Many people have the habit of cleaning pillow cases and pillow towels regularly, but few have the consciousness of cleaning pillow cores. In recent days, a widely retweeted Weibo said: “half of a pillow core that has never been washed is dust mites and molds. Therefore, it is likely to harm health to never clean the pillow core.” This conclusion is based on the fact that when sleeping, sebum, sweat and saliva of the human body will permeate into the pillow core. As time goes on, bacteria will take root in the pillow core like seeds and become “seedlings” of diseases.
Is the truth as evil as the Weibo says? Recently, the reporter came to yangjiayuan community, Yongwai street, Dongcheng District. From several households, he found four kinds of pillow cores most commonly used by residents: buckwheat skin, fluffy cotton, down and tea stalks, and sent these samples to the Academy of Animal Sciences of Beijing Agricultural College for inspection. After 24 hours of bacterial culture, the experimental results show that the pillow core made of buckwheat skin has the largest total number of colonies, which means it is the dirtiest; The cleanest pillow core is made of down.
community survey
household pillow core is rarely cleaned.
“Have you washed the pillow insert you used?” In the competition for pillow core samples, the reporter conducted a small-scale survey of the community at the same time. The results showed that more than 80% of the residents said that their pillow cases and pillow towels were often replaced, but they never cleaned the pillow core.
Mr. Ge, a resident, provided the reporter with a buckwheat pillow that his son, less than 7 years old, had used for a long time. The reporter saw that the pillow was not big in shape, and its volume was only about one third of that of an adult pillow. The name of the child is printed on the small green embroidered pillowcase. Take off the pillowcase, and the middle part of the pillow core is obviously different from the surrounding color, with a light yellow color. Mr. Ge said that this is the pillow that his son used for less than three years in kindergarten. At that time, pillows and bedding were purchased by the kindergarten. As my son is a full-time nurse, he will take him home two or three days a week. Therefore, in addition to having a nap at noon every day, this pillow is often used at night. After the child left the kindergarten last year, he didn’t want to throw away this pillow, so he took it home. As for the frequency of cleaning, Mr. Ge said that during winter and summer holidays, he would take the pillowcases and quilt covers home for cleaning, and then take them back after the garden was opened, but the pillow core had never been washed.
The reporter found two pillows made of different materials from Ms. Yin’s home, one made of fluffy cotton and the other made of buckwheat skin. Ms. Yin said that the two pillows were for her own use. The buckwheat pillow had only been used for three years and was bought from the supermarket. She never washed it after buying it back; The fluffy cotton pillow has been used for seven or eight years. She will wash the pillow core with a washing machine about three months.
After that, the reporter separately found down pillows and tea stem health pillows from the home of resident Ms. Liu and the duty room of the community neighborhood committee. The down pillow of resident Ms. Liu has been used for more than two years and has never been cleaned. Ms. Liu said that the down pillow was not easy to clean, so when the sun was good, she took the pillow to the balcony for ventilation and exposure. After removing the two layers of pillowcases, the reporter saw that there were also several yellowing marks of different sizes in the center of the pure white down pillow core.
As for the last tea stem health pillow, the staff of the community neighborhood committee told the reporter that it was purchased in 2010 and was specially used by people who came to the neighborhood committee at night to be on duty, and everyone took turns to use it. The frequency of use was about once a week. The jacket of the pillow is made of bamboo mats. The tea stalks of the pillow core are equal in size and wrapped by two layers of thin gauze. “Every time someone uses it, he wipes the surface of the bamboo with a wet rag. The pillow core has never been washed.”
experimental results
buckwheat skin pillow core is the dirtiest
These four types of five pillows are made of different materials, and the price ranges from tens of yuan to hundreds of yuan. So, which type of pillow is the cleanest? Which kind is the dirtiest? It can be identified by experiment. Recently, the reporter sent these five pillow core samples to the laboratory of the Academy of Animal Sciences of Beijing Agricultural College.
Associate Professor Ruan Wenke conducted bacterial culture experiments on these pillow cores. He first took 5ml samples from five pillow cores and put them into sterile test tubes, and marked the tubes. At the same time, on the sterile operation platform, inject the same amount of sterile physiological saline into five test tubes respectively equipped with down, buckwheat skin, fluffy cotton and tea stalks. Professor Ruan said that the purpose of adding physiological saline was to fully mix the substances in the test tube and dissolve the bacteria on the experimental sample into the test tube.
Then, he shakes the five test tubes well. After taking five Petri dishes, Professor Ruan injected 100 microliters of sample mixture into the Petri dishes. After that, he applied the liquid injected into the Petri dish evenly with the five applicators disinfected with an alcohol lamp. After covering the Petri dishes, place these Petri dishes in a 37 degree incubator.
After 24 hours, the results of the experiment came out. The reporter saw that there were more or less yellow dots on each Petri dish. Professor Ruan said that this is the colony formed. A yellow dot is a colony, which is composed of many kinds of bacteria. The number of colonies is directly proportional to the cleanliness of the pillow core sample. From these five Petri dishes, the pillow core made of two buckwheat skins has the most colonies. Among them, the buckwheat pillow used by the child almost covers the whole Petri dish; And the cleanest is the pillow core of down.
Professor Ruan also said that he preliminarily judged that these bacteria included some bacteria and many yeasts. Yeast is a kind of fungus with peculiar smell. For example, some people’s foot odor is related to this fungus. In general, yeast will not affect human body, but it is harmful to human health when it reaches a certain amount. Therefore, he suggested that ordinary families should clean the pillow core at least every three months.
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