I just receievd this e-mail from a friend. It sounded plausible, but I checked it out at [url]www.snopes.com[/url], just to be sure. And yep, it's true:
[B]
It's not always the 'restaurant food' that causes stomach distress. Sometimes "what you don't know 'will' hurt you"! Read on...[/B]
Mom got so upset when guests came in the door and plopped their purses down on the counter where she was cooking or setting up food. 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 restrooms 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, and in restrooms."
"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 at home 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 possibly vomit," says Amy.
So the moral of this story - your purse won't kill you, but it does ha ve 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 restrooms, 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 individuals before you have sneezed, coughed, spat, 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!!!
And the verification at snopes.com: [url]http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/purse.asp[/url]
Be careful out there!!!!
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I just caught this one, have been busy and was catching up. I am going to start cleaning my purse with alcohol, and I am sending that e-mail to several of my friends ! and DH - goes grocery shopping with his backpack, and what's the first thing he does when he comes home - yup, puts it on the kitchen countertop to empty it !
they did a segment about this on TV not long ago and what was frightening was seeing how women handled their purses. They often had their hands on the bottom of the purse while carrying it or trying to find something in it (while it's on their shoulder in particular) and then all that yuck is on their hands....they go eat, put on lip gloss with a finger, or whatever.
Must have been my clean freak mother, but I have just never put my purse on any floor anywhere, not even my car (seats yes, table tops no). I'm also a total nut for clean hands and carry hand sanitizer and those little individually wrapped whipes on me at all times.
BTW one other recent study said the car steering wheel is also a filth holder. Something to consider when going through the drive thru (hence my carrying whipes and such).
Food for thought! I never set anything of mine on the floor in restrooms, but I am guilty of putting my purse on the floor of the car. I guess I should rethink that!
Just this last week I tossed a magazine that the kids threw on the floor in the back seat of the car. This was after my son got into the car after a closer examination of some pigeons at a strip mall. I couldn't see flipping through that magazine at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee knowing there could be traces of pigeon poop on it from his shoes.
Yuck I always carry a backpack never a purse but mine goes on the floor all the time oh I gues it is time to find somewhere else to put it than on the counter when I get home. Now I am grossed out and have to go clean.
This is very useful information.