Cath Kerry-Food
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Happy New Year & Hand Sanitisers

1/1/2020

11 Comments

 
Picture
Thank you for reading and sharing my 2019 musings. It’s been a strange year.  Let’s not ruin the mood of hopefulness that the new year might bring – let's look forward to contentment and sanity.

The new January front page may shock. Dizzie (Gillespie) is helping out before friends arrive. It's my personal statement against hand-sanitiser.

Our local greengrocer has become a haven of taste and a benefit to our suburban community. Year by year it has moved to more organic produce, less plastic, more interesting vegetable displays, along with the obligatory vegan dips, seaweed salad, Italian vinegars, kombucha drinks, kimchi “chutneys” and stylish hessian carry bags.  The associated butcher is all grass-fed and free-range.

But there's a new development. Each check-out now flaunts a pump bottle of hand-sanitiser. Natural, healthy living is being compromised by the fear of natural "people" germs. More people are harmed from lack of money than from handling it!

The Murdoch Children's Research Institute has found that 1 in 10 infants now suffers from food allergies, all probably due to our modern lifestyle.  "Australia has the unfortunate title of being the food allergy capital of the world."  Their hypotheses can be summed up as the 5 Ds - Diet, Dry Skin, Vitamin D, Dogs and Dirt. (For dogs read - dogs, cats, rabbits, macaws, siamangs etc.)

They believe that infants should be introduced to as many foods in their diet as possible between 6 - 10 months.  Any infant unfortunate enough to suffer dry skin due to eczema is more likely to be sensitive to certain foods.  Vitamin D deficiency is likely to show an increase in food allergies.

The last two - dogs and dirt - are easy. Get them outside touching "stuff", stop them washing their little hands at every opportunity, don't spray their schools bags, their bouncing balls and the kitchen bench tops with germicidal sprays.

And get that dog inside, give it a kiss and get that cat in the bed.

(Old "folkloric" linen tablecloth - "Spanish Blackwork" embroidery, out of Denmark, possibly Polish.)

Shocked?  Tell me. 👇
11 Comments
RTV
1/1/2020 04:29:44 pm

So, so right. If it offends anyone you have made your point.

Reply
Liz Ho
1/1/2020 10:10:49 pm

Could not agree more about the germ fetish. Kids need to make mud pies.
Thanks for your good words and good sense. May 2020 be kind to us all,

Reply
alice
1/1/2020 11:17:00 pm

you’re so right Cath - give normal life a chance.
happy new year to both of you 🍾🎶🎶

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Francene
1/1/2020 11:21:39 pm

I agree entirely with your comments and love seeing your beautiful Dizzie. Belle Époque, our blue Quaker parrot owns our table and grazes on our food. I’ve never had allergies and only ever had food poisoning from something I ate at a five-star hotel. Sadly so many young people do t get the chance to eat as freely as we did.
Hope 2020 is a great year for you and your readers.

Reply
Judy Griff
2/1/2020 08:36:36 am

Totally agree- devoted follower of the 40 second rule!

I have an antique table runner with similar embroidery to your cloth- bought in Russia in 1974 in my textile collecting days. It's very fine ecru coloured linen and has bands of cutwork and very fine handcrocheted lace at the ends.

Reply
cath kerry link
2/1/2020 02:27:49 pm

I'd love to see you runner. Yes, I think this all sounds connected.

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Angela Burford
2/1/2020 08:51:41 am

Thanks for your great original, thought provoking blogs, Cath. Looking forward to more of the same in 2020 and beyond. Love the comment about more people dying from lack of money than handling it.

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Margaret Stableford
2/1/2020 11:17:10 am

Many thanks Kath for adding me to your blog list, I'm really enjoying what you write and very pleased i keep getting updates as i wasn't sure if I needed to do anything from my end to keep them coming.

Reply
Cath Kerry link
2/1/2020 02:31:44 pm

You don't have to do a thing but it is nice to receive comments and I appreciate you taking the time. If you know any one else who might like to be on the list, send me their email.
Cath (with a C)

Reply
ROSA MATTO
2/1/2020 01:19:23 pm

Of course you are right. We are obsessed with germs. Scientific research backs this view with solid, peer assessed studies. We need to relax and enjoy our pets, our gardens, our life.

Scientific research also confirms that if we wash our hands before eating, after sneezing and wiping noses when we have a cold (or worse), after we go to the toilet and before cuddling a sick person with a compromised immune system we also reduce the risk of spreading all manner of germs, micro organisms, pathogenic bacteria.

It was Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War who saved hundreds of injured soldiers by the simple expedient of requiring nurses and doctors to wash their hands between patients. It is rare that I find myself in a life or death situation re hand hygiene but the saintly Florence is never far from my thoughts.

Hand sanitisers, anti bacterial sprays and wipes, are certainly overused and generally are not as effective as claimed because we use them incorrectly. And yet, they have their uses.

Personally, I am fond of many microbes and bacteria (though I can't name them all) - I make bread, I drink wine, eat cheese, yoghurt and sauerkraut, occasionally I take a course of antibiotics. Germs, which are micro organisms, are not all bad. But some will kill us. We must learn the difference.

Stay calm. Eat cheese.

Reply
Cath Kerry link
2/1/2020 02:46:30 pm

It's good that we know how to protect ourselves against the virulent, belligerent, aggressive, rogue demons and pestilence out there. I just see, unfortunately, basic home hygiene being being over-ridden by fear - another thing to scare us and make us add another spray and squirt bottle to our cupboards. (Hand washing at certain times, sure, but urine incidentally is sterile. Too much information?)

We're killing the bees with insecticides. There is concern that we might be killing, not just our immune system, but also the bacteria required for cheese, wine and sauerkraut!

Is the germ phobia also linked to general squeamishness about the natural, from handling meat to cutting up a mango? All a bit "icky" to a new generation.

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