Cleaning your camping dishes for better health

by Larissa Brown (Subscribe to Larissa Brown's posts)
Sep 3rd 2006 9:02AM

Categories: Healthy Habits, Diet & Weight Loss

While camping carries a mystique of healthy rigor about it, the very dishes we eat off of while vacationing in the wilderness may be teeming with tiny sick-making bugs. And it's our own fault.

The food blog Brownie Points pointed me toward the Science News article How to Wash Up in the Wilderness. A microbiologist, Joanna Hargreaves, conducted a study regarding dish-cleaning practices among backpackers and expedition companies and found that their methods were not removing all harmful bacteria. She hazards a guess that individual campers may have even poorer habits than the large expedition providers she followed.

The piece in Science News recalls a related 2004 study that found that 56% of backpackers studied on the Appalachian Trail developed diarrhea, and the risk was much higher among those who did not always treat their water before drinking it. But nearly half of the Appalachian hikers who did consistently treat their drinking water still got diarrhea. "So other hygiene lapses-including inadequate washing of hands, dishes, and eating utensils-are apparently major threats to health in the wilderness," concludes microbiologist Hargreaves.

I have to admit my own camp dish-washing methods pale in comparison to the three-bowl scientific approach she prescribes. If I recall our last camping trip correctly, we rinsed with boiling water...or swished...or something. Umm, maybe I'll mend my ways next time we camp thanks to this article.

[Photo by kwankwan.]

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bottleman 9-05-2006 @ 2:23PM

I'd guess that dishes are only a small part of the problem. What without conventional bathrooms, it is a pain in the a** to clean up after other, um, everyday activities, like "going to the bathroom" (a strange phrase when there IS no bathroom). Plus the water is usually much colder than you're used to washing in! So there's a natural discouragement to washing ANYTHING well, be it dishes, hands, or other body parts. That's gotta contribute to nasty germs getting around. So please people wash your hands.

As far as dishes themselves go, I've come up with what I think is the ultimate team system. I try to stick to metal pans and dishes. After the meal, I let team member #1 -- the dog -- lick them out. This is key because it eliminates all the large particles that would otherwise necessitate slopping around a lot of cold mucky water (and maybe, just maybe, attract unwelcome 4-legged visitors).

Then team member #2 -- that would be me, the fire-wielding caveman -- throws every metal dish and pan in the largest pan, fills it up with water, and boils everything for at least 5 minutes. That's the sanitary part.

My team method is classless, yes, even disturbing, but 5 minutes of immersion in boiling water should kill a lot of germs. And believe me, I've camped with other guys enough to have seen far far worse.