Dr. Mercola March 04 2008 302,552 views
Exposure to bacteria is highly important to maintain a healthy immune function. The more you protect yourself from such things, the weaker your immune system is going to be. The funniest part of the video was her reference to the lemon slice being like it was dumped into raw meat. I eat raw meat every day, it is most of my diet, and I am rarely ever ill! Many people on a raw meat diet go out of their way to expose themselves to bacteria, viruses, etc., to maintain a strong immune system. It is like a rose that has been protected from other plants, it will eventually loose it's thorns. One thing you do not want to do, is loose your immune system, due to a lack of environmental challenges! He who lives in a bubble, is destined to stay there!
Thank heavens for some sense from ShadowMyth. We live in an ecosystem teaming with bacteria and we are are adapted to deal with it. Americans seem positively psychotic about 'cleanliness' and look at the state of their health ! It's a shame to see this bonkers paranoia on this website. Dr. Mercola's comments are right though even he, I see, has a bit of this American cleanliness phobia. Eat wholesome, organic, fresh food, exercise and stay away from chemicals we are not adapted to dealing with and trust your body to deal with the natural world.
Here in France our open markets selling cheese, meats, vegetables and all kind of produce are probably teaming with far more bacteria than your nutty biologist has ever seen but even the hypochondriac French don't worry about it and they are a lot healthier than most Americans. The big problem in France is not our bacteria covered food but protecting the young from the allure of American junk food.
Yeah. You're right. But fecal matter! Eeew!
Why does every negative in France become easily something grand and every wonderful thing in the US become so evil to the French? It is disgusting to have germs on your food. No matter where you live.
Keep your children away from American JUNK food. Give them wine and champagne instead. I read that is considered great in your country.
It's quite easy, here in America we choose what we want our children to eat.
Absolutely right on ShadowMyth. Just a few days ago I read "Cancer and the Bacterial Connection" on this very site !!!
Although I use only organic lemons that I scrub well at home, I always order a pot of hot water with lemon slices when I dine out, and will continue doing so. I am not in the least concerned about ingesting natural, live bacteria but it does bother me that my food is contaminated with all manner of chemicals; from the field, to the bins, to the processing plants, to the stores, to the kitchens, to the table. Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, fertilizers, anti-bacterial cleansers, sterilizers, stabilizers, etc are all totally foreign to our bodies.
Give me a good dose of bacteria that my body is programmed to deal with any day.
Just think about traveling to Mexico, they say do not drink the water and never order a salad, peel all fruits. Montezuma's revenge they talk about all the time. That is from bacteria in food and water. We definately need the health department aware of this to look for that as much as they test the warmth of the food and look for vermin.
I think this is the same girl who found the bacteria in the self serve ice machine. She tested the bathroom toilet water and it was cleaner than the ice in most fast food retaurants.
well said ;
I always try to stay away from people who are scared of bacteria and mass media
whose best news is always about the carefully prepared ,fake bacteria "outbreak"; I am sure pretty soon military/industrial/pharma gonna come up with the new anti lemon bacteria vaccine -_- to me this video is a worthless fda/msm piece
Sunknee, the reason Americans (and others) get sick from bacteria in Mexico is because they have no resistance - possibly even compromised immune systems. The locals don't get it! It can more likely be blamed on the overuse of antibacterial countertop sprays in the US (and England).
In the UK we talk of 'Spanish Tummy', and it makes me wonder if there are elements in the Spanish/Hispanic diet that might take some adjustment? Anyone?
When an international symposium of top gastro-enterologists was held in Mexico, guess which ones got the gutrot? That's right: the American ones. And who should know better how to avoid it?!
Loveriot, that's fecal bacteria, not fecal matter!
As in, for example, gut flora? Bacteria that naturally colonise the human gut are the least of our worries in a restaurant.
sunknee - there appears to be a glitch in the system as I gave you a thumbs up for your post but it's displayed as a minus.
At any rate, I'll just make the comment that this report is not surprising and that's why I generally stay away from restaurants. Not that I'm one to be fear-mongered into washing my hands 50x a day and subjecting myself to vaccines to protect my health by following the medical industry's mantra. I would just rather know what I'm putting into my body. (if that's possible these days).
