According to "Is the toilet seat really the dirtiest place in the home?", Charlotte Pritchard says that the study of Dr Chuck Gerba, professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona, found that many household items have more bacteria, E.coli and staphylococcus aureus, than the toilet seat. John Oxford, professor of virology at the University of London and chair of the Hygiene Council says that we all touch dirty things which contain E.coli and other dangerous organism all the time; however, we do not get constantly ill because of our immune systems.
I agree with this article that we usually clean the toilet seat because we worry about the dirtiness of it. We've never realized that some appliances such as telephones are dirtier than the toilet seat as we've never cleaned them. Shopping trolleys and reusable shopping bags are really bad that we should beware of their cleanliness.
My mother and I always use the cleanliness level of a toilet as an indicator which indicate the cleanliness of food in the restaurant. We've never been to many restaurants again after we found that their toilet was very dirty. According to this article, Gerba also says that there are about 200 times bacteria on the average chopping board more than on the toilet seat. And also a kitchen sponge is 200,000 times dirtier than the toilet seat. So, our indicator is effective. However, Charlotte doesn't recommend us chopping food on the toilet seat. In some cases, I have to ignore the indicator because of the taste of food. For example, somtum on the street shop is always delicious than on the luxurious restaurant. As well as my choosy friend, she usually worries about the cleanliness of food, so she sets a lot of rules for the cleanliness of her food. She sometimes ignores her rules because she wants to try a long line food shop on the street.
Even I know that Charlotte doesn't recommend us chopping food on the toilet seat, but now I am still wondering about how dirty the chopping board in my house is. Should we actually chop a carrot on the toilet seat?
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I think that Thai people like us have a strong immunity to E.coli or S.aureus. It is a common bacteria that you can found everywhere in everything. I used to study Food microbiology which I investigated foods in my canteen. Surprisingly, I found a lot of it in foods and air room. My teacher taught in Parasitology said that Thailand is paradise of parasites.
ReplyDeleteYour idea sounds very interesting as I have never related a restaurant dirty toilet with its food before. When I have to make a decision, I only focus on taste and always ignore other conditions of the restaurant. When I was working, I was a regular customer of one roadside shop which provided me a lot of yummy menus. I remember that I had used the toilet there only one time as it was very dirty. However, I still had lunch at this shop almost every day. Now, I really miss that yummy food.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that someone decided to respond to this article. I liked the story when I read it a couple of days ago.
ReplyDeleteLike others, I have no problem with street food in Thailand. I'm careful, but the only times I've ever been sick from eating were at middle range restaurants, never after eating at a street shop, where I think the "yummy" food, as Apple rightly calls it, is freshly cooked and perfectly safe.
And I notice that the story also gives a good reason not to mess around with reusable shopping bags, but to stick with using new plastic bags all the time for groceries. I don't think we need to save the planet for disease causing bacteria.
I feel some guilty for chopping boards as a housewife cooking for family. The story is not constricted on only restaurants' chopping boards, but also yours. I learned many sanitary rules for keeping clean chopping boards: using different ones for different category food, regular scalding chopping boards, drying them perfectly, and so on. My negligence make me forget all these things. I have to buy new one.
ReplyDeleteOne more, about reusable shopping bags. I am happy with the plastic bags supplied when I'm shopping. In Korea, I had to prepare my own shopping bag for shopping, too stressful. When I moved here, I frantically collected these free plastic bags. Until now, I have been collecting plastic bags in my storage which are very useful. Guilty, but happy.
One of the dirtiest equipment in our household is keyboard and mouse! We seldom clean them and let germs grow on their surface. When we eat food, especially finger foods, in front of the computer, it is a chance to touch germs and get into our body. We are plausible to infect from them; in contrast, our bodies also produce antigen against them and keep our health still functions normally.
ReplyDeleteIt is the same way we get germs or dirty food from sidewalk stall, but other possibility, infection, is able to occur when our bodies are too weak to fight against bacteria or virus.
In hot and humid rainy season in Japan, many TV shows feature how to prevent food poisoning. I disinfect chopping boards and dish towels with boiling water or chemicals, keep ingredients in fridge or frozen, and eat only fresh cooked food as instructed on TV. Still, I am confident that I would be OK even if I eat something not perfectly clean. In my childhood, everything which surrounds me was not as clean as today. People didn't care much about cleanliness of food, kitchen, toilet, and so on. There were more food poisoning and more contagious disease. I also got some, and as a result I also got immunity. This is why I think I would be OK. I sometimes feel that people become too hygiene conscious today. Some researchers point out that too clean surrounding may cause allergy, from which many Japanese are suffering nowadays.
ReplyDeleteAs Air said, I also like street foods, yummy menu, They are cheap, delicious and fast. However, I have to be careful in Thailand, since I am a foreigner who has different immune response and system and I've had a bitter experience. While I was traveling Chiangmai, I got a stomachache after eating street food, and I had to rest on the bed for three days. Fever, vomiting and lethargy, these are all that I had at that time. I couldn't eat, walk and sleep at all. I thought I was going to die soon. After that, even though I like street foods, I hardly eat street foods. However, because there are various foods and delicious foods in the street wagon, I had to find safe street food. Finally, I find it that is a hot noodle. I don’t need to worry too much about bacteria, E. coli or other viruses. Why? It is very hot! If I can eat delicious foods, I can endure a little bit dirty and insanitary environment. There are yummy foods in Thailand.
ReplyDelete