A balanced diet of germs, please

Here's an interesting article arguing that Americans don't eat enough shit. And by shit I mean feces. OK, so not exactly feces, but bacteria.

I know of a lot of people who slather germ-killing Purell all over their bodies (it's popular in the office, as though we're cow farmers rather than cubicle dwellers), and people who insist on antibacterial soap. But it makes sense that they're actually doing themselves a disservice, weakening their immune systems even while they try to ward off germs.

To wit:

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.