SC - Re: Sugar Questions

[Elise Fleming]

Hiya from Anne-Marie, your friendly neighborhood degreed microbiologist and
token science geek...
Brenna says:
> 
> Actually, two problems with this.  Using antibacterial soap on your body
will
> not put your internal bacteria out of whack.  
True, I never said this. The rashes I mention are from a stripping of your
EXTERNAL normal flora. Not many rashes happen inside, not that you'd see,
anyway :).

"weeding out" and killing "99%" of your normal flora (no matter how many
are left) is something I choose not to do. Its up to you...you're not going
to bring about the downfall of western civiliazation if you use
antibacterial soaps on your body, so do as you see fit. Me, I choose not
to. Now the no-water antibacterial hand gels...those are most cool.

And hot water is not "selective" in any way. The process of washing sluices
off all bugs, regardless of their virulance. They have no legs, see, and
cant hold on.

What does this have to do with cooking? Actually, quite a bit. Our modern
American mentality has this thing about killing all the bacteria. To no do
so is "dirty" and so bad. In the process, I see a lot of very unsafe food
practices, all in the name of being "clean". 
1. bacteria by their ownselves are not bad. where we get into trouble is
when the delicate balance is offset, either trhough disease or through
goofiness.
2. Too many bacteria is bad. The number on a normal healthy clean and fresh
chicken, for example, is not a problem. Bacteria double every 24 hours.
Leave that healthy chicken unchilled, or cook it and leave it not warm
enough and you got trouble. Wash that clean and fresh chicken in an unclean
water supply and you're got trouble (you just added to the bacterial load).
3. Some of the endproducts of some bacteria are bad. When you eat bad food,
its not always the bacteria that give you grief, its sometimes the toxins
they make. Thorough cooking will often (NOT ALWAYS) zap the toxins.
4. Heating something up in your kitchen does not make it sterile. It may
kill most of the bugs (the others curl up and go to sleep to be wakened
next time conditions are better), it may zap most of the toxins. but as
soon as you take it out of the oven, the bugs in the air see a nice fresh
hospitable home. Again, bugs double every 24 hours, so it may take a bit
for the bacterial load to get to the danger zone.
5. Bacteria are little blobs of protein, covered in a nice waxy coat. A
good hard scrub will knock them off for the most part. Soap will zap them
pretty good so they dont get onto something else. Antibacterial soap makes
you feel that you're really socking it to them, and if you're in a
situation with, say, someone with a communicable disease, that little bit
of reassurance is a good thing, maybe. 
6. Too few bacteria is bad, at least on/in you. You have an internal normal
flora that allows you to digest milk, keeps your teeth healthy and keeps
ahem various orifices at the proper pH. You also have an external flora of
bacteria, and even some spider mites (!) that doa whizbang job of keeping
your skin healthy by eating the dead stuff and keeping foriegn nasty bugs
at bay (ther's no room at the inn, so the type of Streptococcus that eats
your face cant get a toehold)

Again, using antibacterial soaps is NOT going to select for a strain of
Ebola (the stuff doesnt work on Ebola anyway, you would have to soak in it)
that will take over the world. It may lead to some nasty skin rashes and
you've messed with your normal external flora, but hey, no skin off my nose
:). 

I make my living playing with bugs and cells. Some of them pathogens, some
of them potentially contaminated with nasty viruses and the like. We dont
use "antimicrobial" soap in the lab. For our hands, we use hot water,
regular pump soap and frequency to control cross contamination (wash the
hands between projects, when you put gloves on, when you take gloves off,
etc). We kill cultures and decontaminate using bleach (10%)by dumping
bleach in and letting it sit, or sluicing down a surface and letting it sit
a bit before we wipe it off. Everything we do (well, ok, except for the
biosafety cabinets :)) you can do at home (I do!). If people are
interested, I can discuss easy ways at home to keep things clean and keep
your friends healthy.

hope this helps clear some stuff up...
- --AM
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