Tips for Avoiding Germs

by Micki Nellis
(B.S. with Distinction, University of Oklahoma, triple major in Microbiology, Zoology and Chemistry, Phi Beta Kappa, 10 years experience in scientific research, food and chemistry quality control.)

I’m offering these tips for avoiding germs from my training as a microbiologist with knowledge of aseptic technique.

1. Keep your hands away from your face – mouth, nose and eyes. I cringe every time I see an old “Gunsmoke” episode where Doc Adams examines a sick patient, then wipes his hand across his mouth.
2. Wash hands often and always before eating. Lather up and wash for 20 seconds. Dry with air or a clean towel.
3. Pay attention to what you touch after you wash your hands. If you wash and dry your hands, then touch a doorknob, you’ve just contaminated yourself again.
4. Tips for opening doors: If it is a swinging door, use your forearm to open it, not your hand. If you must touch a knob or handle, use the tail of your shirt to cover it, or the paper towel you’ve just used to dry your hands. If you can’t do this, use your left hand to open the door and be sure to handle any food with your right hand.
5. Don’t shake hands. As a female, I find it easy to just nod my head or sketch a Hi with my hand.
6. Don’t use other people’s keyboards, telephones, cell phones, or personal items.
7. Designate a “dirty” hand and a “clean” hand. I’ve been told that in Biblical times the left hand was reserved for doing dirty jobs and the right hand was kept clean. Always eat with your “clean” hand.

 

Tips for Eating Out:

1. Use all the techniques above.
2. Don’t shake hands with the restaurant manager if he greets you at the door.
3. Wash your hands after you order while you wait for your food. (Menus have germs too.)
4. Use straws in sanitized wrappers. These straws are gassed with germicidal gas after wrapping.
5. Pay attention to what the restaurant personnel do with your menu, silverware, drink cups and food. These things have actually happened to me in restaurants:

1. At a fast food place, the attendant slid my paper cup across the counter, rim side down on the counter. The lady in front of me had just dragged her purse and infant in diaper across the same counter. I asked for a clean cup.
2. At a sit down restaurant, a host dropped the menu on the floor, bent down to pick it up with the hand that was holding my napkin and silverware, dragging the napkin and silverware across the floor.
3. A server in a serving line wiped out my plate with her bare hand.
4. Don’t use toothpicks if they come from holders where other people could touch them. This includes the “shake out” type of holders. You don’t want a toothpick that someone else has fumbled around on the tip while trying to get their own.
5. Don’t eat at restaurants with a high turnover, especially in kitchen help. The manager will not know if a newly terminated employee gets sick.

And, of course, follow general health advice from doctors:

Get plenty of water and sleep. When I feel dragged out, I have a big glass or water with lime or a cup of hot tea and go to bed a couple of hours early. Give your immune system some help.

Eat healthy whole foods with lots of fruits and vegetables.

Stay Away from Sick People. Use email to keep in touch.

Stay away from public gatherings. The flu is spread from droplets from coughs and sneezes that can float for 150 feet. Stay home and watch a movie on TV, being sure to wash your hands after you open the DVD and start it, especially if you’re going to snack during the movie. (Yeah, I know I’m particular.)

And being political, I’d like to know WHO OWNS the PIG FARMS in Mexico where this is thought to have started. I found this in the news: “The facility, Granjas Carroll de Mexico, is partly owned by Smithfield Foods, a Virginia-based US company and the world’s largest producer and processor of pork products. Residents of La Gloria have long complained about the clouds of flies that are drawn the so-called “manure lagoons” created by such mega-farms, known in the agriculture business as Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).”