shoes

[blythburgh]

So there is this article in The Guardian. The writer has 3 gripes about what happens on TV

1) when the person on screen hangs up the phone without any acknowledgment that the conversation is over.

2) when people put their suitcase on their bed to pack or unpack (“There’s a 99.99% chance you now have faecal matter and rat urine on your sheets, you filthy animal!”)

3) when TV characters lounge on their beds with shoes on. the idea of street shoes on a bed makes me gag. This obviously also applies to real life: I don’t care who you are, you are not setting foot in my house with shoes on. (And before you bring pets into this, let me state for the record that I wash my dog’s paws after a walk: he’s a good clean boy). Anyway, I’m not going to bother going into all the statistics about how there are apparently 421,000 units of bacteria on the outside of an average shoe, or how 93% of shoes will have poo on them after a month of normal use. I am not going to bother trying to argue this topic because, unlike most issues in life, there is no room for debate here: only a barbarian wears outdoor shoes indoors.

What the writer has not mentioned is not the fact that your shoes could be putting all that on her carpet but the fact thats on a child those shoes are standing or sitting in the supermarket trolley. The same trolley you are will next be putting your food into as you wander round the store.

When are Supermarkets going to ban this disgusting practice? Probably never, as nobody wants to upset the parents who allow filthy shoes in trolley but spend lots of money.

If there is a 99.99% chance you now have faecal matter and rat urine on your sheets from your suitcase if placed on the bed then that child's shoes is doing the same to the supermarket trolley

[Chadwick]

And yet we somehow survive all that faecal matter and rat urine.
Could it be that the quantities are so low that our body is able to deal with them and possibly even build resistance through exposure?

[Sarah]

The writer seems overly worried about that, although I agree for multiple reasons the wearing of outdoor shoes while inside the house is to me too!

In the COVID-19 era you can surely sanitise a shopping trolley without anyone raising an eyebrow.

[Richard Frost]

Reading this it amazes me how that I could possibly have survived to 67. When I think back to the 50-60s I should be dead ten times over. That's not to say that hygiene is not important. It just that one can sometimes go OTT.

[macliam]

I'd go further.... it is noticeable that increased "protection" against noxious experiences and products has coincided with reduced tolerance to things.... where were the coeliacs, the lactose-intolerant, etc., etc. when I was a kid? Could it be that exposure to low intensities provide us with the equivalent of antibodies to protect us?

At the same time, during the pandemic some supermarkets took to cleaning their baskets and trolleys (although most handed that responsibility to the customer!). I see no reason why supermarkets should not be required to steam-clean their hardware on a regular basis... because some of it looks decidedly unhygienic!

[Richard Frost]

I'd go further.... it is noticeable that increased "protection" against noxious experiences and products has coincided with reduced tolerance to things.... where were the coeliacs, the lactose-intolerant, etc., etc. when I was a kid? Could it be that exposure to low intensities provide us with the equivalent of antibodies to protect us?

At the same time, during the pandemic some supermarkets took to cleaning their baskets and trolleys (although most handed that responsibility to the customer!). I see no reason why supermarkets should not be required to steam-clean their hardware on a regular basis... because some of it looks decidedly unhygienic!

Quite agree with both points. I am sure kids of my generation were much healthier than those around now. Might have something to do with never being shoved outside to play and the cult of being in the bedroom 10 or more hours a day.

Cant see the point myself of going to a collection point to pick up a trolley/basket and then wheeling it to a cleaning station to clean it. What a waste of sanitizer! Do you remember the minor scandal just before covid when supermarkets were highly criticised for the state of their containers used for home delivery and click & collect?

[expressman33]

As a teenager I was a keen fisherman . Spent the day fishing and never washed my hands ( apart from rinsing them in the river or reservoir ) , touched fish , maggots ect and then ate my sandwiches which had also been unrefrigerated for 6 or 7 hours.

[Sarah]

where were the coeliacs, the lactose-intolerant, etc., etc. when I was a kid?

In many cases they were suffering undiagnosed (or misdiagnosed).

[macliam]

where were the coeliacs, the lactose-intolerant, etc., etc. when I was a kid?

In many cases they were suffering undiagnosed (or misdiagnosed).

Were this the case, I think we would have noticed the number of sick people about.....

I am sure that these intolerances exist, I am also sure that they do not exist anywhere near as commonly as we are now led to believe. It seems that ome poor dears can hardly drink water, due to their lactose, dairy, peanut, dust and countless other intolerances. If this is the case, then it seems that Darwin would suggest it's better that they don't reproduce.......

Oddly, the inverse seems to be happening elsewhere..... the Chinese were widely regarded as being lactose-intolerant, but that is changing as their diet and behaviour changes.... This underlines the point that tolerance and intolerance are experiential changes.

[blythburgh]

My late friend, Dave, says his Mum always had loose bowels and was stick thin. He was diagnosed with diverticulitis and later with iritiable bowel syndrome (he moved around a bit so each new GP had to be told about his problems). Then a GP said his blood test was not perfect and they tested him for just about everything until they came up with celiac disease.

And so they did a bone density test and discovered the oesteoporosis which was very severe for a woman of his age let alone a man.

All due to the undiagnosed celiac.

My sister in law has had stomach pains for years. Her daughter has got into alternative medicines what she does her Mum does. You have an intolerance to gluten and milk later changed by a different practitioner to gluten and cows milk.

She now avoids both and no longer has any IBS symptoms.

Another lady I know now in her 70's was in Japan in her 20's. She became more and more ill and came close to suicide. Came home and a GP took the rare step of getting her properly tested for allergies. She discovered that she had a severe intolerance to all pulses apart from Broad Beans which are from a totally different family. Giving up all the things she was intolerant to meant she felt well again. But she had got one allergy and that was to melon and was warned she could die if she ate it. In the past it had hurt her mouth so she never ate it.

As a child she hated peas and only ate the carrots if that was on the plate that day. But even so felt ill afterwards as the two were cooked together.

But I do agree that we are far too hygienic these days and children are not exposed to stuff to build up natural resistance.

But it still makes me feel queasy the way children are put into trolleys (not the child seat) or are standing in them. I would love for this to be banned. And as for sanitising the trolley how are we to do that when we are no longer sanitising the handles and our hands?