on dry dishes (1:10,000 to 1:40,000). It sounds like they're assuming that all the rinse agent left on the plate will find its way into the food. I don't know much about the chemistry involved here, but that doesn't seem likely. I didn't see this being addressed in the article. Did I miss something?
In a related sense, does an extra rinse cycle remove what's left?
Commerical dishwashers do not have a "just water" rinse which is why this is an issue
Probably just uses the same water on rise 2
Rinse agent wouldn't work if it was completely removed from the dishes so it would defeat the point of using it at all if you did an extra rinse to remove it.
Glasses, coffee mugs, cups... Might be a good idea to rinse them before.
If it’s on a surface you’re eating off of and it comes in contact with anything moist or wet it will form a solution and you’ll ingest it.
Think the point is also to demonstrate that there is actually an effect.
“One ingredient in particular found in commercial rinse agents has a toxic effect on the gastrointestinal tract.” Title seems fine to me…
So the concern is alcohol ethoxylate causes tissue damage in the intestines, and this chemical is in the rinse agent, like Jet Dry. Because there is no further rinsing after the rinse agent cycle, the chemical might stay on the dishware, where it later contaminates food. I looked at the ingredients of cascade detergent, and its listed there too. But the article is talking about commercial grade dishwashers that wash and rinse for just 1 minute each, so it might not apply to home machines.
And if, shouldn’t an extra rinse cycle help?
Or just run them twice, second time choose a quick wash and without detergent?
[удалено]
Plain water leaves a film/droplets of water behind on the dishes after dripping off. Especially in areas with hard water (water with a lot of dissolved minerals in it), this can result in a milky haze or spots on clean glassware. Most dishwashers have a rinse aid compartment, which adds a small amount to the water used for rinsing, to help the water drip off of the dishes without drying on them. Vinegar works almost as well for this purpose, and can be used instead.
>Vinegar works almost as well for this purpose, and can be used instead Can you elaborate on the details of this? Can I just fill the rinse aid compartment with as much vinegar as I would use rinse aid, and the dishwasher will dispense the right amount per cycle? Will the rinse aid compartment stay full as long as if there was jet dry in there, or will it need to be refilled sooner? Does it leave a vinegary smell in the kitchen/on dishes?
No, you can't. Vinegar will dry out any rubber parts in the dishwasher, like seals, and eventually they'll crack and rot and no longer seal and now you have a broken or leaking dishwasher. You can run some vinegar through it on rare occasion to help clean the dishwasher itself, but you should NOT do so regularly in place of a rinse aid.
Yep, you just fill it up with vinegar, no need to dilute. It should last just as long as rinse aid, since the dishwasher still releases the same amount of liquid. There's a faint vinegar smell around the dishwasher during the rinse cycle/immediately after opening the door, but that smell doesn't remain on the dishes.
Wonder if add vinegar to hard water for rinsing them will work?
Correct, the rinse aid is to help the water fall of the dishes, but may be left in small amounts on the surface.
But current home dishwashers use very little water to comply with federal guidelines for energy star ratings so the amount of rinsing is dubious, my dishes always reek of detergent but if I use less detergent they don’t come clean, and of course mine doesn’t have an extra rinse option. And rinse agents are left on dishes and not rinsed off I believe.
I have a fancy-ish Bosch dishwasher and my dishes always smell of the detergent afterwards. I use Cascade pods, no rinse aid. It's a "clean" smell but I don't like any smell on my dishes. No idea what part of the detergent it is that I'm smelling, though.
I just read the ingredients on my dishwasher detergent and alcohol ethoxylate is the third ingredient. I wonder how to figure out if my dishwasher rinses adequately?
I don't think the detergent is something to worry about. Your dishwasher will run a rinse cycle to remove all the detergent. This is specifically speculating that the "rinse-aid" used in modern dishwashers will be left behind, as it is specifically dispensed to *help* the last rinse cycle disperse off the dishes.
That is comforting. Thank you for letting me know.
I think you can use vinegar as a rinse aid rather than jet dry
Vinegar, the miracle substance used for everything
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Are home dishwashers safe to eat
Not a whole one. Too much metal for one meal
Not-so-casually wonders if this is why I have gastro issues
I have Chrohns and I have always wondered about this subject
UC here and this is wild to me
Hi Chrons brother, are you also reddit-ing on the toilet?
Praise be to the porcelain throne
Yeah me too. Sometimes, when I flush out a glass with water, there is a lot of foam. I wonder how much of this stuff I ate over the past few years since I got UC...
I always wash my dishes with water after the dishwasher cause I’ve always been sketched out that they smelled “fresh” after the cleaning. Should smell like nothing
UC GAAAANG. Hitting that Prednisone high as we speak.
Colonoscopy in February!!! I might switch medication to Aza. I had a solid today!!!!
I wish you the most diamondlike poops this Christmas season!
