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Germs are found in all kinds of places, and not all germs are bad. Germs fall into four major types: bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa. They can invade your body, and sometimes they can make you sick. What are the germs to avoid and where do they hide?
About 9 percent of foodborne illness outbreaks occur in the home. Your kitchen, with its mix of uncooked food and absorbent surfaces can be a vortex of bacteria, including e-coli, salmonella, shigella, campylobacter, norovirus, and hepatitis-A. A group or researchers recently set out to identify the top kitchen items that are commonly cross-contaminated during a meal preparation. Their findings might surprise you.
Money, such as coins and bills, which get touched countless times by huge numbers of people are likely to pick up all kinds of germs. Eww alert: Researchers say that one in every 12 bank cards has fecal bacteria on it – yes, the kind that came from the bathroom. One in seven bills is contaminated, too. So when you head out shopping, be sure to bring along a bottle of hand sanitizer.
Washing food before you eat it may sound like a good idea, but that’s not always true. Sometimes the splashing that occurs during washing can help dangerous bacteria to travel to other parts of your kitchen without you being aware of it. At the same time, there are some foods you should never eat without a good scrub under running water – but pass on the soap or detergent.
Any time you have a large group of kids, you’ll have germs. But does that mean illness is a given at the day-care center? After all, in even the cleanest of places, kids inevitably put dirty hands in their eyes or toys in their mouth. Most kids get the same germs at one time or another. But there are some simple steps parents can take to make sure their children get only their share.
You may love your loofah, but don’t get too attached. You won’t want the things that can lurk in a loofah to linger. By their nature, loofah sponges have lots of nooks and crannies, and they’re quite porous. When people use a loofah to scrub off dead skin cells, those cells become lodged in the nooks and crannies. And that sets the stage for a bacterial breeding ground.
When we apply eye makeup, we don’t think our pencils, wands and powdery colors are potentially contaminated with bacteria, fungus or other creepy crawlies. Yet, they can become dirty in ways our eyes can’t see. Old makeup, harmful ingredients or the practice of “waterlining” can all create red, irritated eyes. And putting mascara on while driving can end up as a painful poke to the eyeball – not to mention danger for other drivers
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