Hi!

I have been trying to find an answer to this for a long time. I can't seem to come up with anything sensible on the search engines.

At home, I was taught to wash the dishes in three steps: wash with the washing up liquid, rinse with cold/hot water and dry (or leave to dry).

I live in uk at the moment, I am not from uk myself, and I have noticed that several people skipped the rinsing step. All they do is wash the dishes in a basin full of water and washing up liquid and then put them on the drying rack, they never rinse the washing liquid off. At first I was just quietly wondering if this was a cultural thing but now I am becoming increasingly concerned.

I have a friend with whom we cook dinners together on average 2 times a week and whenever this happens and he happens to be washing up, the dishes end up covered in the washing up liquid foam, waiting to dry. I told him it made me feel uncomfortable seeing that he wasn't rinsing the dishes but he only paid attention to it for a very short time and then switched back to doing it the old way.

I can't imagine using cutlery, plates and pans that are covered in dried washing up liquid. It says on the bottle that one should rinse one's hands thoroughly after washing up, so why would it be safe to actually eat it (i imagine that it must get mixed into the food if I put, say, a cereal an milk mix into a bowl that hasn't been rinsed properly).

Am I just being paranoid? Is it actually safe to eat?

Thank you for any advice.

Spela