Holiday season and cooking go hand in hand, especially here in the Northland. We like to eat, and plenty of it. With that comes dirty dishes, pots n pans, utensils, spills, and counter tops and stoves that need a good cleaning.

In our home, we use lots of sponges and paper towels along with a disinfectant magic potion only Mrs. Rayman can pronounce for clean ups. I think that's all going to change quickly however.

The filthiest item in the average household is common kitchen sponge according to The Daily. Microbiologists have found that the kitchen sponge is as much as 200,000 times dirtier than a toilet seat, caked with E.coli and staphylococcus aureus bacteria.

A professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona, found that there are about 10 million bacteria per square inch on a sponge, compared to the average toilet seat which only holds 50 bacteria per square inch.

So, this season,we'll toss the sponges and replace them with paper towels and the disinfectant concoction only Mrs. Rayman can pronounce. Hmmm, I wonder how many million bacteria we'll have on our counter tops then?

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