Dishwasher Mystery

Emily:

So, for a while now I have seen little white specks on my dishes when they come out of the washer. I thought it was the type of dishwashing soap we use, so I went to Costco and grabbed some ultra-sized Cascade gel.

The white specks will NOT disappear. I just ran a load through the dishwasher. When it was finished, I put all the dishes away. Just as I was closing the dishwasher, I saw a wooden spoon that had somehow fallen down to the bottom of the machine. I reached in to grab it. This is what met my eyes:

See that crusty stuff EVERYWHERE?!

I nearly died. After many deep breaths - okay, hyperventilation - I thought the mystery through. How did crusty nastiness appear inside my dishwasher? I am very good about rinsing all of our dishes before loading them inside the machine. Were these the crusty bones of perhaps somebody's (Devan's) neglect to properly rinse before loading? Or is there something more sinister going on?

My opinion is that there are four real possibilities:

* We live in an area with about the hardest water in the world. These are mineral deposits from three years of usage.

* The dishwashing soap companies are all against us and have teamed up with dishwashing machine making companies to screw us out of more money by eventually having the things malfunction because of the soap deposits.

* Devan has been doing too much dishwasher loading.

* Our dishes are slowly disintegrating.

If you are a dishwasher expert, please tell me how to get rid of this stuff! Do I use more soap, or is soap the problem? Do I take a razor to the crusty areas to chip it away?

Which of these options do you think is happening?