I actually asked a doctor about this. I said something along the lines of, If you accept some contamination, it might keep your immune system up to date on the latest bugs. He gave me a dirty look. From his point of view, any illness you can avoid, avoid it.

Then I thought about it. Part of our long term health is affected by tiny amounts of tissue damaged or destroyed by each illness. Part of our immune capabilities are affected by how much demand we put on them. A little bit stimulates the immune system, a lot damages it. Will next years cold virus be the next variation on this years bug, and so I will kind of be up-to-date if I have a cold this year? Is this years cold virus unrelated to last years, and I wasted a week of mild to moderate misery? Interesting topic.

Personally, I wash my hands after any contact with a public door knob or check-out counter. On the other hand, I am presently engaged with 50 year old cast iron sewer pipe repairs. (They probably don't contain all the germs on the planet.) Is this penny wise and pound foolish? Some risks are inevitable, and some aren't. Pipes must get repaired, but I don't have to lick doorknobs.

 

Well I already fessed up to generating the motorcycle thread out of my own crabbiness, so any further jabs are moot, but if you find them gratifying then keep em coming; they have a neutral effect on me. Better for one at least one of us to get something positive out of it.

I didn't mean my post as a jab, but just an observation that different people take risks in different ways. I apologize for offending you.

I am not a clean freak, but based on my life experience, I confess to being much more afraid of diseases than accidents.

 

I didn't mean my post as a jab, but just an observation that different people take risks in different ways. I apologize for offending you.

I am not a clean freak, but based on my life experience, I confess to being much more afraid of diseases than accidents.

Sorry, I guess I took that the wrong way. Apparently I haven't gotten over my crabbiness as much as I thought I had . I really need to lighten up...

 

What Strantor said in # 17... I have been known to eat deli sandwich meat, up to 2 weeks old, that is starting to feel slick... cheese with active mold... Wash it off, if it doesn't smell / taste foul after that, unlikely it will hurt you

As said by the sage... Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger...

 

Then I thought about it. Part of our long term health is affected by tiny amounts of tissue damaged or destroyed by each illness. Part of our immune capabilities are affected by how much demand we put on them. A little bit stimulates the immune system, a lot damages it. Will next years cold virus be the next variation on this years bug, and so I will kind of be up-to-date if I have a cold this year? Is this years cold virus unrelated to last years, and I wasted a week of mild to moderate misery? Interesting topic.

I for one make it a point to drink tap water where ever I travel for a similar reason. Regular immune system updates!

I rarely get sick other than maybe once every 3 - 4 years I get an odd bug that knocks me down for a few weeks straight like this year.

 

I actually asked a doctor about this. I said something along the lines of, If you accept some contamination, it might keep your immune system up to date on the latest bugs. He gave me a dirty look. From his point of view, any illness you can avoid, avoid it.

I can easily find another doctor who disagrees. Look, I just googled "Intentional exposure to germs" and the very first result is a paper written by a doctor, who suggests:

Maybe we [should] recognize we’re becoming a bit paranoid about germ exposure. Maybe we [should] pare back a little bit on the Purell and the hand-washing (unless the risk of significant infection is high). After all, germs are one of those things that complies with the old adage: What doesn’t kill us often makes us stronger.

I'm so far from knowledgeable about this stuff that I wouldn't know who to agree with, so I just agree with myself, based on what seems intuitive to me (*so, why wouldn't I educate myself about it?). From my layman's perspective, this feels like one of those science/non-science areas, like meteorology and economics. These areas maintain their place in the realm of "science" because they are observable and are studied by scientific minds, but IMO really they should be temporarily cast into the realm of religion until such time as science decides what it knows and doesn't know about them. When "experts" of equal clout completely contradict eachother, that's not science.

*Because if someone who attended 10+ years of school and devoted their life to understanding and practicing this stuff doesn't know WTF he's talking about, then how can I possibly hope to know WTF I'm talking about after an evening of casual reading on the internet? Obviously, if two people attended 10+ years of school and devoted their lives to understanding and practicing this stuff and they don't agree at all about how it works, then at least one of them doesn't know WTF he's talking about.

 

I just agree with myself, based on what seems intuitive to me.

Intuitive? Is an intuit like a round tuit?
April fool!

My real purpose is to announce that I finished the sewer pipe job today.
Still have appliances to move, but the part about laying in running sewage is over...until the next time...which arrived on the phone this morning. Whirlpuddle clothes washer won't spin. If I'm lucky, the laundry room won't be flooded.

 

Laying in sewage... all in a good days work I guess. I'm glad to have not wallowed in sewage today.

