Do you want germs with that?
As a kid I grew up with having to wash my hands before dinner, like most normal households. I saw nothing wrong with that, washing off possible dirt and bacteria that could maybe make me sick; or even worse, making someone else sick. It also teaches children good manners and that hygiene is important, especially around food.
When I studied to work in the food industry hygiene was part of my curriculum for two years. What we learned was somewhat scary, as you basically learned how easy it can be to contaminate food and risking food poisoning a whole restaurant by making one simple mistake.
Sadly some find it excessive to follow the same guidelines at home. Why is that? Isn’t it important to see to it that your family doesn’t get sick?
Lately I have read a few articles citing medical research that shows there is no correlation between a strong immune system and playing in (or eating) dirt. You can wallow in filth as much as you want, you will not get a stronger immune system; it is actually more likely to make you sick though.
The same research shows that being too hygienic will not have negative effect on your immune system. Those who get a poorer immune system due to a too hygienic environment get it because of the chemicals used to clean the house.
During the swine flu scare most countries encouraged people to wash their hands more often and be more careful with what they touched. This actually resulted in a dramatic drop in sick leave and people catching the common cold.
Interesting isn’t it, we become a bit more aware of being hygienic and infectious diseases drop.
Food for thought?
Let us not forget that when simple hygiene was introduces in medical care, back in the old days, infection and death rate dropped dramatically.
If just washing our hands before we eat and after we have been outside helps reduce the spreading of the common cold and other illnesses, why are you looked upon as a crazy person when you say you want to wash your hands before you handle food? Why is it seen as “normal” to want to eat food with dirty hands? Have I missed a meeting, where they informed us that spreading germs and being sick is cool?
I’m sorry, but I prefer to be clean and healthy than spreading germs and being sick.
All in moderation of course, being too obsessed with being clean is not good, but being too dirty is not good for you either. Use commonsense.
Also, don’t forget there are people who have been born with a weaker immune system, so they have to be careful. It doesn’t make them crazy, they are just a bit more careful as the wrong infection might kill them.
