David Hammond wrote:Like all ethically upright individuals and former Boy Scouts, I place a high priority on cleanliness. Waterless antibacterial soap is in my briefcase at all times; I always use a paper towel when opening the doors of public lavatories, wash my hands many times throughout the day, and generally try to set a golden example for the rest of humanity by being a model of right behavior. Hey, it’s what I do.

Interesting that someone so avowedly focused on cleanliness is more than happy to (and considers it almost something of a right to) track fecal matter and all sorts of other filth into others' homes. I also hope you regularly disinfect your cell phone.

Related to the topic at hand (hah!) -- Study: Women Lead Men in Bacteria, Hands Down.

Matt wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Like all ethically upright individuals and former Boy Scouts, I place a high priority on cleanliness. Waterless antibacterial soap is in my briefcase at all times; I always use a paper towel when opening the doors of public lavatories, wash my hands many times throughout the day, and generally try to set a golden example for the rest of humanity by being a model of right behavior. Hey, it’s what I do.

Interesting that someone so avowedly focused on cleanliness is more than happy to (and considers it almost something of a right to) track fecal matter and all sorts of other filth into others' homes. I also hope you regularly disinfect your cell phone.

Related to the topic at hand (hah!) -- Study: Women Lead Men in Bacteria, Hands Down.

Who eats off the floor? Shoes are made for walking through dirt.

Excellent links!

Hammond

David Hammond wrote:Who eats off the floor? Shoes are made for walking through dirt.

I have a (very mobile) eight month old. There is no cheerio, cracker crumb, or stray piece of heaven knows what else that does not go untasted/untested. It's like having a human roomba. But we aren't a no shoes house. I just try not to think about it too much.

Matt wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Who eats off the floor? Shoes are made for walking through dirt.

I have a (very mobile) eight month old. There is no cheerio, cracker crumb, or stray piece of heaven knows what else that does not go untasted/untested. It's like having a human roomba. But we aren't a no shoes house. I just try not to think about it too much.

If it does not kill them, it makes them strong....

All little kids should be eating dirt now and then

Matt wrote:There is no cheerio, cracker crumb, or stray piece of heaven knows what else that does not go untasted/untested. It's like having a human roomba. But we aren't a no shoes house. I just try not to think about it too much.

Good stuff. If there was a snort-laugh smiley, I'd put it here -->

I think it's considered rude/bad etiquette to lick your fingers during an Ethiopian meal, and I'm guessing the same is true for other eat-with-your-mitts cuisines. You're supposed to use injera like a napkin. Not tucking it in bib-like, placing it in your lap or picking it up and wiping all over...more like a little edible wipe you keep on the table to your right.

Here's more food for thought - those of you who eat at buffets, if you're picky about finger-lickers, you really should use a napkin to hold the serving spoons/tongs/etc - especially in Indian restaurants where many patrons eat w/ their hands and then go back to scoop up more food w/ hands which have lingered in mouths and now have touched the same serving spoon you are touching.

In Chinese buffets, I've seen little children sample food off the buffet line, lick their fingers on the communal ice cream scoop, eat/wipe nose/scratch butt/head then pickup the serving tongs or simply pickup food straight from the buffet line. I really shouldn't blame just the children... because I've seen adults do the same thing... take a bite out of that eggroll/sparerib/crab rangoon, lick their fingers, then proceed to pick up a serving implement and scoop more food.

Gee, there's so much to worry about, and to watch out for, it's really opened my eyes to all the danger lurking out there in the restaurant world, I'm going to have to think about this before I go to a restaurant again, when you think of all the awful things that could happen to you it just makes you want to stay home and boil everything and only eat things you have personally...

"Come on you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"

--Marine Sergeant Dan Daly, Belleau Wood, June 1918

Happy veteran's day, LTHForum.

More slightly OT musing: I don't think finger-licking is nearly as gross as toilet rugs. Talk amongst yourselves.

As this has become a general discussion of food-related hygiene practices, I must tell you that it makes me crazy when one of the women I live with comes home and perches her purse on the butcher block table in our kitchen. That purse has been dropped on floors throughout the greater Chicago area, it's been kicked around the halls of public transportation and god knows what other kinds of unsavory spaces...and now it's on a food preparation surface. Lord give me the patience not to blow a head gasket!

aschie30 wrote:More slightly OT musing: I don't think finger-licking is nearly as gross as toilet rugs. Talk amongst yourselves.

I have to agree with you. I may, on occasion, lick my fingers but I would never lick a toilet rug.

mhill95149 wrote:If you notice, in all the food grabbing photos above, is done right handed I'll assume that all the other activities that need not be mentioned, are done with the left hand

But what do people do if they only have one hand?

chgoeditor wrote:

mhill95149 wrote:If you notice, in all the food grabbing photos above, is done right handed I'll assume that all the other activities that need not be mentioned, are done with the left hand

But what do people do if they only have one hand?

