When you eat out, you're paying not just for the food service, but for the cleaning service, too. Ideally, the restaurant has followed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's sanitation protocol to kill any illness-causing bacteria on the table. By law, the restaurant must wipe the table down with a clean cloth soaked in a disinfectant solution made with the proper concentration of either chlorine, quaternary ammonia or iodine. If you doubt the cleanliness of the dining table, ask the restaurant to sanitize it again, or take the responsibility yourself with a disinfectant wipe.
Step 1
Wipe down the table with enough moist disinfectant towelettes to leave the table visibly wet for the time indicated on the product's instructions, usually 30 seconds.
Step 2
Let the table surface dry.
Step 3
Follow this cleaning procedure with the disinfectant wipes for any tableware you will touch, such as the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin dispenser.
Step 4
Throw away the used disinfectant wipes; then wash your hands for at least 20 seconds with warm water and hand soap.
Tips and Warnings
- Normally, you do not need to rinse the surface after using a disinfectant wipe; however, if that surface will come in direct contact with food, rinse the surface with water after using the disinfectant wipe. Cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing all reduce the risk of illness, but they are different. Cleaning removes germs and dirt, but does not necessarily kill the germs. Disinfecting kills germs to some extent. Sanitizing lowers the number of germs on surfaces to a level public health standards have deemed safe. Read the disinfectant wipe instructions carefully. The product should have different instructions for cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing.
Things You'll Need
- Disinfectant wipes
Member Comments