Bacteria everywhere!

16 years ago

My 7 year old grandson refused to sit on a chair because there were some food rests from yesterday on it. A couple of Frito chips and a cheese puff. I told him to throw them in the trash. He refused, "This is dirty old food, full of bacteria, I'm not going to touch it" he said. I called his 2 year old brother over who promptly ate the stuff. "Do you think he is going to die now?" I asked the older one.

His family in Orange County, California is clean beyond belief. They would never think of drinking tap water, left over food stays in the fridge for a couple of days and then is tossed unless I get to it first and take it for myself or my dogs. Watching him eat an apple is a trip. He washes it with water first, then dries it off and sprays it with Veggie Spray. Then it is dried a second time and is now ready for human consumption. When he gets older I plan to drop him off in the middle of Haiti and have him make his way to the coast before he is rescued.

Our body is made up of approximately 3 trillion cells and has 9 times as many bacteria, viruses, protozoans, fungi or molds on it. That's a cool 27 trillion, more than even our national deficit. Our stool is 50% E Coli by mass. They, by the way, produce 1/2 of the Vit K we need each day.

I remember when, as kids, we used to drink from a garden hose and share a bottle of Coke between several of us without suffering fatal side effects. My daugther gets a wipee and cleans off the handle of her shopping cart as she enters a store. What is she afraid of? When she looks at her kitchen counter, she doesn't see a counter top, she sees a teeming mass of bacteria shaped like a counter top.

Why is everyone so petrifies of bacteria? They make up more than half of the biomass of the entire planet and we could not live without them.

Nick

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Comments (6)

arthurm
16 years ago
No one in my immediate family is afraid of germs. The Dragon woman was once a tidyness freak. A slobby huband and two slobby children have cured her.

As for Germs they are keeping the ex-resident boffin employed. He was over in Seattle the other week at a micro biologists conference, his speciality is methane producing bacteria.

My pet hate is the bottle of pure water. I can remember the rain water tank that contained dirt from the roof and various animals. That was the only water we had and baths were rare.
The only long term effect of all that poverty is that my pearly whites are not film star quality.
stitzelweller
16 years ago
Nick & Arthur,

Back in olden times, my mother (b. 1919) and her sisters grew up on a FARM in Colorado. They had the usual dairy animals common to the Depression years PLUS a canine kennel (professional). They maintained that getting "dirty" was healthy.

I agree. We washed ourselves before supper at the family table.

What do I know? Except for my youngest aunt, born in 1936, all of the rest are dead.

--Stitz--
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westoh Z6
16 years ago
Nick,

Like most things nowadays IMO, we've been brainwashed to believe that things/ways are 'bad' so we will buy thier 'good' product. Be it Purell, bottled water, clean-wipes, etc...

Shoot my sisters and I rode bikes without helmets (the other kids would have made fun anyhow, beings football/baseball helmets were all there was to the best of my memory), I swam without floaties, we walked to/from school, I ate dog food a time or two, I had chores starting when I was 6 to earn my allowance, I took a bath once or twice a week in the summer (that was what summer swimming was for :-)), T-ball my ass: they pitched baseballs to you when you were just a young-in back in the 60's, etc, etc, etc...

Kind of miss all that living dangerously ;-)

Bob
orchidnick
Original Author
16 years ago
Most of us survived the area of no seat belts, no air bags, riding in the back of a pick-up (whooo-hoo), eating fruits of a tree, skiing without helmets, getting whacked by out parents for misbehaving, breaking bones, getting cuts and bruises without lawsuits resulting from this etc,etc.

Granted, I know of one of my high school class mates who died smashing his head on a tree while skiing in Banff and a few more dying in car accidents. Maybe seat belts, air bags and helmets would have prevented that. I'm not against progress and safety but find the fear of anything resembling dirt ridiculous.

We were sitting around a table with chips, salsa and guacamole waiting for a football game to start, I was eating the above. My son's puppy smelled the goddies on my fingers and started licking them. I stopped the puppy but DID NOT IMMEDIATELY GO TO THE BATHROOM TO WASH MY HANDS!!! I continued eating the chips etc. My superclean daughter was so grossed out that she stopped eating. The puppy later on licked his private parts then rolled around the floor with the grand children licking them. All part of life, nothing wrong with any of it.

Nick
arthurm
16 years ago
So the ex-resident boffin left home, lived in grunge, and finally found a soul mate who has a PHD in (in think) fungi.

They do not worry about germs and fungi at all and they continue to live in grunge.

We live with three cats and when you think about it they must be covered with bacteria.... all that licking to achieve a clean appearance is a sham. Thinking about your last paragraph Nick leads me to the conclusion that maybe there is a fortune to be made in some sort of de-germing powder for pets.
kwmackdog
16 years ago
all the post are too funny and too tru, LMAO

i remember the infection control specialist of our hospital ending an in-service by pleading with the health professionals to please allow their children and themselves to get dirty (it stimulates the immune system) and do away with those gel sanitizers(which allow the strongest bugs to survive) in favor of good handwashing using whatever soap is handy.
modern society seems to forget that just a few generations ago we were living in caves.
most anti bacterials are just a massive marketing scam.

1 tbs. of clorox in a qt of water is enough to kill just about everything.
the new cleaners based on hydrogen peroxide have very little odor and are highly effective.
most homes are not hospital environments and don't really need "super bug killers" at all.