Hacker News Reader

Comment by papito | Hacker News Reader

Stomach viruses. Where in the world are you? No, seriously - where? Because here in the United States people don't wash their hands before eating. It's fucking gross. I always sanitize my hands with alcohol pads before eating out - ALWAYS. But the others grab subway poles, handles, those nasty menus, and THEN they grab that sandwich with the same hands.

If anything should come out of this pandemic, it should be Americans following basic hygiene. And I mean - basic. Hand sanitizer should be at every table.

View on HN

On the other hand (no pun intended), that's how humans behaved in general until possibly the last century or so, and the immune system exists for a reason. The recent trend of hypersanitisation may not be without its negative effects either.

Living in a metropolitan area in Germany I can attest, that this isn't an American phenomena. I think it is a human (or at least "civilized" human) phenomena.

My SO has a very strong emetophobia and she is very, very clear to not touch any food without having washed her hands very good. Even at home. I learned a lot from her and have not been sick for ages. I also don't eat out in flu season. I just don't. I worked in gastronomy during my time at university. I know why I (at least in flu season) just don't eat out. as long as people need to earn money and don't get sick pay, people go to work when sick. At least I did during financially desparate times. So I don't blame the people doing it at all - I just don't buy food from them.

A norovirus will laugh at your hand sanitizer, as will most other non-enveloped viruses.

This. Norovirus considers most hand sanitizer people use a threat in the same tone we commend 6 year old t-ball players for their "Good hustle".

You do realize this is probably all in your head? Like the food you eat is probably full of bacteria, the plate you eat on, the fork you use?

Like you sit there with an attitude, but in the kitchen you cant see your food was cooked on an unclean grill

If it makes you feel superior or better, go ahead.

I am not going to touch a door handle, touched by hundreds of people before me, and then touch my burger with the same hand. Neither am I going to try and lick the same handle to develop immunity and get those precious germs into my system.

You should probably never research eyelash mites.

One thing I always like about human parasites (and no, I don't mean your coworkers) is that you can give a rough date to the invention of clothing.

Most of the cooked food is at least 100C for a while. Dishes and utensils in commercial establishments (at least in the US) are by law sanitized either with temperature or bleach solutions. (The silverware drawer is another matter.)

It's pretty hard for bacteria to live on a 200C grill. "Unclean" and "harboring live bacteria" are different things.

You'd be surprised how much care is paid to hygiene in commercial kitchens. It's quite different than cooking at home, as the stakes are a lot higher.

TOUCH SCREENS

I wash my hands, and yet no doubt my phone and computer keyboard are filthy.

There are ways to keep those surfaces relatively clean; I use a screen protector of my iPad and a keyboard "skin" on the laptop, so they can tolerate a bit of regular washing. In the past I have simply used sunlight - 10 minutes of high desert UV will knock out most bugs. But I haven't kept up with that as much this year.

Ugh. Signing off, gong to wash hands...

Wow tbh I thought this post was being kinda precious until the menus thing. That is so gross and has never occurred to me.

I don't have data but my hunch is that being a germophobe leads to worse long term health outcomes. Your immune system needs the exercise.

You don't need to be a germophobe if you just care for basic and decent hygiene.

And I really experience a lot of people just not caring for basic hygiene at all when outside.

There is also a whole host of mental illness that are triggered by physical immune responses. Eating disorders that stem from one bad diarrhea episode are a really common example of this. Both ends of this spectrum can result in bad mental health.

Both ends of this spectrum can also result in physicals health issues too. Get a stomach bug and end up with post-infections IBS. On the other hand, stress from fear of germs could also cause IBS. Sadly you end up with the same result. Both approaches, when taken to the extreme, can cause equal amounts of health issues.

Sanitizing your hands every five minutes is obviously a disorder, but I don't understand why on HN the downvote army is triggered by suggesting that you should have clean hands before eating food.

The question is, how clean is "clean"? Obviously in these pandemic times the answer is different, but clearly plenty of people were having no problems before.

In fact I would go as far as saying that breathing is a more common route of entry for pathogens than eating. The stomach contains concentrated hydrochloric acid.

Is washing your hands before eating being a "germophobe" or is it basic hygiene? How far back do we go in order to improve our immune system? Do we stop washing our hands ever? Do we stop washing taking showers?

There's obviously a balance with the best outcome. I doubt washing your hands before eating will make your immune system any worse.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com