The Disturbing Discovery I Made Inside My Rubber Spatulas

Rubber and silicone spatulas are essential kitchen tools. They get the last bits of peanut butter and mayonnaise out of jars. They’re the perfect tool for making fluffy, scrambled eggs without scratching your pans. And they’re available in all sorts of fun colors and trendy patterns to coordinate with your kitchen decor. But if the spatula is attached to a wooden handle, you may be adding some dangerous secret ingredients to those scrambled eggs—mold spores, E. coli, and yeast. Today calls out spatulas as one of the germiest spots in your kitchen that you may not know about.

Spatula Heads Detach for a Reason

If you’ve ever had the spatula head come off the handle and thought the utensil was poorly made, you’re in good company. Many people think the spatula should stay in one piece when they use it—and when they wash it. However, the spatula head is designed to come off in order to wash it separately from the handle. When the two parts are washed together, water can get trapped where the spatula connects to the handle and create the perfect condition for mold growth—particularly if the handle is wooden. 

How to Thoroughly Wash Both Parts of a Spatula

If you haven’t run to your kitchen yet to check to see if your spatula is harboring mold, you probably will as soon as you’re done reading this. If you find mold, how should you clean it?

Cleaning the Wooden Handle

Wooden handles should not go in the dishwasher because the water and heat can destroy them. After each use, separate the spatula from the wooden handle and wash the handle like you would any other wooden kitchen utensil—with soap and water.

If you want something stronger, the CDC recommends removing mold from hard surfaces with “commercial products, soap and water, or a bleach solution of no more than 1 cup (8 ounces) of bleach in 1 gallon of water to kill mold on surfaces. Never mix bleach with ammonia or other household cleaners.”

A commercial product is probably overkill for the mold on your spatula's handle. Scrubbing it with soap and water or the bleach solution should suffice and should also remove E. coli and yeast if they are present. Allow it to air-dry completely before reconnecting it to the clean, dry spatula head. 

Cleaning the Rubber Spatula Head

Rubber spatula heads can be thrown into the top rack of the dishwasher, but if you’ve already found mold on the wooden handle, you should clean out the spatula head hole too.

One user on the HomeTalk website has a useful tip for cleaning the mold and mildew out of the spatula head: “Use a very thin brush like the kind you clean baby bottle nipples with, put some bleach/water solution in and get that little brush in there to swish the bleach around.”

Allow the spatula head to completely dry before reattaching it to the handle, or you’ll be introducing more moisture into the wood. 

How to Avoid Spatula Mold Altogether 

There’s one simple way to avoid the problem of spatula mold: Don’t buy spatulas with detachable wooden handles. The next time you buy kitchen spatulas, choose ones that are molded into one solid piece from all rubber or silicone. The less amount of crevices there are, the less chance of unwanted germs.