5 ms·

> “That being said, I was quite surprised to see a few families using paper plates rather than dishes. I’m keenly aware of my culture’s extreme wastefulness and

by ashark 9y ago

> “That being said, I was quite surprised to see a few families using paper plates rather than dishes. I’m keenly aware of my culture’s extreme wastefulness and have tried to make efforts to reduce my footprint, which is why I probably was more aware of it.” It's damn tempting to do it at least a couple days a week if you have kids. Stretches how long your kitchen stays clean-ish without a bunch of work, and is way cheaper than paying a human to come help. Especially effective if you couple it with frozen food that can be cooked in its own container, or a meal that can feed 4-5 but be cooked in one pot with no cutting boards or anything (so, something out of a box). That combo can buy you a day of zero-added-mess in the kitchen, which is so nice when you've got kids and two working parents. Actually, now that I'm writing it out like this, I'm thinking maybe we need to start doing this like Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I try to consider any possible way to solve household issues and not get stuck on particular solutions, think about our house as an environment to help us get stuff done, that kind of thing, but I think I've been neglecting the possibility of generating slightly more trash as a way of achieving ends. Yet I've considered the far more expensive option of hiring help. Just a couple regular, planned days a week of basically not using the kitchen could give us a perceived lower amount of work and an actual time-the-kitchen-is-clean much greater than the 2/7 it implies. And it's cheaper and (way) more convenient than dining out. Hm....

gambiting 9y ago
I don't mean this in a bad way - do you not have a dishwasher? I've long stopped considering them luxuries. The amount of time saved on cleaning is enormous, especially since I cook every day, and I can't imagine cooking even half as much if I had to do the dishes by hand afterwards. The electricity cost is so small it's not worth worrying about, and water happens to be free where I live, but the time saving is the biggest plus.
- Danihan 9y ago
  It also saves water. I remember a study from years back showing that using any electric dishwasher saved a ton of water versus even the most fastidious hand cleaning in the sink.
  - beamatronic 9y ago
    Think of how much water is saved by using paper plates!
- beamatronic 9y ago
  There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who don't do the dishes at all, and people with a deep appreciation for paper plates. :) What I'm trying to say is that even unloading and loading the dishwasher can be too large of a time burden for large families.
- ashark 9y ago
  Yeah. They still take ~50% of the effort of hand-washing before you can expect them to actually clean anything you put in them, in my experience—our current one, though only a year old, is incredibly shitty and takes more like 75%. With a few kids you're running the dishwasher and putting away dishes like 4-5 times a week. Dropping that to 2-3 would be pretty nice. Also dishwashers are entirely useless for something like 1/4 of the items that are dirtied in meal prep + eating (and it's only that low because we have 3 kids, so the dishwashable-item count is higher than for, say, 2 people, while the non-dishwashable count is similar). There's more stuff you don't have to do with a frozen meal and paper plates. Admittedly, this latter point is almost a non-issue if you mise en place and Clean as you Go when cooking, but not every working couple gets home at the same time and sometimes the spouse who consistently and gleefully uses the above gets home too late to cook unless you want to push back the kids bedtimes (god no) and sometimes the spouse who gets home earlier just cannot be convinced to use the above by seemingly any means and gets really snippy when further efforts at convincing are made, no matter how gently. At least I'm quite sure that must be the case for someone. Ahem.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    That has not been my experience with dishwashers at all. I've had 4 different ones so far and never had to do anything other than just swipe solid food off to the bin,never prewashed anything. Usually use the 65C programme on them and everything comes out super clean, there will be an odd thing that is not completely clean but I'm serious when I say that's probably one thing in 1/10 loads. And what sort of things do you use for prep that can't go in the dishwasher? All knives, plastic chopping boards, bowls - all goes straight in the dishwasher. The only things I don't put in it are my frying pans since I have a nice Circulon set and I've already ruined one by putting it in a dishwasher.
    - ashark 9y ago
      > And what sort of things do you use for prep that can't go in the dishwasher? All knives, plastic chopping boards, bowls - all goes straight in the dishwasher. The only things I don't put in it are my frying pans since I have a nice Circulon set and I've already ruined one by putting it in a dishwasher. Lots of utensils that are too tall to go in the silverware basket, but tend to fall down and block the arms if you put them on the regular tray section. Pots, pans, mixing bowls, cutting boards. They block too much water and if they're not clean enough to wipe clean with water and a towel in ~10 seconds the dishwasher's not gonna do anything for them anyway. We've owned... oh, 5, maybe 6 dishwashers? All but 2 of them new. None of them have not left several dishes dirty enough in every load that you had to leave them in to run again, or hand wash them after the machine had already "washed" them. None have been any good at all for things that are really dirty and couldn't be hand-cleaned very quickly. If I lived alone I would 100% for sure not bother with one at all. Easily the most frustrating/useless appliance in my house. [EDIT] there's also the problem that anything sitting dirty in a not-yet-full dishwasher can't be used... unless you take it out and hand wash it. Not a problem for plates and stuff, but a real problem for prep-related items.

