The timeless maxim “Don’t shit where you eat” has saved countless lives over the centuries. And the societies that have most closely followed this imperative have, throughout history, dominated the world, starting with the Romans, whose empire was built on and with its systems of public sanitation.
We’ve since expanded upon “don’t shit where you eat.” Now, it’s “Don’t eat anything that has come close to any kind of fecal matter, human or animal, unless it has been thoroughly scrubbed, sterilized and disinfected.” And but for a few cases here and there, we’ve been successful in implementing this mandate.
But what if a little shit was good for you? And what if our totally shit-less diet was turning us into a bunch of wusses who can’t survive the occasional tainted patty from Sam’s Club? That is, more or less, the argument that Slate writer and practicing doctor
The news of tainted meat from Topps Meat Co. (a big Sam’s supplier) has people freaked out. And indeed, they ought to be freaked out. But while their minds are stuck on Germ Theory, they ought to be thinking about the Hygiene Hypothesis, which, though not directly related to questions of poo in the food supply, is nonetheless relevant to the developed world.
The Hygiene Hypothesis posits that we’re becoming more susceptible to disease because we live in such sterile environments. In our efforts to shield our kids from every germ, we’re producing crops of sickly children who develop asthma and allergies at unprecedented rates.
We obviously can’t just do a 180 because “we would suddenly see infant mortality rates that rival those of
Yes, it’s a unsettling question to confront, but the reality is that we’ll never be able to fully implement a “no-shit” policy, regardless of how vigilant we are.
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