good old GASTRO rears it's ugly head

[mogs]

It's that time of year again apparently, one member of our family keeps getting recurring attacks of sickness then gets better and it's back again.   At the Lycee quite a few students have gone down with it.

Anyone else been affected this autumn?

[NormanH]

Here it is often down to the drinking water after a storm, or the lack of basic hygiene in such matters as washing hands.

http://www.midilibre.fr/2012/10/15/un-francais-sur-cinq-ne-se-douche-pas-tous-les-jours,578524.php

[idun]

I too used to hear in my french village that it was the water after heavy rain that was to blame and yet all tests came back clear, the results posted on the Mairie door!

When our primary school was done up and reopened, there was no soap or towels and I took some in at lunch time, the headmistress telling me that I was making a fuss. Just how someone who had had so much 'education' could still be so disgracefully ignorant was beyond me. There is no trick to this, keep  hands properly washed and don't touch food with dirty hands and keep fingers away from one's mouth and eyes.

My family didn't get the gastros that would do the rounds.

 

And re showering, well, is it that important to shower every day? We used to have what we called a 'strip wash' when I was younger, with the lovely added expression of 'topping and tailing', but everywhere got a rub over and people would be clean and not smelly. Probably used a lot less water too![:D]

[nomoss]

[quote user="NormanH"]Here it is often down to the drinking water after a storm, or the lack of basic hygiene in such matters as washing hands.

http://www.midilibre.fr/2012/10/15/un-francais-sur-cinq-ne-se-douche-pas-tous-les-jours,578524.php
[/quote]

Who on earth would believe the results of such a poll?

I think the young people might say they didn't wash their hands, etc., just to be clever, and the older ones would mostly say they did.

i.e. probably the opposite of the facts.

 

[5-element]

[quote user="nomoss"]

Who on earth would believe the results of such a poll?

[/quote]

I have no problem believing it, as I might be one of those people who shower every other day  for starters [:D]. Yet, I always wash my hands before handling food, always after visiting the toilet, and in many other instances!

Someone else mentioned  "topping and tailing" expression (lovely expression which I'd never heard before), except that it seems to leave armpits out...). is it the same thing as a "catholic" wash?

An elderly friend in an old people's home, complains that the residents there cannot usually have more than one shower a week... 

A few days ago, there was a TV programme about the fast growing popularity of public showers (just like in the old days!) - especially in large cities, where more and more people (students, workers, pensioners, whole families) have to go to the public baths once or twice a week for their shower. Many of these people are just ordinary folks like you and me, except they don't have the luxury of a bathroom where they live, especially in Paris. There is a lot of urban (and rural) sub-standard housing about...

[Gardian]

[quote user="idun"]

I too used to hear in my french village that it was the water after heavy rain that was to blame and yet all tests came back clear, the results posted on the Mairie door!

[/quote]

Our water comes from a small reservoir up in the bois. I've never been up there, but after heavy rain we get a call from the Mairie saying not to consume it (as drinking water). There are a lot of betes up there, so I probably don't need to spell out the reasons why! The test results that come with every year's bill are sufficient proof.

Ever since the 1st call, we've always used bottled water.  [blink] 

 

[nomoss]

[quote user="Gardian"][quote user="idun"]

I too used to hear in my french village that it was the water after heavy rain that was to blame and yet all tests came back clear, the results posted on the Mairie door!

[/quote]

Our water comes from a small reservoir up in the bois. I've never been up there, but after heavy rain we get a call from the Mairie saying not to consume it (as drinking water). There are a lot of betes up there, so I probably don't need to spell out the reasons why! The test results that come with every year's bill are sufficient proof.

Ever since the 1st call, we've always used bottled water.  [blink] 

 

[/quote]

 

Which suggests my schoolmasters were correct when they told us not to drink the water in France [:D] - as a general rule, that seems to have been correct.

I heard french kids are/were told not to drink the water in England. That is also sensible, as, apart from the cold tap in the kitchen, all the others are fed from the open cistern in the loft in most english houses; definitely not for drinking.

BTW, I rarely shower every other day at this time of year. It's just not necessary, despite current obsessions.

As a kid, we bathed once a week. Not that we were too poor to afford the hot water, but just the way people thought back then.

And, touch wood, my health doesn't seem to have suffered unduly, and I don't have any allergies [:(]

 

Edit. However, I am an obsessive hand - washer!

[5-element]

The tap water here is excellent, and comes from a local source which is very well taken care of, as it is the pride and joy of our mayor. The only cases of gastro we have had were not due to adulterated water, but to insufficiently cooked chicken, duck, or local oysters.

You often see those serving or selling food, who seem to have had a hygiene awareness bypass. They will give change, scratch their nose, and resume their foodhandling duties within the same breath. This I find truly shocking - there are rules and regulations, but on various occasions that I have remarked that this was risky behaviour  in terms of germ transmission, my comment elicited a stunned look, as if I was from planet Mars.

I was once in a restaurant where I saw the waiter openly picking his spots, and then carrying on doing his job. I got up and left, and told him why.On the other hand, our butchers (husband and wife team) are absolutely spot-on (haha) with their hygiene procedures.

You can't  contaminate other people by having relatively infrequent showers. If, however, you don't wash your hands, or you sneeze on food, or you cut salad vegetables with the knife you used to bone the chicken, you can really spread disease. Showering 3 times a day will not make up for neglecting handwashing and real hygiene.

[idun]

I can well understand that some areas would have poor drinking water, I understand that.

Ours was like evian, from a glacier under the mountain and supberb drinking water. It was regularly tested  and there was never an alert at all. A friend in Grenoble was told by her maternity hospital to just use tap water in the biberons and not boil it. And I would certainly use 'just' evian without boiling it when we were away anywhere in the biberons. In the Alpes there is much good water to be had.

Topping and tailing. Well the top is as far down as the waist and the tail is everything from the waist down. So under arms, in fact under everythings get a wash![Www]

Our butcher redid their shop and had to have a hand washing sink in the shop, they put a plant pot in it and never ever used it. They'd handle raw meat and poultry and then the charcuterie and no one was ever ill. I remember one year as part of the 14 Juillet celebration there was a competition, a group of lads stood on a plank with their hands behind their backs and diots, a sort of sausage in the Alpes, were dangling from strings and they had to try and eat as many of these raw sausages as they could. My friend's son won, I could have thrown up to be honest. He had his appendix out a year or two later and she told me it was full of worms............ beurk! would he have got them from eating raw sausage?

I wash everyday, but not necessarily full bathing. Still in a very hot summer I've been known to have several cold showers a day! I don't wash all my floors every day , but I do keep my hands clean and work surfaces  and sink clean and obey very basic and the very good rules that 5E mentioned about food preparation. It isn't hard, just habit in the end.

[KathyF]

I'm another who washes every day, but not always in the shower. However I do wash my hands frequently throughout the day and am careful about food hygiene and gastric infection is unknown chez nous, with one memorable exception when the kids brought it home with them for Christmas. . :-)