by ashark 9y ago

gambiting 9y ago

I don't mean this in a bad way - do you not have a dishwasher? I've long stopped considering them luxuries. The amount of time saved on cleaning is enormous, especially since I cook every day, and I can't imagine cooking even half as much if I had to do the dishes by hand afterwards. The electricity cost is so small it's not worth worrying about, and water happens to be free where I live, but the time saving is the biggest plus.

Danihan 9y ago
It also saves water. I remember a study from years back showing that using any electric dishwasher saved a ton of water versus even the most fastidious hand cleaning in the sink.
- beamatronic 9y ago
  Think of how much water is saved by using paper plates!
beamatronic 9y ago
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who don't do the dishes at all, and people with a deep appreciation for paper plates. :) What I'm trying to say is that even unloading and loading the dishwasher can be too large of a time burden for large families.
ashark 9y ago
Yeah. They still take ~50% of the effort of hand-washing before you can expect them to actually clean anything you put in them, in my experience—our current one, though only a year old, is incredibly shitty and takes more like 75%. With a few kids you're running the dishwasher and putting away dishes like 4-5 times a week. Dropping that to 2-3 would be pretty nice. Also dishwashers are entirely useless for something like 1/4 of the items that are dirtied in meal prep + eating (and it's only that low because we have 3 kids, so the dishwashable-item count is higher than for, say, 2 people, while the non-dishwashable count is similar). There's more stuff you don't have to do with a frozen meal and paper plates. Admittedly, this latter point is almost a non-issue if you mise en place and Clean as you Go when cooking, but not every working couple gets home at the same time and sometimes the spouse who consistently and gleefully uses the above gets home too late to cook unless you want to push back the kids bedtimes (god no) and sometimes the spouse who gets home earlier just cannot be convinced to use the above by seemingly any means and gets really snippy when further efforts at convincing are made, no matter how gently. At least I'm quite sure that must be the case for someone. Ahem.
- gambiting 9y ago
  That has not been my experience with dishwashers at all. I've had 4 different ones so far and never had to do anything other than just swipe solid food off to the bin,never prewashed anything. Usually use the 65C programme on them and everything comes out super clean, there will be an odd thing that is not completely clean but I'm serious when I say that's probably one thing in 1/10 loads. And what sort of things do you use for prep that can't go in the dishwasher? All knives, plastic chopping boards, bowls - all goes straight in the dishwasher. The only things I don't put in it are my frying pans since I have a nice Circulon set and I've already ruined one by putting it in a dishwasher.
  - ashark 9y ago
    > And what sort of things do you use for prep that can't go in the dishwasher? All knives, plastic chopping boards, bowls - all goes straight in the dishwasher. The only things I don't put in it are my frying pans since I have a nice Circulon set and I've already ruined one by putting it in a dishwasher. Lots of utensils that are too tall to go in the silverware basket, but tend to fall down and block the arms if you put them on the regular tray section. Pots, pans, mixing bowls, cutting boards. They block too much water and if they're not clean enough to wipe clean with water and a towel in ~10 seconds the dishwasher's not gonna do anything for them anyway. We've owned... oh, 5, maybe 6 dishwashers? All but 2 of them new. None of them have not left several dishes dirty enough in every load that you had to leave them in to run again, or hand wash them after the machine had already "washed" them. None have been any good at all for things that are really dirty and couldn't be hand-cleaned very quickly. If I lived alone I would 100% for sure not bother with one at all. Easily the most frustrating/useless appliance in my house. [EDIT] there's also the problem that anything sitting dirty in a not-yet-full dishwasher can't be used... unless you take it out and hand wash it. Not a problem for plates and stuff, but a real problem for prep-related items.