We have to put this article into perspective and think about how many surfaces laden with germs and bacteria we come into contact every day, especially when out in the public. The air we breathe must hold trillions of bacterial particulate that could be potentially health threatening. As Louis Pasteur stated in his most memorable final words, "The microbe is nothing. The terrain is everything."
Loveriot... fecal bacteria are everywhere. Consider a household that owns a cat!! How much fecal bacteria must be carried around on their little paws? And... cats tend to have access to every surface in the home. Studies have shown though that children who are raised with pets and therefore exposed to higher levels of bacteria, are generally healthier... have stronger immune systems.
Well not really because there are bacterias that we need in our bodies to fight off other bacterias but fecal matter and not washing your hands is not one of them.
Nice one shadowmyth! How on Earth did humans survive for the last 10000 years, or ever for that matter with all this bacteria around us? Sometimes I think hmmm... health terrorism??
sunknee, you need to do a better job with the way you make comments.
LadyPam, certain exposures to new bacteria can cause you to get sick -- it's not [necessarily] due to a compromised immune system. Once you get adjusted to the new surroundings your body adapts.
Yeah ShadowMyth,
I too believe that our immune systems are designed to be exposed to lots of bacteria. There is certainly some research suggesting that keeping our immune systems 'busy' fighting off real germs keeps it from creating things like asthma and allergies.
I always look at dogs and cats who do things like eat bacteria laden feces and drink water from the gutter. As gross as it is, we don't see our dogs getting 'colds and flu' all the time. They are extraordinarily healthy creatures with massively strong immune systems.
I believe that OUR immune systems are designed to be just as strong. So why aren't they? Why do WE get sick if we drink out of the gutter? Because we 'coddle' our immune system and make it weak.
If we let our kids play in the dirt, then adults would have immune systems as strong as a dog's immune system.
I was reading James Mitchner's book, "Caravan" years ago. The main character was talking to an Afgani man who was talking about the average lifespan of an Afgani. He said that the lifespan was misleading because of a high infant mortality rate.
Because their drinking water comes from a central canal that people dump feces and other waste into, if a child lived past the age of 2 or 3, then they generally lived to be 100 because they never caught any diseases.
While I wouldn't want to risk high childhood mortality rates to improve the general immune system of the population, you get the point I'm sure.
Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune System Queen!
Functional Medicine Practitioner
I never watch anything about the "shocking" number of bacteria found anywhere because it's based on the silly, false assumption that a big number of bacteria is bad and I fail to understand why people keep ignoring ShadowMyth's unassailable assertion that exposure to bacteria is highly important to maintain a healthy immune system. I lived in Egypt for 2 years and travelled in other third world countries eating from anywhere and everywhere. The only time I got sick was in my own home when I drank milk that I'd bought from a vendor on a donkey. I had been told to boil the milk but realised when I was sick for 6 hours after that I'd only brought the milk to boiling point and hadn't boiled it properly.
Think on this: we have 10 times as many bacterial cells in our body than human cells. The quote below is from Scientific American - www.sciam.com/article.cfm
We compulsively wash our hands, spray our countertops and grimace when someone sneezes near us—in fact, we do everything we can to avoid unnecessary encounters with the germ world. But the truth is we are practically walking petri dishes, rife with bacterial colonies from our skin to the deepest recesses of our guts.
All the bacteria living inside you would fill a half-gallon jug; there are 10 times more bacterial cells in your body than human cells, according to Carolyn Bohach, a microbiologist at the University of Idaho (U.I.), along with other estimates from scientific studies. (Despite their vast numbers, bacteria don't take up that much space because bacteria are far smaller than human cells.) Although that sounds pretty gross, it's actually a very good thing.
The infestation begins at birth: Babies ingest mouthfuls of bacteria during birthing and pick up plenty more from their mother's skin and milk—during breast-feeding, the mammary glands become colonized with bacteria.
