DARE TO COMPARE: Dish Towel Vs. Plastic Wrap

Every day I am looking for different ways to save money, save time or save my sanity and then pass on what I've learned to you my readers.  This past weekend I made my Best-Ever Banana Bread (I've shared the recipe here) and placed a dish towel over it as I always do.  My Husband asked why I didn't use plastic wrap.  I'd never really thought about it.  It just seemed the right thing to do.  So I began to wonder...

The Idea: To replace plastic wrap with dish towels.  This would be a MONEY SAVER and help out the environment with less plastic ending up in our land fills (thus adding to my peace of mind and satisfying my environmentalist's heart).
I had learned from my Husband in a previous dish-towel-experiment that a damp dish towel can have more effect then a dry one.  So I experimented with my Best-Ever (Award Winning!) Banana Bread and a bowl of veggies.  Why a bowl?  I'll explain later.  I chose baked goods and cut veggies since I decided that these were the items most likely to be plastic wrapped.  At least in my fridge.

The How-To:
Experiment #1:  Three slices of Banana Bread (Best-Ever!) on three identical plates.  One plate covered with a dry dish towel.  One plate covered with a damp dish towel.  And one with good ol' plastic wrap (I use the cheap kind from a big box store).  I left the three covered plates on the counter for 24 hours.  To be truly scientific I would have also had a "control" plate that was banana bread without anything covering it.  But I think we can all agree that that piece of banana bread would be as hard as a rock after sitting out 24 hours uncovered.  In the interest of my stomach, as I was planning on eating all of the banana bread I was experimenting with, I decided against a "control".  Trust me.  This is one banana bread you don't want to waste any slices of!  Read "The Results" below to find out what happened.

Experiment #2: I chose four veggies (that I had on hand) of differing textures: mushrooms, spinach, carrots, and celery.  Since three of the four wilt rather quickly when left uncovered I thought they would be good choices.  I sliced all four and placed them in a bowl as I found the plates (used in Experiment #1) allowed the covering to touch the food which might affect the results.  All the slices came from the same vegetable with a selection taken from different parts of the vegetable.  Just to keep it all scientific.  Again I used a dry dish towel on one bowl, a damp dish towel on the second and plastic wrap on the third.  I placed all three wrapped bowl on the same shelf in my fridge for 24 hours.  The plastic wrapped bowl ended up in the middle because I was sure the damp dish towel would get the dry dish towel damp too.  And I didn't need two damp dish towel coverings.

The Results: 

Experiment #1: The dry dish towel did cause the banana bread to dry out around the edges.  It was hard but not too hard to eat.  The plastic wrap kept the  banana bread moist but it was still dryer than "freshly sliced".  The damp dish towel made the banana bread more moist than when it was first cut!  This was by far the best of the three but the towel had been in contact with the bread.  I'm not sure that the banana bread would have been as moist if it hadn't been touching the damp dish towel.  My family nominated me to finish the dried out banana bread while they ate the other two slices.  It was experiment that dried out the slice after all.

Experiment #2: Not surprisingly the damp dish towel ended up being a dry dish towel by the end of the experiment.  If I did it again I would recommend re-dampening after 12 hours.  The plastic wrap did best at keeping all the crisp veggies crisp but the mushrooms were discoloured and limp.  The dry dish towel allowed the veggies to become the most wilted but not so much as be inedible.  They were still crisp when bitten or bent but not as crisp as those covered by the plastic wrap.  The mushrooms (surprisingly) were a better colour and more crisp than the plastic wrap.  The damp dish towel (my new favorite!) kept the veggies crisper than the dry dish towel but still very edible.  The mushrooms were amazing!  It was like the mushrooms had just been freshly cut. 

I think the results are clear.  We will now chose to cover our food with a damp dish towel instead of plastic wrap.  I'm tired of fighting with that darn plastic wrap box anyway!

Note: this is not recommended for cheese, eggs, butter, meat or any other animal product.

These products need to be kept air tight to prevent bacteria growth. 

Please store them accordingly.

The Cost:
The plastic wrap I buy (the cheapest I can find) is $2.49 for 30m but I priced out the expensive stuff and you can pay as much as $4.77 a roll.  We never really used much plastic wrap in our home.  I would buy maybe one roll every two months.

 For us that's a savings of $16.88 per year.  

Not bad.  I'm not adding the cost of washing or buying the towels.  I already owned the dish towels used to experiment with and I would just add them to pile of kitchen laundry I already do once a week.  Now if you used the expensive stuff and you used it ALOT (like one roll a month) you could save much much more. 

$64.68 to be exact!

You be the judge.

Would you switch from plastic wrap to a damp dish towel?

Leave me a comment below or send me an email.