 

You can develop serious complications from exposure to pathogens (germs). That said, I don't sterilize everything, but I am quite obsessive about the surfaces on which I prepare my food, and the containers from which I drink. It strikes me as a little irresponsible for a doctor to say it's OK to expose yourself to germs.

 

"Drinking (tap) water at the place you live"?




Every place I've lived, and I've moved around a lot in life; I always drank the tap water.
Tap water, is the LAST thing people should be worried about. The Pudsticks, won't be dying from tap water.

Never could get the idea of expensive, bottled, (Tap), water, not in the U.S. anyway.

Maybe in a 3rd World Country.

It truly kills me when someone comes over with their prized, bottled, (Tap), water.

Then after they say one or two sentences, they make a point to unscrew the cap, take a tiny sip, then make a big deal, about quickly putting the lid back on.

The idiots think that the air on my property.......will somehow contaminate their precious, expensive, bottled, (Tap); water?

Watch how they act next time.

They, are like watching a bad episode of Seinfeld.

Even Michael Richards, couldn't make them funny.

 

My real purpose is to announce that I finished the sewer pipe job today.
Still have appliances to move, but the part about laying in running sewage is over...until the next time...which arrived on the phone this morning. Whirlpuddle clothes washer won't spin. If I'm lucky, the laundry room won't be flooded.

I've had my hands on sewage often lately. Had a lot of trouble from my main drain ever since I returned from Florida. I've had the pipes takes apart and put back together a few times now, and it seems to be flowing pretty good, for now. I still have a couple fixtures to add to make cleaning it easier next time.

 

I will buy bottled water (or tea) and keep the bottle. Then I use tap water.

 

I do the hand wash, and towel on the public door thing. Keep meats refrigerated, don't put the dog dish on the kitchen counter, and even relocated the dish washer so it wasn't near food prep. Other than that, it's whatever. And our water here is fresh off the rockies, with a little spring silt.

 

"Drinking (tap) water at the place you live"?




Every place I've lived, and I've moved around a lot in life; I always drank the tap water.
Tap water, is the LAST thing people should be worried about. The Pudsticks, won't be dying from tap water.

Never could get the idea of expensive, bottled, (Tap), water, not in the U.S. anyway.

Maybe in a 3rd World Country.

I stick to drinking beer and whiskey. Never had a problem with that plan.

 

Next time someone (Grandkids), brings their bottled water over, I'm going to grab their bottle, and pull this little skit:


http://www.maniacworld.com/would-you-look-at-this-car.html

That should cure that problem.

 

In the old days people drank beer because consuming water would make them ill.

 

Laying in sewage... all in a good days work I guess. I'm glad to have not wallowed in sewage today.

It's always good to have something to be grateful for.

Today I am grateful that I probably won't have to do that again in this lifetime.

 

In Colorado it is a very mixed bag. All of it, to the best of my knowledge, is completely safe to drink. The water at the house I stay during the week tastes horrible (but it isn't too much difficulty to force yourself to drink it -- something I can't say about most of the water in Phoenix!). Many, many places, the water tastes excellent as most of it is derived from Rocky Mountain surface runoff. But a lot of municipalities rely on well water and that is where you get the big variations -- some are fabulous and others are choke-it-down-if-you-have-no-alternative territory. At home, on our side of the mountain we are in fractured granite and the well water tastes excellent with no filtration at all. On the other side of the mountain the wells are in the edge of the Denver aquifer and need moderate filtration and always have an 'off' flavor to them. We just got lucky.

 

When I was little I would go visit my father during the summers, and that decade was one of his worst. He was establishing a trend of starting up new businesses and then having them fail. Point is, he was broke as a joke. He lived in the woods in a 30-something y/o single wide trailer with tires on the roof to keep it from flying away. He had a well with no filter of any kind. Water was pumped to the surface, sat in a rusty tank to stagnate, and then you drank it. It smelled like rotten eggs any time you opened the faucet. As long as you let the water run for a minute before filling the glass you could stomach it, but if you let the glass sit on the counter for a few hours and then come back and try to drink it.... bleh! It had an orange/red tint and stained all of his glasses.

He's since become relatively successful; still lives on the same plot of land, but he upgraded to a fancy double-wide (really, it's fancy), has a sweet new truck and a swimming pool, and a badass water filtration system that turns that stinky old well water into something people would pay $3/bottle for.

 

For about 12 years ago, I was in Austin Texas at a hotel in the middle of the city. At that time I found the tap water not very good. I am sure it was clean. But the taste and the fact that is was quite hot coming out of the tap. I found it not drinkable directly from the tap.