The Underlying Cause of Food Poisoning
The REAL food poisoning culprit
Doctors are human and most of them mean well, but they are subject to propaganda just like the rest of us. Their pronouncements, therefore, are often politically correct even if they don’t always make sense.
Take this story for example: a friend of mine told me recently that he had had severe diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting the previous week. I asked him what the doctor had to say. “He said, after
asking me what I had eaten that day, that it was the pork.”
Realistically, the pork was the least likely culprit in the list of foods he had eaten. He ate beans and rice, tomato, cucumber, mayonnaise, and onion, then flan de leche for dessert (a form of
custard).
Trichinosis doesn’t happen often these days, and the only way you can get it is from eating underdone pork. People just don’t eat rare pork. And no one I have ever heard of eats pork raw. So I told him his illness was probably caused by some organism, such as staph, salmonella, or hepatitis A (not the kind you’re thinking – hepatitis A is a very benign condition that clears up on its own without any treatment, as is true of most intestinal infections. Hepatitis B and C are a different matter.)
At any rate, the criminal here is not the organism, viral or bacterial, or pork, but a dirty food handler. Restaurants don’t like to spend a lot of time examining their food-handling employees. They give them written instructions, according to the law in a particular state and that’s about it.
It’s safer to eat at home – but not always as much fun.
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Stench warfare in the battle of the sexes
I know that pro-Franco sentiment in the U.S. is probably pretty low right now, but I may have just stumbled on some fascinating research that answers an age-old question:
How can French men be so successful at wooing women when they HARDLY EVER SHOWER?
C’mon, you know what I mean. There’s the enviable reputation of the French for romance – and then their reputation for barely bathing (at least by American standards). Yet sex surveys report year in and year out that those rank rakes of France get lucky more often than men of just about any other civilized nation.
So what gives? One would think that only fresh, clean people would have any sort of chance at getting lucky, no matter what language they woo each other in. Yet the truth of the matter may be exactly 180 degrees from what we’ve come to believe.
According to a Reuter’s article, a study conducted by University of Pennsylvania biologists concluded that male perspiration had a profoundly positive effect on women’s moods. That’s right: Among test subjects, a dose of man-sweat applied to the upper lip (ugh!) reduced stress, induced relaxation, and raised hormone levels normally associated with ovulation.
When you really stop to consider it, this makes sense. As much as we pretend otherwise, we humans are animals – and in the whole of the animal kingdom, scents and pheromones rule the roost when it comes to sex. If species washed these musky markers away with soap and water every day, they probably wouldn’t breed as often.
So if you want to make a big impression on that next hot date, don’t shower for a week beforehand.
I’m kidding, of course (unless you’re French). Seriously, though – this research could pave the way for new developments in the treatments for infertility, PMS, or even menopause if the mainstream latches onto it and explores the possibilities
But it’ll probably only spur a new generation of “get lucky” after-shaves and colognes. After all, that’s where the money is. If this happens, I will try them and report back.
Always willing to do my part,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
