Thought this was interesting!
NEVER REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT THIS BEFORE!!
Have you ever noticed gals who sit their purses on public
rest-room
floors - that go directly to their dining tables? Happens a lot!
It's not always the 'restaurant food' that causes stomach
distress.
Sometimes "what you don't know 'will' hurt you"!
Read on...
Mom got so upset when a guest came in the door and plopped their
purses down on the counter where she was cooking or setting up the
buffet.
She always said that purses are really dirty, because of where
they
have been. Smart Momma!!!
It's something just about every woman carries with them. While
we may know what's inside our purses, do
you have any idea what's
on
the outside?
Shauna Lake put purses to the test - for bacteria - with
surprising
results. You may think twice about where you put your purse.
Women carry purses everywhere; from the office to public
rest-rooms to
the floor of the car. Most women won't be caught without their
purses,
but did you ever stop to think about where your purse goes
during the day?
"I drive a school bus, so my purse has been on the floor of the
bus a lot," says one woman. "On the floor of my car, probably in
rest-rooms." "I put my purse in grocery shopping carts, on the
floor
of bathroom stalls while changing a diaper," says another woman
and of course in my home which should be clean."
We decided to find out if purses harbor a lot of bacteria. We
learned how to test them at Nelson Laboratories in Salt
Lake,
then we set out to test the average woman's purse.
Most women told us they didn't stop to think about what was on
the bottom of their purse. Most said they usually set their purses
on
top of kitchen tables and counters where food is prepared. Most of
the
ladies we talked to told us they wouldn't be surprised if their
purses were at least a little bit dirty.
It turns out purses are so surprisingly dirty, even the
microbiologist who tested them was shocked. Microbiologist Amy
Karren of Nelson Labs says nearly all of the purses tested were
not
only high in bacteria, but high in harmful kinds of bacteria.
Pseudomonas can cause eye infections, staphylococcus aurous can
cause serious skin infections, and salmonella and e-coli found on
the
purses could make people very sick. In one sampling, four of five
purses tested
positive for salmonella, and that's not the worst of
it. "There is fecal contamination on the purses," says Amy.
Leather or vinyl purses tended to be cleaner than cloth purses,
and
lifestyle seemed to play a role. People with kids tended to have
dirtier purses than those without, with one exception. The purse
of
one single woman who frequented nightclubs had one of the worst
contaminations of all. "Some type of feces, or even possibly vomit
or something like that," says Amy.
So the moral of this story - your purse won't kill you, but it
does
have the potential to make you very sick if you keep it on places
where you eat. Use hooks to hang your purse at home and in
rest-rooms, and don't put it on your desk, a restaurant table, or
on
your kitchen countertop.
Experts say you should think of your purse the same way you would
a
pair of shoes. "If you think about putting a pair of shoes onto
your
countertops, that's the same thing you're doing when you put
your purse on the countertops" - your purse has gone where every
individual before you has spat, coughed, urinated, emptied bowels,
etc! Do you really want to bring that home with you?
The microbiologists at Nelson also said cleaning a purse will
help.
wash cloth purses and use leather cleaner to clean the bottom of
Leather purses.
THIS IS WORTH SHARING!!!
Linear Mode