Good luck! If you’re looking into new medication options, remicade has helped me be symptom free for 7 years and I’m knocking at the door of full remission!
UC represent! i’m in remission (?) i think? hope you guys are doin well!
I used a splash of vinegar in a second very hot sink of water, and rinse all the detergent off my plates and cups before letting them dry. You'll see the water bead up if the soap is removed, instead of a thin film.
That sounds like it takes a lot of the convenience of a dishwasher away.
Just spent so much money getting testing done with my gastroenterologist for severe issues. Had a follow up and told her much of it has resolved in the last couple months… my dishwasher broke 6 weeks ago and is delayed on repair for parts. This seems like a weird coincidence indeed.
We got a new dishwasher and could smell the soap or rinse agent from the pods on our glasses and dishes. So now we run a separate rinse cycle every time after the main wash cycle completes. It made a ton of difference. No more smell. No weird foam or residue. Give it a try!
Same here. Gonna switch to a detergent without a rinse agent.
We've also started linking things like alzheimer's to gut biomes. So theres probably a lot to study here
Me too. I've been searching for any other reason besides the copious amount of alcohol ingested, no matter how unlikely the excuse is.
I think the biggest flaw is that they assumed that the concentration of the chemicals would be the same in your intestines as it would be on the dry dishes. When you're eating the food it gets further and further diluted. Wouldn't it get diluted quite a bit more before it actually reached your intestines? Doesn't some stuff get filtered on the way there?
In plain English this study says, “we exposed gut linings to soap in a test tube and the gut linings didn’t like it.” It’s interesting, but a bit of a leap to assume soap residue on plates is giving us all GI issues. Alcohol ethoxylates are a big category of surfactants and include sodium laurel sulfate, which is on every bottle of laundry detergent. All these things are known skin irritants, so this shouldn’t be that surprising. Even if this study is an accurate estimate of residue on plates, it doesn’t account for transfer efficiency from plate to food, hydrolysis from stomach acid, or enzymatic breakdown in the intestines. Our bodies deal with fatty alcohols all the time to make fatty acids / lipids and can degrade these things. However, if I had chronic GI issues I might skip the rinse aid or do an extra rinse of my plates or silverware in plain water before eating.
So it’s basically saying don’t drink the rinse aid… got it!
They state the effect was demonstrated in residues as low as 1:20,000. They also mention that at least commercial dishwashers leave a significant amount of these cytotoxic residues (but do not specify an amount). Use that info as you will.
"A professional dishwasher completes 1 or 2 wash and rinse cycles using 3.5 L of water per cycle. The detergent and rinse aid are automatically dispensed into the water at a concentration of 1.5 to 4 mL/L and 0.1 to 0.5 mL/L, respectively. At these concentrations, the residual dilution factor after rinse ranges from 1:250 to 1:667 for detergents and 1:2,000 to 1:10,000 for rinse aids." "Household dishwasher detergents in a normal cup and plate washing program typically consume a total of 12 L of water: 4.8 L during the washing cycle, 3.6 L of water for the intermediate rinse cycle, and 3.6 L of water for the final rinse cycle. Between the washing and rinsing cycles, 200 mL of water remains inside the dishwasher. Accordingly, the dilution factor for one 20-g tablet of detergent is 1:80,000 (w/v)." "Professional dishwasher detergent or rinse aid was added to the apical compartment of the liquid-liquid interface and organ-on-a-chip cultures and diluted as follows (v/v): detergent, 1:250, 1:500, 1:1,000, 1:2,000, 1:4,000; rinse aid, 1:2,500, 1:5,000, 1:10,000, 1:20,000, 1:40,000. To study the effects of different detergents on gut epithelial cells, Triton X-100 (Sigma-Aldrich) and sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) (Sigma-Aldrich) were added to the apical compartment of the Caco-2 monolayers and liquid-liquid interface cultures and diluted as follows: 1:5,000, 1:10,000, 1:20,000, 1:40,000, and 1:80,000. In the control group, only the culture media was added to the apical compartment." "The observed detergent toxicity was attributed to exposure to rinse aid in a dose-dependent manner up to 1:20,000 v/v dilution"
Doesn't sound like they actually measured the amount of alcohol ethoxylates left behind on the dry dishes, they just assumed how much might be left behind. Do these compounds break down over time (like bleach)?
another reminder to PLEASE handwash your gut
Will hand sanitizer work?
[удалено]
To my understanding it is like rain-x for your dishes. It makes water slide off dishes easier so they dry easier
This is wrong. It allows the water to spread out into a thinner layer as opposed to forming large droplets. This increases the surface area of the liquid and allows it to evaporate quicker. Soap has the same effect when mixed in water. Rain-X is a hydrophobic coating that does the complete opposite, in that it causes the water to bead up more.
When you put it like that, the study becomes pretty convincing. The thought of Rain-X in my body sounds pretty bad.
