Americans should have more poop in their diets, writes a doctor at Slate. Like superbugs and anti-bacterial products, we’ve become too successful at cleansing our food supply of all manner of contaminants—so that kids, for example, “have zero experience with routine gut infections, and when they encounter one that has slipped past our pipes and filters, the result can be catastrophic.”
A secondary problem is that the current trend toward a more nutritious, “natural” food supply, combined with modern distribution networks, means one bad batch of spinach or frozen patties can end up on tables all over the country.
Why is this public-health problem so difficult to solve? This is America, after all, replete with wondrously harsh chemicals that can kill anything. Why can’t we scrub away the bacteria our guts don’t get along with?Maybe we are taking the wrong approach. Rather than trying to make our food and water ever cleaner, we should focus instead on making sure it’s dirty enough to assure our good health.
Rather than frantically throwing money at new ways to eradicate the pathogens that reside in shit, we should fund the boring scientists who focus on untangling the intricacies of the gut’s immune system. Labs, answer this: How much shit can we safely eat and, as importantly, how much must we eat to remain healthy?
Oh, and good morning.
“Eat Crap” [Slate]
(Photo: makelessnoise)
More From Consumerist
-
Health Care Is Getting So Expensive, Young Adults Would Rather Just Skip It
-
Lawsuit Claims Dollar Rent A Car Charged Customers For Options They Specifically Declined
-
Optometrist Knows I Want To Buy Contacts Online, Won't Give Me My Prescription
-
More Uninsured Americans Not Filling Prescriptions, Delaying Doctor's Visits, Skipping Medical Procedures
-
If You Haven’t Seen Your Doctor In A Few Years, Expect To Pay ‘New Patient’ Fee
I have to eat lots of shit at work everyday.
Does that count?
well i don’t feel as bad now for putting a little piece of pooh in my coworkers chilli. as it turns out i was doing them a favor. lol
Sh1t. The other white meat.
Fecal bacteriotherapy: [en.wikipedia.org]
A rare steak isn’t a danger for Bacteria, beef is dense enough that the bacteria is only on the outside of the meat, so you aren’t strengthening your immune system or eating live ecoli in a steak.
Hamburger on the other hand, since it is ground, the bugs get all throughout the meat.
The main issue I think, is that we focus our energies on the bugs that don’t matter, the stuff on your hands from playing on the slide, or just general living bugs. The stuff in our meat is pretty nasty though, caused by throwing off the PH of a cows stomach, then getting the shit on the meat during the careless slaughtering process. We should be fixing that step in process, not trying to sanitize every thing in our lives.
This is pretty much in line with how I’ve thought of it. I mean, I clean things, but I don’t constantly clean and sterilize everything in sight. And guess what? I get sick once every3-4 years at most. Sure, I might get the occasional head cold or something that sucks for a few days, but when I say sick, I mean knocked the HELL down, laid out in bed for days sick. I havn’t used a sick day for actually being sick in over two and a half YEARS at this point. havn’t had but one Flu shot in about 5 years now, and never gotten the flu in that time. Heck, the flu shot, apparantly, doesn’t improve your odds, according to the doctors that have studied it…
George Carlin is entirely right, Freaky Styley, the system needs practice.
There’s a theory floating around there that nail biting is an evolved trait meant to introduce bacteria into the body to strengthen the immune system. It’s an interesting concept, to be sure, but there was little evidence to support it. Mainly, I just use it as a justification for my own badly-chewed fingers.
@Rahnee: QFT. Give me one of your steaks, please…sounds delicious.
Gotta agree here, we’re really become way too obsessive about cleaning. The boy and I made a promise to each other that we’re not going to be those parents that are using anti-bacterial everything. You gotta get sick sometimes to build up those immunities!
Good article and like most people’s comments I agree with it. I’m all about keeping our hospitals and similar places SUPER clean, but jeeze we are chipping away at our natural immunity.
Of course normal handwashing and basic sanitary steps keep us from getting too funky!
