Anti-bacterial and bugs

[cakadu]

I would like to put a little different spin on things and pose the following question.

Everyday we are bombarded by ads that promise cleaning products that will de-mineralize, deoderize, sterilize and sanitize. Are we becoming too de-bugged for our own good?

Used to be we had resistance to many of the little critters that are plaguing us now. Not only are all of our anti-bacterial cleaning products not really doing much good - the best disinfectant is still good old bleach and water - it is creating a mess of super bugs.

I wonder if the countryfolk will at least have some resistance to these things because we get our hands dirty everyday. How will those that are so sanitized fare? Is it any wonder when we go travelling that we get sick so easily?

This is one question where I would like to hear from "enough" if at all possible.

[kato]

I think you have a very good point. It is possible to be too clean. An example, just for demonstration purposes is what is happening in today's intensive hog operations.

This is how it works...The biosecurity in these facilities is incredible. Trucks are not allowed within a quarter mile of the barn. Everyone who comes in has to shower and change from their street clothes to coveralls that never leave the barn. Pigs are quarantined and blood tested as being free of disease before they are let in to the barn. Once a pig leaves, it's never coming back. If you blood test these pigs, they have antibodies to nothing. This works really well in the sense that antibiotics are reduced a lot, and boy do those pigs perform!

Drawback...one slip at the door, and you have never seen such a wreck. Quite often it leads to depopulation of the herd.

I think as a society, we are trying to subject our kids to the same sterile living conditions. (but not in a barn ..LOL) I don't think we're doing them any favours. An untrained immune system is not much good to anyone.