I wonder sometimes...and this is just me thinking...it seems like peanut/soy/gluten/etc allergies are getting way more prevalent and way more severe in recent years. I wonder sometimes if that might have something to do with kids' immune systems not learning how to behave properly due to the hyper-sanitation that's sprung up lately. Like, their poor immune systems never really learn what's bad and what's not because they don't get the chance.
I dunno. Sorry for rambling there, you just kinda hit on an interesting subject to me.
This is my theory exactly! I am not a handwashing fanatic (except when I'm working on other people's cakes) nor do I understand hand sanitizer. We are breeding antibiotic resistant bacteria by using all these antibacterial products. I don't use hand sanitizer except when someone in the house is sick (it dries out my hands less than washing them perpetually) and it still doesn't prevent anyone else from getting the illness. My kids get exposed to all kinds of germs because I don't constantly douse them in sanitizer and they are one of the healthiest bunches I know. Anyway, ultracleanliness bugs me. Dirt's good for ya!
special soap dispenser so my dirty hands don't have to touch a germy push-down dispenser on the soap bottle BEFORE I wash them!
)Don't make fun of them too much
. I have them so my kids don't pump the soap bottles like crazy. Without the automatic soap dispensers, my kids think it's a free-for-all and pump the soap like mad. For some reason, they feel 10 or more pumps of soap is required for proper hand washing.I no longer have that problem with the automatic dispenser.
Well, I bought one for the kitchen. The bathroom seemed pointless to me, but in the kitchen, I like it when I need to wash my hands after handling meat. I can turn on the faucet with my arm and use the automatic soap dispenser. But then again, I also wash the sinks before I use them to hand wash dishes. After all, you always hear that the kitchen sink is one of the dirtiest places, so both sinks and the drains get cleaned before and after use. Yes, I'm a germaphobe... 
On the fridge thing, I notice in the summer, I need to set the temp to a colder range than in the winter. If I keep it at the same summer temperature in the winter, things freeze; while in the summer, if left at the winter setting, things feel too warm. I had a thermometer, but have no clue where it went! Guess I should buy another one...sometime!
I see this is an older post, but I have to mention, lest there be any confusion with this, that you definitely want your refrigerator to be 40 degrees or less. I recommend a separate thermometer to double check it, since appliances can and do stop working properly.
The "danger-zone" for food borne illness is between 40 and 140 degrees F. You don't want stuff hanging out for too long in that range, unless it's something that won't support bacterial growth--(i.e., doesn't need refrigeration). In the case of the above mentioned cream cheese, the likelihood of bacterial growth depends on whether or not the cream cheese was ever contaminated, which it's just impossible to know---unless you made it yourself. If the cream cheese was mishandled at some point in the processing stages, there could be germs lurking that will quite happily and cheerfully grow given the opportunity.
Also---our eggs in the U.S. are less safe than in Europe because of how the farms are run.
--Ginbug (dietitian by profession, with a particular passion for food safety)
For some reason, they feel 10 or more pumps of soap is required for proper hand washing.
::said as if still a kid::
but MOM -- I've got TEN fingers!
Laughing at Doug!! I bet you were a fun child to raise. 
We have a hands free soap thing at work. Why? Probably because our uniform guy needed to 'sell' them and we got sucked in. But I do like it because when you work with all guys, the soap bottles can get pretty nasty. I realise when you are washing your hands you are going to wash it away, but I'd rather now have to wash grease and everything else off my hands if it wasn't there in the first place.
Now would I buy one cause I was scared of germs? Nah!
yes -- we HAVE become more paranoid.
and interestingly, more and more properly done scientific studies are coming out that prove you can be TOO clean.
that dirt is actually GOOD for you
that pets and their dander is too
(and on and on)
that children raised in the cleanest environments as babies often end up with the most allergies, asthma and all those other things like that.
and yes, I do believe children are being prevented at an early age from developing good immune systems by being feed over processed commercial baby food.
God forbid!! (he says as sarcastically as he can muster -- ooh, icicles are forming on the eaves!) that a child should just be fed mashed up people food! Or worse yet, mommy chews it up and then gives it to baby to eat and uses her fingers too! or a little taste of peanut butter or any similar mushy food offered on a finger.
An immune system is built via early exposure where it learns what is and isn't a true threat. The way we sanitize now, the immune system can get all out of whack and attack what should just be a "ho-hum" normal thing.
Don't forget that scientists have shown that our contantly trying to create all of these anti-bacterial products and medicines are actually making germs stronger, as the look to overcome these products. Soon we'll have super germs.
This post is so interesting & funny. I remember as a child that we were made to stay outside all day when the weather was nice. We would literally get locked out except for meals. We lived on a farm, played in the creek & made mud pies. Their was no such thing as hand sanitizer. I remember when my older sister came home with the chicken pox, my mom exposed us to her so we would all have it @ the same time (now there's a vaccine). We all grew up very healthy with very little illness.
