Germs!

Tuesday: Stuffed Shells
Salad
Garlic bread
Reflections from the Backcounter

I got this on my email today and had to share it. Let's keep those handbags off the backcounter!!



>Something to think about!
>
>Have you ever noticed women who place their handbags on public toilet
>floors - then go directly to their dining tables and set it on the
>table? Happens a lot!
>
>It's not always the restaurant food that causes stomach distress.
>Sometimes 'what you don't know will hurt you!
>
>Read on...
>
>Mom got so upset when guests came in the door and plopped their
>handbags down on the counter where she
>was cooking or plating food. She always said that handbags are really
>dirty, because of where they've been.
>Smart Mom!
>
>It's something just about every woman carries with her. While we may
>know what's inside our handbags,
>we have no idea what's on the outside. Women carry handbags
>everywhere; from the office to public
>toilets to the floor of the car. Most women won't be caught without
>their handbags, but stop to think about where
>your handbag goes during the day.
>
>'I drive a school bus, so my handbag is on the floor of the bus a
>lot,' says one woman. 'On the floor of my car, and
>in toilets.' 'I put my handbag in grocery shopping carts, on the floor
>of the toilet,' says another woman 'and of course
>in my home which should be clean.'
>
>We decided to find out if handbags harbor a lot of bacteria. We
>learned how to test them at Nelson Laboratories in
>Salt Lake , and then we set out to test the average woman's handbag.
>
>Most women told us they don't think about what's on the bottom of
>their handbag. Many said at home they usually
>set their handbags on top of kitchen tables and counters where food is
>prepared.
>
>Most of the ladies we talked to told us they would expect that their
>handbags were a little dirty. It turns out handbags are
>so surprisingly dirty, even the microbiologist who tested them was shocked.
>
>Microbiologist Amy Karen of Nelson Labs says nearly all of the
>handbags tested were high in harmful kinds of bacteria.
>Pseudomonas can cause eye infections, staphylococcus aurous can cause
>serious skin infections, and salmonella and
>e-coli found on the handbags could make people very sick.
>
>In one sampling, four of five handbags tested positive for salmonella,
>and that's not the worst of it. 'There is fecal contamination on the
>handbags,' says Amy. Leather or vinyl handbags tend to be cleaner than
>cloth handbags, and lifestyle seems to play a role. People with kids
>tend to have dirtier handbags than those without, with one exception.
>
>The handbag of one single woman who frequented nightclubs had one of
>the worst contaminations of all. 'Some type of feces, or possibly
>vomit' says Amy.
>
>So the moral of this story - your handbag won't kill you, but it does
>have the potential to make you very sick if you keep it on places
>where you eat.
>
>Use hooks to hang your handbag at home and in toilets, and don't put
>it on your desk, a restaurant table, or on your kitchen countertop.
>
>Experts say you should think of your handbag the same way you would a
>pair of shoes. 'If you think about putting a pair of shoes onto your
>countertops, that's the same thing you're doing when you put your
>handbag on the countertops' - your handbag has gone
>where individuals before you have sneezed, coughed, spat, urinated,
>emptied bowels, etc!
>
>The microbiologists at Nelson also said cleaning a handbag will help.
>
>Wash cloth handbags and use leather cleaner to clean the bottom of
>leather handbags.
>
>MEN PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO YOUR WIVES, GIRLFRIENDS OR DAUGHTERS!

Peace,
Julia
>