So you are going to disinfect your dishcloths and kitchen sponges in your microwave oven rather than using your germ ridden dishwasher!

This is a good idea as your microwave oven can kill 99% of pathogens that inhabit your sponges and dishcloths within two minutes as a study in the Journal of Environmental Health reported.

It is even better when, on an average, a hundred thousand people report cases of food poisoning every month in the UK and the damp and warm kitchens are known to be great breeding grounds for germs!

However, be sure that the sponges and clothes are well soaked in water or you may end up with a nasty fire. There are already reports of such an accident from Shropshire’s Fire Service.

Scientists add that it is just enough if you repeat this process every second day. They also assume that it is the heat rather than the microwave radiation that brings this benefit for us.

You can also use a pressure cooker to sterilise your dishcloths and sponges if you do not want to use your microwave oven for this purpose.

But what about keeping your microwave oven clean from leftover food particles!

This is one of the toughest jobs encountered in our day to day life. It is not always possible to rinse your oven after every use! And often we find that the container gets hot!

To fight this problem you can use silicon sheets. There is a cavity protection system available on the market that uses these silicon sheets to keep microwave ovens free from leftovers. These systems also help to keep the container cool as you can cook almost fifty percent of daily food off the base.

You can reuse these silicon sheets if you wish; however, they are only reusable if there is not much spillage on them. To add to this, silicon sheets do not react with food ingredients and thus there is hardly any threat to your health.

This is also a good way to avoid unwanted blendings of smell and taste of different foods. Along with this, a messy microwave oven will cook slower and more unevenly.

You can also use some other methods to keep your microwave ovens clean but do not use any aluminium foils or other metallic objects.

The following tips may prove useful to keep microwave ovens clean:

1. Cover your dish properly before cooking

2. Do not heat sealed objects

3. Take special care while cleaning the edges and cavities of your oven and clean them regularly

4. Use utensils designed specifically for microwave ovens

5. Do not use abrasive pads or powders to clean your oven