America Is Torn by a Dishwasher Divide

In an Atlantic essay, Ellen Cushing writes about the divide in American households over the dishwasher. She notes a well-circulated line on the subject that sums things up: "In every relationship, there's one person who loads the dishwasher like a Scandinavian architect, and one who loads it like a raccoon on meth." Cushing has long been in the raccoon camp, and the essay recounts her quest to rectify that. Spoiler alert: By the end, she refers to the dishwasher as a "miracle" after learning how the machine—and its detergent—actually work, along with some basics about loading it properly. It's essential, for example, to know where the water jets are in your particular model, which, yes, requires reading and heeding the actual manual.

One big problem is that "everyone thinks the way they grew up loading the dishwasher is correct," she writes, but things have changed. In the 2000s, for example, "we switched from phosphate detergent to enzymatic detergent, which works like a little Pac-Man, eating dirt and making room for the soap to do its job." Meaning: "Rinsing isn't necessary," except for stubborn fatty proteins such as peanut butter or eggs. Generally, just scrape leftover food in the trash and skip the faucet. In fact, an editor at Better Homes and Gardens tells her that "if you don't leave a little bit of food for these enzymes, you run the risk of it starting to break down other materials"—like your dishes. (Read the full essay, which delves into some bigger-picture ideas about the appliance's role in our lives.)