The other day I
loaded up the internet and the homepage came up with the standard variety of
articles and stories to attract my attention and then I read this line, “Your
barbeque grill may have more germs than a toilet seat!” so says the United
Kingdom’s hygiene expert Dr. Lisa Ackerley whose research found the typical
outdoor grill contains a staggering 1.7 million microbes per 100 cm sq as
compared to the average toilet seat’s 759,950 microbes per 100 cm sq.
I don’t know about you but I can’t even remember the last time I had
our toilet seats’ microbe population checked, but, okay, we’ll go with her
number. The article also goes on to state the obvious by listing how carpets,
computer keyboards, cell phones, kitchen sinks and dishcloths are also breeding
grounds for germs. Ya think? Is this news? They forgot to mention door knobs,
shopping cart handles, coffee cups, money, steering wheels, credit cards, baseball
bats, used gum…
I don’t mean to be all cynical and everything but the research was
carried out for the household cleaning product company Jeyes Inc. who just
happen to be the distributors of Jeyes Fluid Outdoor Disinfectant. How
convenient.
Now, I’m not saying that this news isn’t a bit alarming but
sometimes ignorance is bliss. I didn’t really need to know the microbe level of
my toilet seat and I am fairly certain that after years and years of barbequing
experience, and taking in to account how many people I have poisoned over the
years, (that would be none, by the way), I think that I am perfectly qualified
to clean my grill and I can say with a certain amount of confidence that, if
tested, my grill will be cleaner than my toilet seat. Just saying. Now, maybe
I’m a bit more diligent than the average griller but I’m thinking we’ve got
some Chicken Littleing going on here.
It’s just one more alarming piece of information that we don’t
really want or need. I’m reminded of the
“Eyewitness News” hidden camera pieces that tell us all about the disgusting
things we can find on our hotel bedding and in the restaurant kitchens and in
the meat market and in the local bakery. Stop it already. There are just some
things that we really don’t need to know.
Like how many different daily things
we do and are exposed to that can lead to disease and death. It seems that
every second email is a notice that we are being killed by our car’s air
conditioner or some kind of venomous spider or Aspartame or your mumps vaccine
or some such thing. Please go to the Snopes.com website to confirm any and all
internet warnings before you go screaming down the street with the latest piece
of news that we are all going to die from.
So as we enter the peak grilling
season make sure you clean your grill properly, and, while you're at it, maybe
you ought to do an extra bit of scrubbing on your toilet seat, too. Just use a
different brush.
“That which does not kill us makes
us stronger,”-Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).
No comments:
Post a Comment