The Dirty Little Secret At The Grocery Store

Unavoidable! Bad bugs. Good bugs. They are here in my glorious naked body, there and everywhere!  Just wash your hands folks and at the same time sing Happy Birthday.  ***GoC

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From: jpl
Subject: FW: Gross! Watch Out for This at the Grocery Store
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2011 10:22:57 -0500

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GREAT INFORMATION IF YOU ARE NOT QUITE AWARE OF THIS, ESPECIALLY FOR YOUNG CHILDREN !!!!!!!

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The Dirty Little Secret at the Grocery Store Which of the following surfaces is most likely to be contaminated with dangerous bacteria -- a diaper changing table... playground equipment... a shopping cart handle... ATM buttons... or the handrail on an escalator? I would have said a diaper changing table... and I would have been wrong. The correct answer is the shopping cart handle, and after you read what I’m about to tell you, I think you’re going to join me in making a change to your shopping habits! What Exactly Do You Mean By Dirty? The finding comes from researchers at the Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science at The University of Arizona in Tucson. Previous studies had shown that seating children in shopping carts increases their risk for infection with salmonella and campylobacter bacteria, each of which can lead to abdominal pain and diarrhea that last for a week (or longer in people with weakened immune systems). This time, researchers set out to see just how dirty shopping cart seats and handles really are. To do that, they swabbed the handles and seats of 85 shopping carts randomly selected from parking lots of grocery stores in San Francisco... Los Angeles... Atlanta... Portland, Oregon... and Sioux City, Iowa, and tested the samples they had gathered. What they found: Coliform bacteria (common in soil, on vegetation and in the feces of animals) were present in high amounts on 72% of the carts... and Escherichia coli (E. coli), a specific species of coliform present in the lower intestines of all warm-blooded mammals and responsible for many serious tainted-food-related illnesses, were present on 50% of 36 of the carts. In fact, the researchers pointed out, "Total bacterial levels [on the carts] are far greater than those typically found in public restrooms and other public places and objects that are commonly touched in these environments." Why Are the Carts So Filthy? According to the study, the potential causes of contamination are numerous, ranging from contact with contaminated raw foods, such as those found in a supermarket... bird or other animal feces (which may contaminate the carts while they sit in the parking lot)... or contact with feces-contaminated hands (or other body parts) of previous cart users or children in diapers. "Shopping carts are one of the objects most contaminated with fecal bacteria that the public is likely to come into contact with," said Charles Gerba, PhD, professor of environmental microbiology at The University of Tucson and lead researcher on the study. Of course, public restrooms are cleaned on a set schedule... your shopping cart, not so much. What You Can Do The next time you go shopping, don’t disregard the containers of disinfecting wipes now provided by many stores near the carts -- give the handle and seat (if you’re planning to use it) a good wipe-down. Though it takes around 10 minutes for the disinfectants in the wipes to work, it’s a good start. Some stores have started providing disposable/recyclable plastic barriers that fit over their cart handles, which are also a good choice. (You can buy your own -- for instance, Protective Cart Guard made by Health Touch Solutions, www.healthtouchsolutions.com, 877-823-4871.) Even if you do use wipes or a barrier on your cart, after shopping, wash your hands (and your child’s hands) before eating anything. When washing isn’t practical, Dr. Gerba says, you can use a hand sanitizer such as Purell. "It kills the viruses and bacteria in fecal matter," Dr. Gerba says. And that’s just what you want. And by all means (the very thought now gives me shudders!), please don’t ever let a child suck on a shopping cart handle. Source(s): Charles Gerba, PhD, lead researcher on the study and professor of environmental microbiology, The University of Arizona, Tucson. >

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Published  6/11/11  altgroup  multiply
Web Page:  The Dirty Little Secret At The Grocery Store