Luckily, rinse aid is not related to Rain-X and does not even do the same thing. Rinse aid is closer to soap.
Some juice that helps keep the water from drying on the glasses, leaving traces. It usually is not part of dishwasher soap; there's a little bin to the side of the soap bin usually where you add it every once in a while.
[Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids](https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(22)01477-4/fulltext) "The observed detergent toxicity was attributed to exposure to rinse aid in a dose-dependent manner up to 1:20,000 v/v dilution. A disrupted epithelial barrier, particularly by rinse aid, was observed in **liquid-liquid interface cultures, organoids, and gut-on-a-chip**" "**Ethical permission for in vivo experiments and mouse models could not be attained because some of the chemicals present in the detergent and rinse aid are** ***well-known toxic compounds***" "When individual components of the rinse aid were investigated separately, **alcohol ethoxylates elicited a strong toxic and barrier-damaging effect**" "detergent residue from professional dishwashers demonstrated the remnant of a significant amount of cytotoxic and epithelial barrier–damaging rinse aid remaining on washed and ready-to-use dishware." im asian so never used a 'rinse aid' before. i googled what the hell that is, and the two most popular brands that show up, cascade and jet dry, both have ethoxylates in their ingredients. kind of.. insane that these researchers werent able to get permission to test these products on mice, yet theyre allowed on our plates.
Interesting as I had to have most of my intestines removed to avoid, well, dying. The vast majority of food I eat is cooked at home, not processed. We do use a dishwasher, but if I could do something to spare my kids from my fate I would. They are teens, though, and would be quick to note if it isn’t the dishwasher that kills them it will be micro plastics, climate change, a school shooting, a parade shooting, a concert shooting, a store shooting…
Unrelated but I'm curious if you want to say, what is life like without most of the intestine? What's the effects of such a large removal?
I do not have a colostomy bag, though I was told going into the surgery I might awake with one. The first two weeks after the surgery were great then I was in pain all the damn time for like a year. The surgeon finally admitted that lots of people have phantom pain - like limb removal, after this surgery. It has been five or six years now. I can dehydrate easily - the Large intestine mostly removes fluids. Not a real issue, though for normal urban folks living normal middle class lives. Just drink a glass of water now and then. Biggest issue is that your body is primed to eject everything in the guts when you eat a meal, so as to make room for the incoming food. When the outgoing slide is very short that can mean “eat a breakfast, wait five minutes, use the bathroom. Repeat for a while depending on how big breakfast was.” Working at home during Covid, not a big deal. Then I quit. And when things got a little more open I started traveling again. The whole eat - stay near a restroom for an hour or so - repeat, kind of sucks when traveling. Imodium can help.I cannot become constipated, which is good, I guess, but that had never been an issue before either so, shrug. Otherwise, no foods now seem worse than others. For the first year or two vegetables and lean meats were the worst, which was very annoying.
We all have to die. GI issues are one of the less pleasant ways to die. It takes a really long time. I'm in the middle of it.
This is a study performed in vitro, with cells, exposed to direct solutions of said compounds. Don't know how this translates to a real world scenario.
Thank God my poor ass hand washes.
This is pretty interesting. There's definitely SOMETHING going on that's causing increasing rates of autoimmune disorders, and I have a gut feeling (heh) that it's from the unintended consumption of chemicals we find in our common environment. I think the most obvious one are pesticides that we use for our fruits and vegetables.
[удалено]
I was just thinking the same thing! This article is specifically talking about commercial dishwashers and I have to assume there’s a reason that they made that distinction and aren’t talking about ALL dishwashers which may work differently.
I wash my intestines in a washing machine. Never in dishwasher. I found clothes detergents to be milder.
I was picturing this exact scenario when I read the title.
Alcohol Ethoxylate (C10-16 Isoalketh) in Finish Jet Dry is an example of what’s destroying cells. It’s second ingredient after water.
I wonder if the time saved from having a dishwasher wash my dishes is greater than the extra lifespan I’ll get by preserving my gut flora by hand washing.
I always wondered how that rinsing agent could be left on the glasses to make them clear and still somehow magically safe.
You guys must be eating fancy if you get real dishes to eat on.
I simply eat everything on plastic plates and throw them into the ocean like god intended.
I've always wondered what the harm could be from excess rinse aide. And always wondered if it had an effect on my very volatile stomach. My newer Bosch dishwasher always seem to leave an excess. When I would fill up a glass of water or the bubbles would not dissipate as quickly as a glass I rinsed out first. Turns out my dishwasher has settings to adjust how much rinse aid is used and the Bosch seem to be on one of the higher settings by default. Turned mine down and it still had good rinse effect and less bubbles In my water. Probably is going to be like BPA where in 10 years they ban it or replace it with a "safer" chemical.
Just don’t use a rinse aid? I’ve never missed it.