I totally understand the need to be clean…I personally would not step within 10 feet of a person who hasn’t showered in a minimum of 2 days. I had a roommate in college who didn’t bathe, didn’t see the reason to do it…she wasn’t taught that basic hygiene was important. And when she did go to the shower, the soap would stay in the room. All she did was try to rinse the stink off, but the stink was still there. I’m pretty sure that the combination of stink and water made it worse, as a disgusting mold smell started to linger around her closet. We eventually got her moved to a different room, but it was a hellish 4 months.
Point being? Showers are awesome.
Aside from that, if a kid falls down and scrapes his knee, yes apply the Neosporin, but don’t get into a tizzy thinking junior is going to contract flesh eating diseases from licking trees or eating an ant.
Make people eat the Frito bake at school.
I don’t think germs can develop resistance to hand sanitizer (i.e. alcohol gel). The jury is still out on “anti-bacterial” soaps AFAIK (studies are still under way) but ethyl alcohol is not antibiotic.
Nah, make people eat the 3rd-day-in-a-row tacos at school.
I blame antibacterial surface cleansers. I’ve read that they actually are bad because they leave a residue that the .01 percent of germs that they don’t kill grow on and then you end up with superbugs.
@RandomHookupI think you’ve more or less hit the nail on the head here. US child mortality rates (live birth to five years) in the early 1900s were about 20%. That’s one in five that would not survive to kindergarten. It’s not so much that lysol, antibiotics etc are letting us raise pansies, they’re keeping us from burying them. That said, my kid eats dirt all the time, just like I did.
@Eyebrows McGee: I’m ten years out from my camp days (in the black fly belt of the Adirondacks, no less) and my mosquito immunity is still about 90% intact. The things can swarm my wife but they just don’t land on me.
I grew up eating daily fast food, and TONS of Mexican food (from dives in Santa Ana). My sanitary habits are also lacking. Salmonella infections pop up every 1-2 years, each less severe than the last. The only antibiotics I take are Jack, Cuervo, and Stoli.
I think my germophobia died sometime during the many years of Boy Scouts I went through. There’s only so much sanitation you can carry with you.
If you’re really interested in eating more feces, head on over to 31 flavors. When I worked there back in HS the local mice would snack on the ice cream cones, and leave chocolate sprinkles. Management wouldn’t let us toss the cones. . . .
@Hambriq:
I think there’s also a similar theory about kids picking their noses and eating it. The germs get caught in the boogers and then get very weak or die, then eating the boogers introduces the weakened germs to the system where your white blood cells can figure out how to kill them without having to worry about infection and such. It’s like a free vaccine.
I think the comments are more entertaining then then actual article. The free vaccine via boogers is a keeper for sure…
The boy and I made a promise to each other that we’re not going to be those parents that are using anti-bacterial everything. You gotta get sick sometimes to build up those immunities!
The funny thing is that out of my group of cousins and friends, my daughter is the one who gets sick the least, and is the one who isn’t encased in a sterile environment. Before she turned a month old, I encouraged her family members to wash their hands or use antibacterial wipes before carrying her. After that, it was open season. And you know what? She’s 2 1/2 and has been sick, really sick, just once. I also don’t seek antibiotics at the first sign of an ear infection, since I’ve read/been told that doctors over-prescribe that. And she’s had two ear infections, and both have lasted less than 48 hours.
@SayAhh:
Ummm… I agree with everyone that anti-bacterial products are way overused, but the point of the flu shot is to expose you to the virus so your immune system can “practice” against it. You’re not doing yourself any favors by avoiding it (especially as far as SARS is concerned).
Um, so they’re saying that the guys who don’t wash their hands after using the restroom are doing us a favor?
Um, no thanks. I’ll keep washing my hands and giving the skunk-eye to those who don’t.
@informer:
Shoot, no favors? If I get the flu shot, I will get sick. If I don’t get it, I have a pretty darned good chance of not catching it. Maybe working in a pharmacy has strengthened my immune system after all; I can’t remember the last time I was genuinely sick. I even avoided the cold from hell that every single one of my coworkers got this year.
I feel like Superman.