After working in restaurants for a few years before returning to school, this video really just annoys me beyond belief. Yes, for immune compromised people, it can pose a risk, but then again, going out in a public supermarket could cause the same type of risk. This video is absolutely inflammatory and scares people without giving them the full story. The organism for causing staph infections is NORMALLY found on the average person's skin. If cross contamination from meat had happened, it would have caused food poisoning and there would've been a story about that by now. Also, who says those lemons are clean when they get to the restaurant? You can blame it on the waitstaff for not washing their hands, but quite honestly, they are held to health department standards. The migrant workers that PICK the lemons most definitely are NOT. That's where the bacteria may very well be originating from.
Regardless, there has never been a case (and you can be sure it would have been well publicized if there had been) of somebody contracting a disease from a lemon. Even at the end of this video, it says "be careful", not "do not ever put restaurant lemons in your drink again."
If you are immune compromised, you need to be careful.
This germophobia for the rest of the population is out of control though, and my firm belief, is that the skyrocketing of allergies and sensitivities of today's children are a direct result of it.
The hype attributed to these stories is really just downright ANNOYING.
jaclynv,
It would be hard to figure out if it was the lemon in the drink that made you ill since people rarely just have the water/tea. You almost always have a dinner, etc and would probably blame the illness on something else. As a person who has gotten EXTREMELY ill twice in my life from rest. food, I find the article informative.
flaxgirl,
Sneezing and bacteria are 2 different subjects. As a person who works with imuno-compromised elderly, I have to grimice when someone sneezing towards me. That means that I may have to call off work to keep from exposing them until I either get ill or I don't get ill. They can't afford to be exposed and I would feel terrible if I caused them to get sick. It could be the difference between life and death for some. I am the one who used hand sanatzr constantly, won't touch a shopping cart or handrail and insists on many handwashes.
I have to 100% agree. In fact, my DH just retrained on health and sanitation per Texas regulations (he's a restaraunt mgr). They are taught that most cases of food borned illnesses orginates from home cooking and cross contaminated surfaces. Whether or not, at least with the restaraunts he's worked with, their standards have been very high.
Once, a local report was done on their tea dispenser, which had a high bacterial count (several in the area were tested, and not all fared well). The report did do some good, and the company implemented new cleaning procedures.
So I think it's a good idea to test...but you need local tests at your local stores. No need to get scared.
And yes, it is always best to eat at home...assuming you know to wash your fruits and veggies and not to cut them up after you use your cutting board for meat.
I'd rather have some nutritious, protein-rich bacteria than a shot of SOAP or PLASTIC (from the 'protective' gloves they could use)
I just want to point out that it is unlikely lemons are cut on the same board as meat. Lemons are cut at the bar by the bartenter. Meat is cut in the kitchen by the prep-cook.
I agree with the last commernt. There's bacteria on everything and that's just the way it is. I strongly suspect they're calling some common type of bacteria "fecal" bacteria when it's also common elsewhere... I wouldn't be surprised if it's common in all fruit we get when it's not so fresh anymore these days.
Our ancestors carried rotting meat on the back of a horse and put a little salt on it to make it taste good if they were lucky enough to have some. I'm sure they're rolling in their graves at what a bunch of whining sissies we've become.
I've worked at restaurants and a reasonable amount of care generally goes into the handling of the food. More care than you would take at home. No... the food isn't sterilized and transported from the farm to your plate on beams of light... The sanitizing agent they don't rinse off of glasses that the guy below is crying about is water and just enough chlorine to be effective against germs. It evaporates quickly and they put it in our drinking water anyway unless you have a well.
Chlorine is very nasty stuff and many regulars on this site filter it out of their drinking water. Also, why on earth would you need to chlorinate glass-rinsing water if they are clean? I have also worked in the industry and the water they use for rinsing, or quick cleaning (as in many European bars), contains a non-foaming detergent to remove grease (lipstick!) and leave the glasses streak-free. It's much the same stuff as rinse aid in the dishwasher, which also remains on the surfaces.
Has anybody tried just running a dishwasher hot, without detergent or rinse aid? I don't have one anymore. Adding vinegar to the final rinse (as I do in the washing machine, instead of fabric conditioner) would aid spot-free drying.