Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Grout in the Kitchen

By Sam Weyland

Do you have a clean kitchen? Well, you should. Your kitchen, the counter in particular, will have constant contact with the food that you cook, which in turn will make contact with your body. It's not farfetched to assume that whatever is growing on your kitchen counter will get to your food, and consequentially into your stomach.

So unfortunately, you would have to clean your kitchen. Most of you maintain it on a regular basis though, so does that mean that you should be fine? Well, no. There is an often neglected spot in your kitchen counter where most bacteria converge; the grout.

Because of the composition of the grout itself, the material tends to absorb everything around it, most notably spoiled food bits, dust, and slime. So as the absorbed particles get gathered up, the muck it absorbed earlier gets pulled deeper in deeper. The grout as a whole, then, becomes harder to clean. Basically, the longer you don't clean it, the harder it becomes to clean when you actually decide to.

Now, as if the bacteria aren't enough, leave it unclean long enough and you've pretty much invited the dreaded black mold into your kitchen. Bearing the scientific name stachybotrys chartatum, this greenish-black mold makes humans and our pets sick. Its been known, at its worst, to make an infant's lungs bleed.

Therefore, clean your kitchen grout. Clean it everyday by washing and scrubbing with a suitable cleanser. Coat it with an alcohol-water solution as well; spraying the contents onto the surface.

And if you find it difficult to clean the grout, most likely because of past neglect, then I suggest calling professional grout cleaners. There's one in Atlanta that I personally recommend, and they know how to do their job well. Call them now, and watch your kitchen grout get clean and look as good as new. - 16035

About the Author: