Alton Brown Shared A Hilarious But Educational Hand-Washing Tutorial That Everyone Needs To See
If nothing else, these past few weeks have taught us the mega-importance of proper hand washing technique. Celebrities have been serenading us as they scrub to draw awareness to the subject, new memes highlighting 30-second clips of popular songs crop up every day, and now, Good Eats's Alton Brown is giving us a curt but appropriate lesson about how to properly wash your hands—and why it's so (you guessed it) important.
The video tutorial, which was posted on Alton's YouTube channel, starts off with the science-loving chef wearing a lab coat and standing in front of a chalk board. On the board, he explains the makeup of soap and why it's better for fighting disease than, say, a pump of hand sanitizer. He uses a bunch of facts to back this up—and you should absolutely watch the short video for yourself to get all of the information in a conversational, somewhat lighthearted way.
"A virus, like coronavirus, is protected by a kind of coat made of fat-like substances, and soap's amphiphiles can literally take hold of that coat and pull it away," Alton says at one point during the lesson. "Leaving the virus feeling naked and afraid. And mostly dead!"
After his mini science lesson, Alton goes over to his sink, pulls out a bar of soap and paper towels, and turns on the water. He emphasizes the importance of washing for 30 seconds. First, he turned on the water to wet his hands before turning off the water so he could lather his already damp hands with the bar of soap for a count of five seconds.
For the next five-second count, he suggests putting down the bar of soap and just rubbing the sudsy hands together before moving on to scrubbing the back of your hands for five seconds per hand. After scrubbing the backs, he curls his fingers to get the nails of each hand for five seconds per hand, then finishes it off by getting in between the fingers for a last five second count.
At the end, Alton rinses the soap off his hands for another good five seconds before drying them off thoroughly with a disposable towel. Then to bring it all home in a true, weird, Alton way, he pretended to cut off his hands and throw them in the dishwasher...which we obviously do not suggest. The washing hands for 30+ seconds, though? That we're totally on board with.
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