Generally, they avoid food grabbing while they're wiping.

Is it possible to eat Buffalo wings and not lick your fingers? Is it acceptable to wipe your mouth with the back of your hand?

JasonM wrote:Is it possible to eat Buffalo wings and not lick your fingers? Is it acceptable to wipe your mouth with the back of your hand?

yes. I go through a big stack of napkins. I would never lick a finger. A nice foot perhaps, but not a finger.

The only thing I'm food/hygiene-phobic about is raw chicken. And maybe double-dippers, although I really don't care. I've always been very communal with my friends, so we routinely come into contact with each other's saliva on glasses, spoons, forks, lips, whatever. I don't even wash my hands before I eat a sandwich, even if I have been riding the El all day and coming into new and weird germs and bacteria. Now, when I'm preparing food for others, I'm careful to clean my hands and all that stuff but for myself? I figure I'd be better off developing my immune system than carrying Handi Wipes everywhere I go. Oh, and I do wash my hands after using the bathroom but that's mostly for social convention (somebody may see me) than any regards for my health. Finger-lickers don't even ping my etiquette/hygiene meter. But I did have an ex-girlfriend who liked to literally lick her entire plate clean after a home-cooked meal. That did kind of gross me out, to tell you the truth.

This is an interesting thread. I myself have levels of finger-licking that I find acceptable. For example, if you're eating BBQ, it's okay. If you're at a swank restaurant, not so much. But I do limit finger-licking to just removing large amounts of sauce that would make my napkin unusable. And I'm not touching anyone else's food with those fingers.

That said, unless someone is clearly sick, I'm not too panicked about their having touched something I'm going to eat. Perhaps that's because I travel overseas so much. That means I almost always have a current cholera shot going for me, plus I can guarantee I've seen -- and survived -- much worse.

But again, that said, I'm glad I don't need cholera shots here at home. I have come to greatly appreciate the higher level of cleanliness that we subscribe to on the whole. I love the fact that there is almost always somewhere to wash your hands, and WetNaps for those times there is no place. But I'm still going to lick my (clean) fingers as I finish off that rack of ribs, and I'm still going to scoop up a bunch of those sugar-coated cardamom seeds as I leave an Indian restaurant.

As with most things, I think balance is important -- unless you have a horribly compromised immune system. Because you need a few germs now and again to keep your immune system sharp and ready to fight. That why vaccines work.

Binko wrote:Oh, and I do wash my hands after using the bathroom but that's mostly for social convention (somebody may see me) than any regards for my health.

The reason for washing your hands is not for regards for your health. It's with regards to other's health.

Gee...I really love this thread. I'm all for washing hands and keeping my saliva in my own "ecosystem". However, we as humans are totally infested with germs. I grow the normal and abnormal ones out all day long in the lab that I work in. Oh David if you only knew...

razbry wrote:Oh David if you only knew...

I live with a teacher in the public school system who as part of her job is required to take home every kind of airborne germ. I know there's lots of viruses out there that we can't see but that love to feed on us. My goal is to control those few that I can and avoid the spread of all that I can.

David "Not the boy in the bubble" Hammond

David, you lucky man. Your immune system must be stellar, with your wife bringing you home bits of bacteria and virus loving incubated in that primordial germ soup called school children. Add a flu and pneumonia immunization, and maybe some meds for OCD, and enjoy life.

Suzy Creamcheese wrote:I am hugely revolted by finger-licking. Unfortunately for me, I married an inveterate finger-licker. Don't get me wrong, he's got a lot of good qualities, but my enjoyment of our shared meals is somewhat tainted by a practice that I find disgusting. I have not been successful in banning it completely, though I have made some headway in making him understand I will not tolerate it at a meal that has a sharing aspect, such as Indian or Ethiopian. Love him and all that, but licking one's fingers and then dipping them into the tikil gomen alicha is just not OK.

Gosh! My wife has never complained when I lick my fingers after dipping them into her tikil gomen alicha.

Hi,

I was watching Tampopo last night. The woman wanted to extract a noodle recipe from a competitor. She went up to him commenting her noodles didn't taste as good as usual. The noodle master used her chopsticks to taste the noodles. He then gave it back to her after revealing his methods, then she returned to eating them with the very same chopsticks. Twenty-two years ago when I first saw this movie, nothing stirred me about this scene. I may not have even noticed the communal chopsticks.

I'm sure those who are disgusted by finger licking would be very distracted by the shared chopsticks.

Regards,

Communal chopsticks and spoons were what I used most of the time eating last month in Vietnam. They were dumped in some kind of hot water, I think. I didn't really think about it, I lick my fingers too...

