Eat Shit

Poop is Healthy for You

I get consistently frustrated by the way this society has become so ridiculously obsessed with sterilizing everything we touch, and getting prescription medications for the smallest of symptoms. This sickens me more than actually being sick.

I’m sure you know somebody who will go to the doctor at the first sign of maybe being sick, someone who will, without hesitation, take a prescription antibiotic just because it might help. It is the fault of THESE people that are causing the sharp rise in drug-resistant bacteria. It is the over-use of anti-bacterial wipes and hand sanitizers which are strengthening the bacteria’s ability to resist these drugs.

For the same reason why bacteria develop immunity, we as a population should allow ourselves to ingest some filth. Using myself as an example, I rarely get sick. At most I get a slight cold once a year which lasts perhaps one night. I never get deathly ill, bacterial infections, stomach viruses or anything of that sort.

You might call me lucky, and maybe I am. Not because Lady Luck rolled her dice and decided for me not to get sick, but because I grew up in an environment which wasn’t obsessively and overly sanitized. There has been a sharp rise in the youth population that are growing up with more and more allergies and inabilities to fight off the most basic of bugs. As with anything in life, we need practice fighting off the things that can potentially make us sick. Our immune systems need to strengthen and by eliminating all the most minor of bugs is only keeping our immune systems un-naturally weak.

“But here is the problem: We have become victims of our own success. Ever wonder why your dog can gobble, lick, and gnaw all he wants along the glorious buffet of a city street and (almost) never get sick? Your dog is used to eating shit. Americans, on the other hand, grow up eating almost no shit at all. Our food is hosed and boiled and rinsed and detoxified and frozen and salted and preserved. Recently, we have begun to irradiate it, too—just in case. As a result, when our bodies encounter the occasional inevitable bug, they're unhappy. Our centuries-long program of winnowing out all the muck has turned us into sissies and withered the substantial part of the immune system mediated by our intestinal tract.

Kids have it worse than adults. Even with today's near-sterility, adult intestines have learned enough tricks to ward off major trouble, albeit clumsily. In contrast, modern kids are near-bubble babies. Our mammalian disaster plan is a good one: A child receives antibodies against countless infections from his mother through the placenta and then from breast milk. With that protection, the infant can take his time to develop his own antibodies. But these days, mothers have scant immunity because they too were raised in America the Hygienic. (Also, breast-feeding may be skipped.) So, kids have zero experience with routine gut infections, and when they encounter one that has slipped past our pipes and filters, the result can be catastrophic.”

http://www.slate.com/id/2175569/pagenum/all/

Lesson to be learned: Eat shit.