A Little Knowledge a Dangerous Thing?

[Francesca]

I'm wondering if all this information we have about how to stay healthy is making us sicker than generations who didn't have all this knowledge. For example, we're told:

- Leftovers must be refrigerated promptly after 2 hours after it's cooked.

- Fridge and freezer must be kept at certain temperatures.

- We have to stick a thermometer in our food to ensure it's reached a certain internal temperature.

- We must wash our hands obsessively, and just washing isn't enough, now we have to also use hand sanitizer.

- Everything has to be sterilized especially if, God forbid, someone has a cold, so basic cleaning isn't good enough anymore, now everything we use has to be antibacterial/antiviral.

- Can't eat anything without checking the best before date.

The list goes on and on.

My grandparentsare both in their mid-90s and except for some hearing lost and a little arthritis, they're healthy - always have been. When they were young, like most everyone of their generation) they didn't have a fridge, or running water, and knew nothing about cross-contamination, etc. Yet they survived, and thrived, and nobody ever got sick - not from food poisoning, anyway.

My grandmother (and my mother too) still defrosts her chicken overnight on the kitchen counter, and then leaves that cooked chicken on the counter the whole day in case so they can pick at it throughout the day until it's gone. I have never seen my grandmother, or mother, sanitize the counter after handling raw meat on it. They just wipe it down with a soapy (not the antibacterial kind) sponge they use to wash the dishes, then rinse it with that same sponge, and that's it.

Both women don't even use soap to wash their hands after handling raw meat. They just wring their hands well under warm running tap water, dry their hands, and proceed to make a salad.

None of us have ever gotten sick. I don't remember anyone in my family ever having food poisoning.

Even when I was in highschool - nobody had a thermal lunch box and nobody had a frozen drink in their lunch to keep it cold. We just threw our tuna or egg salad sandwich in a paper bag, and kept it in our warm locker until lunch time, which would some days be as late as 2:00 pm. We didn't get sick.

I could give a million other examples of how people of previous generations do everything "wrong" and yet have somehow survived!

So I'm wondering if a little knowledge really is a dangerous thing because nowadays, everyone's so paranoid about germs, viruses, cross-contamination, best before dates, getting sick, etc.

But seriously.... what has changed NOW that, for example, makes food left out longer than 2 hours dangerous, when in my grandmother's generation, they used to keep leftovers in a drawer, eat it the next day, and be fine.

Is all this hypervigilence surrounding food and cleanliness really necessary? Or is it propaganda from the makers of everything antibacterial?

What do you think?

[olschesky]

i think about the same things........sounds like you grew up in my house....lol.....dinner sat out for hours.....didn't want to put hot or warm things in the fridge because the temp would go up in the fridge...lol. my mom also ate raw hamburger whenever she was making the patties.........my grandmother re=used tin foil that held meat......we all survived too with no fp......my mom is 85 and getting ready for a weekend in vegas....my grandmothers lived to be 95 and 98......so they obviously did things right

it is something to think about..

[sage]

I could totally relate to everything you said! Sounded just like my grandparents, and my mom. But I guess the thing is, it's a crap shoot. Some people must have gotten really really sick and maybe died. Even though most people didn't. We do have a pretty high life expectancy compared to countries that don't refridgerate and sterilize things....

[ann32]

i totally agree with you. I think about when I was younger, how I used to play, my hands were into everything and always in my mouth. I never ever got sick...EVER...I just dont get it...

[Francesca]

Well sure, I'm not saying that personal hygeine and overall cleanliness, refrigeration, etc, aren't good things. I'm just saying that maybe we've gone overboard, and this mentality is only making people like us much much worse, needlessly.

When I was in school, nobody ever washed their hands before eating. By the time lunch rolled around, we had all touched various door knobs, desk tops, pens, papers, used the bathroom, had gym class, sat on and touched the gym floor, etc... and then we'd grab our paper bagged lunch out of our locker and eat it. We didn't have hand sanitizer, wipes, and like I said, nobody washed their hands beforehand. I don't ever recall any norovirus going around or food poisoning. Sure, we got your run of the mill colds and things, but it's not like people started to spontaneously vomit all over the place.

Lately, it's reminding myself of this that's helped me make huge progress in overcoming emetophobia. I remind myself of the way I USED to be and realize that the world, and normal things in it like food and other people, are NOT the dangerous things this fear tells me they are.

[paintedwings]

I think this really depends too.
how much food was imported then? Most of their meat and produce was from a farm close by, run by families not big corporation in it for the money.
So when you got something it was pretty fresh. Not injected with chemicals to make it bigger and have more meat or bigger fruit. It was natural.
And how many people touched the food before it got to them, unlike now who knows where you're stuff has been before.


Some of that must effect or bodies somehow?

But you have to remember the more you wash the more you sterilize bacteria will become more resilient as well.

I dont know I doubt I will stop my compulsive ways lol but I do see the irony in it all

[mooki]

I think the answer is pretty simple. If you grew up from birth raised on food with that kind of hygiene standard, you won't get sick from it. You are immune to eating food with higher levels of bacteria count. It's the same reason people who live in the third world can drink the tap water and not be effected by it, but if our Western stomachs drank it, we'd be bent over the toilet seat for a few days.

I read a book as a kid about Eskimos, and they would eat rotted seal meat. In Iceland they have a food made from rotted shark. It just depends on if you grew up eating it and if your body has built up a tolerance to certain bugs.

[ann32]

Francessca I love what you said. I am not sure how old you are but I am 33 and when I was in school growing up I NEVER EVER washed my hands...actually the dittier the better. I always ate using my fingers and hands, licked my fingers, bit my nails, touched doors, escalator handles, elevator buttons etc...never had a stomach virus...still havent....maybe all of our precautions are getting us even more sick?

[jkl81]

I think we've gone too far with our hygiene with things like antibacterial soaps and hand sanitizers etc. I still think avoiding cross contamination, washing before a meal is important stuff. There exists a "hygiene hypothesis" that suggests our excessive hygiene may increase stuff like allergies and autoimmune disorders and we KNOW that overuse of antibiotics has contributed to the appearance of extremely drug resistant strains of bacteria. I seriously doubt our better food hygiene practices make us more vulnerable to food poisoning and SV though. One thing I'd like to know but probably never will is if stomach viruses were as prevalent when our parents and grandparents were coming along as they are now, worse or less prevalent. Back then people still got v* and d* illnesses but no one knew about norovirus until the Norwalk strain was isolated in Ohio in the 1970s(I think) we really couldn't even get down on the microbial level of viruses until fairly recently. Even with the 1918-19 swine flu pandemic the doctors of the day knew it was infectious but not that it was a virus.

[Francesca]

Good points everybody!

I'm 47....

JK your point about more allergies reminds me that when I went to school, I didn't know anyone with a peanut allergy. Today, schools, and most other places children frequent, have become peanut-free zones. SOMETHING is causing this, and while it probaby isn't any one thing, to quote a line from the movie Jarassic Park: Life always finds a way. So, the more we try to kill off viruses etc, the more they fight back to survive.

So maybe, yeah, of course we should use common sense and wash our hands before we eat and be careful with cross-contamination and food storage... but we shouldn't strive to live in a sterilized environment because that will probably kill us before it kills the germs.

Doctors also say that it's important for children to be exposed to natural things in their environment... like playing in dirt.... to build up their immune systems. Nowadays, so many young parents "anti-bacterialize" their kids to death... what's the result of this over-cleanliness? A generation of "delicate" children who cannot enjoy a peanut butter sandwich and catch every bug that goes around.