David Hammond wrote:

razbry wrote:Oh David if you only knew...

I live with a teacher in the public school system who as part of her job is required to take home every kind of airborne germ. I know there's lots of viruses out there that we can't see but that love to feed on us. My goal is to control those few that I can and avoid the spread of all that I can.

David "Not the boy in the bubble" Hammond

It is very brave of you to share your (not totally, but disproportionately) irrational paranoia with us here. Has it made you feel better?

I have spent some time studying public health, environmental contaminants and such, back in the day. From those studies, I have concluded a few things.

We are exposed to a lot of stuff in what we breathe, drink and eat every day. Tie your shoe, scratch your eye. Perfect vector. How many of us wash our hands after we tie our shoes?

To suffer ill consequences from any exposure, you have to meet at least one of these criteria: compromised immune system, hyper sensitivity to the pathogen/contaminant (if you meet either of those criteria you are pretty much a disaster waiting to happen), or exposure to a very large concentration of the pathogen/contaminant. For the most part, that level of exposure will not occur as a result of a single exposure to a very small amount of saliva residue left on the fingers of an apparently healthy person, though Typhoid Mary was quite real.

Most digestive tract pathogen transmission comes from fecal contamination, not oral, because the pathogen concentration is much, much higher in feces. Let me know if you want me to go into more detail on the mechanism for this, or you can just take my word. So, if a person had fecal contamination on their fingers, licking them is actually going to protect you. Think about it.

So I more or less understand the morbid fascination you have with others licking their fingers, but it does not present a significant risk in most cases. And I like to lick my fingers, and generally always do so before greeting you, clasping your hand, patting your cheek, and...

Hug, hug, kiss, kiss.

dicksond wrote:How many of us wash our hands after we tie our shoes?

Paulie Walnuts does, that's for sure.

Sopranos wrote:Paulie: I can't stand touching my f***ing shoelaces. Ever go to tie your shoes and you notice the end of your laces are wet? From what? Why would they be wet?
Silvio: I've got no f***ing idea.
Paulie: You go in the public bathrooms. You stand at the urinals...
Hesh: Oh f***. Come on will ya.
Paulie: He's asking me and I'm telling him and frankly it's important. Even if the lace is dry and even if you don't touch the body of the shoe, bacteria and virus migrate from the sole up.
Christopher: You see this on TV?
Paulie: I gotta watch TV to figure out the world? Your average men's sh**house is a f***ing sewer. You look at lady's johns you can eat maple walnut ice cream from the toilets. Eh! There's exceptions. But a men's? Piss all over the f***ing floor, urinals jammed with cigarettes and moth ball cakes. They can pour all the f***ing ice they want down there, my friend, it does nothing to kill germs. Even if you keep your shoes tied, and you're not dragging your laces through urine --
Silvio (trying to eat): Oh, shut the f*** up!

David Hammond wrote:

WillG wrote:I do wash my hands after using the bathroom, however, usually with soap.

Why?

"...And speaking of my colon, I want you to know that I don't automatically wash my hands every time I go to the bathroom. Can you deal with that? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. You know when I wash my hands? When I S**t on them! Thats the only time. And you know how often that happens? Tops- tops- two, three times a week. Maybe a little more frequently over the holidays. You know what I mean?"
~George Carlin

This week, I hope we all are making sure to celebrate National Hand Washing Awareness Week

http://www.henrythehand.com/

Be Hands on With Handwashing!! Spread the Word Not the Germs! NEVER put a finger in your eyes, nose or mouth!

http://www.henrythehand.com/pages_blocks_v3/images/links/HTHSONG123.mp3

David Hammond wrote:

aschie30 wrote:

David Hammond wrote:I always use a paper towel when opening the doors of public lavatories,

Slightly OT: What do you do with the paper towel after you use it to open the door to exit the lav?

This takes practice, but my technique is to open the door with towel-protected hand and then as the door closes I flick the paper towel into the wastebasket or, if the wastebasket has a lid, I hold the door with my foot or elbow and open the lid with my other foot. Alternatively, I take the towel with me and dump it into a wastebasket in the dining room (not desirable, but sometimes the only way to go). It's not easy being obsessive-compuslve.

I thought I was the only one that did that. I can open the door, flick off the light, and toss the paper towel into the waste basket in one fluid motion.
People at work also look at me like I have two heads when I eat pizza (and just about everything else) with a knife and fork.

While I am a handwasher, my distaste for finger-licking stems from the fact that I find spitty fingers revolting. It all goes back to my first day in kindergarten, when I was paired up for playtime with a hardcore finger-sucker named Kevin. The memory of his moist fingers leaving wet spots on our ball makes the gorge rise to this day.