Safe Care Parenting

A Tale of Two Germs: The Country Microbe vs. The Big City Bug

Humans are funny about microbes and germs, as well we should be. Some of them are dangerous. As such, we launch antibacterial crusades in our kitchens, bedrooms, play areas, dining areas—you name it—often to the detriment of our immune systems.

The more obsessed we, as a species, have become with “clean” the more our immune systems have shifted away from fighting infections to developing more allergic predispositions.

Basically, overly sterile environments lead to higher rates of illnesses, particularly among children, so much so that when we—and they—do come in contact pollen, mold, animal dander and dust, the consequences can be disastrous. Add to that Petri dish smaller households with fewer children passing germs to one another and decreased outdoor playtime, over cleaning (hyper-sterilizing, we’ll tag it) has become the dangerous new epidemic.

Look. Soap serves its purpose; the more natural the better. But there’s something to be said for letting kids get their hands dirty, and that is:

The Tale of the Innocent Country Microbe…

In a study published online in The New England Journal of Medicine last month, researchers found that kids who grow up in environments that afford them a wide range of microbial exposures, such as traditional farms, are protected from childhood asthma and atopy.

Apparently, the chance that kids growing up on or near a farm developing asthma was reduced by up to 51 percent, particularly if there were any cows, pigs, and hay involved.

…vs. the Plotting of the Big City Bug

I was riding the B or D line—can’t remember which—into Manhattan one morning years ago, watching a twenty or thirty-something year-old immigrant mother feeding her toddler bits of banana. She dropped a piece on the surface of the subway car and, quite reasonably, left it there. The mother’s mother was with her and made a show of picking up the banana to feed it to her grandchild.

This, of course, did not go over well with her daughter and grandma proceeded to put the banana into her mouth, which had been on the floor for all of 1.35 seconds, and swallow it with an obvious “bite me!” air as if to comment on Americanization of her daughter’s sensibilities. As an American, I could see her point. Some of us are very fastidious when it comes to the encroachment of germs, but upon further introspection I don’t think it’s fair to assume this wordless exchange had anything to do with cultural or inter-generational differences. It was likely a continuation of the five-second debate that’s been taking place in households all over the world for millennia.

“The five-second rule probably should become the zero-second rule,” Dr. Roy M. Gulick, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Weill Cornell Medical College, told the New York Times—bursting bubbles from here to Timbuktu. “Eating dropped food poses a risk for ingestion of bacteria and subsequent gastrointestinal disease, and the time the food sits on the floor does not change the risk.”

The risk of bacterial transfer depends on things like the type of floor (a NYC subway car, in this case), the type of food (bananas are rather absorbant), the type of bacteria (hmmm, transit proof), and how long the bacteria have been on the floor (knowing the MTA, who knows?).

All that adds up to, “Grandma! That’s gross.”

What to do when a germ encroaches on you?

Don’t panic or carpet-bomb the sanctity of your home with gallons of bleach or industrial-strength antibacterial drones. You can “see them working”, sure. But that’s because of the isobutene, safe enough…but a highly flammable and explosive substance that could very well cause narcosis, nevertheless.

Opt for a natural solution like vinegar and switch to non-toxic products like Safe Care Clean.

And never underestimate the power of open windows, chem-free dusting, and keeping the moldy beast at bay.

It’s a new sort of “clean” to get used to, but as Mr. Dickens wrote:

It’s a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done.

Next week on classics Friday: Of Mites and Men…