Here’s Another Friendly Reminder to Wash Your Damn Hands
If you’ve ever had a gastrointestinal upset after a summer barbecue, it might not have been potato salad – it might have been someone else’s terrible food safety practices . Specifically, they probably didn’t wash their hands.
Hand washing is the simplest food safety practice at its most therapeutic level, but according to a recent USDA study , most people are not worried. By “majority,” I don’t mean a meager fifty-one percent — I mean, the participants in this study didn’t wash their hands almost every time they could. Carmen Rottenberg, a senior USDA food safety official, puts it:
“There were many, many times in the study where people had the opportunity to wash their hands – nearly 1,200 opportunities,” Rottenberg told NBC News. However, the team found that people fail almost always, almost 98% of the time.
Now for the fun part: This study was designed to test the effectiveness of a new video on the correct use of a meat thermometer , not how to wash your hands in American home kitchens. This find was completely accidental and terrifying.
In case you forgot somehow, urine is not washing , folks. If you don’t wipe your hands with soap and running water, they won’t get clean. For situations where running water is not available, alcohol-based or bleach-based hand wipes are best: hand sanitizer effectively kills germs, but they will remain on your skin until you wash them off.
Here’s The Real Reason So Many Americans Get Food Poisoned | NBC News