https://phys.org/news/2018-07-cooking-oil-coating-bacteria-food.html

They found that this solution resulted in a 1,000x reduction in bacterial levels inside the industrial machines tested. Their work is recently published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

"Coating a stainless steel surface with an everyday cooking oil has proven remarkably effective in repelling bacteria," says Hatton who collaborated on the project with AGRI-NEO, an Ontario seed processing company looking for a solution to a common problem in its industry. "The oil fills in the cracks, creates a hydrophobic layer and acts as a barrier to contaminants on the surface."