We also had butter on the table all day. Very often we keep an entire meal on the table for hrs in case someone else stopped in that wanted to eat.
Funny how things have changed including myself!
Regarding the gluten, nut, etc. allergies.. It may not be a matter of more common or prevalent in these days of hyper-sanitation (I wonder how that sentence is gonna look in 100 years).
What has changed is the ability to diagnose and treat, or at least take cautious measures. Fifty years ago, children were dying from their gluten allergy, but no one knew that was the reason.
As folks with these allergies survive and procreate, the genes that carry this predisposition are passed along, thus creating a larger population of people with these food allergies.
I'm reading this post and replies while the tv is on in the back ground, and know I'm watching the company Kleenex has out a new product (here in Cananda anyway), for your bathroom. 
You apperantly no longer need towels because they also carry bacteria 
, you can now place a big a$$ box of specialized tissues to dry your hands. 
What on earth??? Know thats beyond germaphone.....isn't it?
Regarding keeping soup in a cool corner in the early 1900s...
Houses didn't have the nice central heating like we have now. Warm rooms, cold rooms... some areas of the house could actually be in the freezing zone in the wintertime.
According to my Grandmother... You would be in bed watching the breeze flutter the curtains, and see the frost sparkling on the ceiling.
Have we learned more about properly food storage over recent years, or have we all turned into a bunch of germophobes?
Debi, a few years ago I would've answered "germophobes" - good lord, people are paranoid about getting a little dirty! I've been studying cookbooks from pre-1900 recently and you wouldn't believe how people stored perishable food! "Store soup in a cool corner of the kitchen for two or three days." Would anyone today make a pot of soup and leave it on their dining room table for 72 hours?
Buuuuuuut, with yet another massive recall of meat due to e. coli announced Friday, I think quite a bit of the paranoia related to food is justified. It's not so much that the food itself is inherently dangerous; it's more that we're running a higher risk of getting nasty bugs from the processing plants before we have a chance to do anything with it.
Oh my gosh! The letting food sit out thing DRIVES ME CRAZY! A few years ago, my dh spent a week in the hospital because of food poisoning! Very scary stuff. (His cooking, not mine!) He under cooked a steak on the grill, he threw it on my plate and I said, "It's alive and bleeding, I'm not eating it!" He ate it and within 12 hours I was calling 911.
Anywho....It drives me crazy when people let turkey sit out for HOURS after dinner! Bacteria haven! And what about our grandmothers leaving butter sit out on the counter, and what about the grease bowl that used to sit on the top of the stove full of bacon grease?! Oye Vey!
This post is so interesting & funny. I remember as a child that we were made to stay outside all day when the weather was nice. We would literally get locked out except for meals. We lived on a farm, played in the creek & made mud pies. Their was no such thing as hand sanitizer. I remember when my older sister came home with the chicken pox, my mom exposed us to her so we would all have it @ the same time (now there's a vaccine). We all grew up very healthy with very little illness.
We also had butter on the table all day. Very often we keep an entire meal on the table for hrs in case someone else stopped in that wanted to eat.
Funny how things have changed including myself!
That's exactly how I grew up. We even had an abandoned chicken coop with this super fine dirt (at least we THOUGHT it was dirt!) that made the greatest mud pies! Played in the barns, drank water from the cow trough (yep! Put our lips right on the faucet!) and even drank from the little crick that was in the woods we played in (for those not from the midwest, a crick is smaller than a creek which is way smallr than a river!)
This post is so interesting & funny. I remember as a child that we were made to stay outside all day when the weather was nice. We would literally get locked out except for meals. We lived on a farm, played in the creek & made mud pies. Their was no such thing as hand sanitizer. I remember when my older sister came home with the chicken pox, my mom exposed us to her so we would all have it @ the same time (now there's a vaccine). We all grew up very healthy with very little illness.
We also had butter on the table all day. Very often we keep an entire meal on the table for hrs in case someone else stopped in that wanted to eat.
Funny how things have changed including myself!
That's exactly how I grew up. We even had an abandoned chicken coop with this super fine dirt (at least we THOUGHT it was dirt!) that made the greatest mud pies! Played in the barns, drank water from the cow trough (yep! Put our lips right on the faucet!) and even drank from the little crick that was in the woods we played in (for those not from the midwest, a crick is smaller than a creek which is way smallr than a river!)
Indydebi, I have a real hard time look at you in your avatar, in your white kitchen jacket, holding your nice shiny spatula and talking about playing in an abandoned chicken coop making 'mud pies'.
I guess it's official, I'm a germaphobe! 
P.S. We had cricks in Pennsylvania too!
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