I think there is much truth in the idea that we do best in peaceful
coexistence with bacteria. Certainly, we need the right sort of
intestinal bacteria for proper digestion. And recently, on the Dean
Edell website, I believe, there was a report that rural children who
play outside "in the dirt," so to speak, have less asthma than kids
raised in antiseptic urban homes.

Still, there are limits. Even wild animals sicken and die of
infectious diseases, sometimes even in epidemic numbers, while living
on a raw, natural diet. Some people have died from a new and
particularly nasty strain of a common bacteria that got into eggs.
It's not clear to me that eating any number of raw eggs free of that
noxious strain would have provided any protection at all.

There seems to be a mounting volume of evidence to show that genetic
factors play a role in many diseases. One clear example is sickle cell
trait. People with one sickle cell gene have the trait, and enjoy some
resistance to malaria. People with two copies of the gene suffer
sickle cell anemia, a serious disease in its own right. People without
the gene suffer from malaria by the hundreds of millions every year,
and millions die. Would a raw paleo diet have protected them? Perhaps,
but I wouldn't bet on it. Humans who evolved on the savanna didn't
have to cope with clouds of tropical mosquitoes and their freight of
plasmodium.

A new factor in our very recent times is the speed and ease of travel.
We don't have many lifetimes to come to terms with the germs in our
immediate environment. Foreign bugs are circulated with ever
increasing speed. No population in the history of life has had to deal
with such rapid change and variety of infectious organisms.

Mother Nature is efficient in tuning creatures to their environment,
but one of her main tools is culling the herd. Trouble is, humans
object to being culled. They take steps to thwart the natural process.
They take medicines. They invent vaccines, which seem to protect many
even as they devastate an unlucky minority. They bundle up their
children in sterile blankets, for fear that this precious child, my
child, may be pronounced unfit and expendable by that ruthless and
implacable Mother Nature.

So, I don't fuss over my food, but I wash my hands when I've been out.
I don't want to catch somebody else's cold or flu, which may well have
originated on a pig farm in China. I rinse visible dirt off my veggies
but don't treat them with bleach or hydrogen peroxide. I eat beef and
lamb very rare, basically raw on the inside. I love sushi once in a
while, rice and all. I do splash a little bleach on my cutting board
after cutting poultry. Maybe if I'd been raised on raw chicken all my
life, I could handle whatever bugs it might carry, but I wasn't, I'm
52, and I _hate_ nausea, let alone vomiting.

I think I had a bout of food poisoning a few weeks ago. Whatever it
was, it lasted only one night, but it was really nasty. I weakened and
had take-out pizza that night, so it was my own damned fault; the
lesson is still vivid in my mind.

Oh, well. We're all gonna die, ya know? A good clean diet will surely
help us maintain health while we last, but it's not the answer to
life, the universe, and everything.

Bill