CONSIDER THE TURKEY

Turkey breeders domesticated farmyard turkeys from a species actually called the Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), native to the eastern and southwestern states and parts of Mexico. Last week’s blog explores turkey origins, early domestication, and return to the U.S. from Europe with colonists.

The Modern Turkey

Domestic stock returned from Europe was eventually crossbred with the wild turkeys of North America. Today, there are six common standard domestic varieties in the United States:

  • Bronze
  • Black
  • Narraganset
  • Bourbon Red
  • Slate
  • White Holland

Although wild and domestic turkeys are genetically the same species, that’s about where the similarity ends.

The domestic turkey lost its ability to fly well through selective breeding that created heavier, broad-breasted birds. The shorter legs of the domestic turkey also mean it can’t run as well as its wild cousin.

Generations of farmers have bred domesticated turkeys to have more breast meat, meatier thighs, and white feathers. (White feathers don’t leave the dark pigmentation after plucking.) Most of the turkey we eat is from the Broad Breasted White breed.

Americans consume about 736 million pounds of turkey each Thanksgiving. In 2022, Americans collectively spent approximately $1.1 billion on Thanksgiving turkeys.

One fifth of America’s annual turkey consumption is on the Thanksgiving dinner table.

What About Turkeys Off the Thanksgiving Platter?

Some reports say Americans consume an average of 18 pounds of turkey meat per capita each year. Other estimates suggest it’s 13.6 pounds per person. In any case, it’s more than anyone consumes at a single meal, even Thanksgiving.

While Americans prefer the white meat of turkeys, most of the rest of the world prefers the dark meat.

Avian myologists (bird muscle scientists) refer to dark meat as “red muscle.” Animals use red muscle for sustained activity—chiefly walking, in the case of a turkey. The dark color comes from a chemical compound in the muscle called myoglobin, which plays a key role in oxygen transport. White muscle, in contrast, is suitable only for short bursts of activity such as, for turkeys, flying. That’s why the turkey’s leg meat and thigh meat are dark, and its breast meat (which makes up the primary flight muscles) is white. Other more “flighty” birds, such as ducks and geese, have red muscle (and dark meat) throughout.

Creative chefs have written whole cookbooks about turkey.

As with other cookbooks, you can find recipes for appetizers, beverages, soups, breads, salads, side dishes, sandwiches, burgers, and many uses for leftovers.

Facts About Turkeys Off the Table

A rafter of turkeys

Male turkeys are sometimes called “gobblers,” after the “gobble” call they make. Alternatively, they are called “toms.” Females are called “hens.”

Many factors impact a tom turkey’s impulse to gobble. The presence of other male turkeys or of female turkeys, the weather, the time of year, and a turkey’s age all influence when and how loudly a tom turkey gobbles.

Hens make a clucking sound. Other turkey sounds include “purrs,” “yelps,” “cutts,” “cackles,” “hoots,” and “kee-kees.”

Adult gobblers weigh between 16 and 22 pounds. They have a beard of modified feathers on their chests that reaches seven inches or more long and sharp spurs on their legs for fighting.

Hens are smaller, weighing around 8 to 12 pounds. They have no beard or spurs.

Both genders have a snood (a dangly appendage on the face) and a wattle (the red, fleshy thing that hangs from a turkey’s neck). However, they only have a few feathers on the head.

Snood length is an indicator of a male turkey’s health. When males challenge each other, scientists can use snood length to predict the winner. In addition, a 1997 study in the Journal of Avian Biology found that female turkeys prefer males with long snoods.

Tom turkeys also have caruncles, visible bumps on their heads. The larger the caruncles, the more testosterone a tom has.

Turkey hens live together in flocks (called rafters) with their female young. These rafters can have 50 or more birds!

Male turkeys form their own flocks, sometimes further separated by age. At mating time, a group of related male turkeys will band together to court females. However, only one member of the group gets to mate.

Commercial poultry farms today artificially inseminate turkey eggs. Generations of selectively breeding for larger breasts has created birds too large and heavy to mate naturally.

When a hen is ready to make little turkeys, she’ll lay one egg per day, over a period of about two weeks until she has a clutch of 10 to 12 eggs. Then, the eggs incubate for about one month before hatching.

Turkey hen with poults

Baby turkeys (poults) eat primarily berries, seeds, and insects. An adult’s more varied diet can include acorns and even small reptiles.

A clever observer can determine a turkey’s gender from its droppings. Males produce long, thin, spiral-shaped poop. Females’ poop clumps more and looks like the letter J.

Early farmers kept turkeys on small farms not just for their meat but also because they ate large numbers of insects and so were a great source of pest control.

One of the difficulties of raising turkeys stems from their curiosity. Without sturdy and cleverly built pens, turkeys will get out of their enclosures and wander off to explore the neighborhood. Also, they tend to get into places they can’t get out of, such as nearby buildings and the pens of other animals. In particular, turkeys commonly get their heads caught in fences!

A flock of wild turkeys has caused problems at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. The curious and territorial birds are big enough to deter pedestrians, stop traffic, and even halt aircraft.

Adults must teach their young to eat from special feeders and waterers, just like other baby animals.

Turkeys like to roost high up in trees where they are safe from predators and can see any danger coming. They are not always graceful when descending, often crashing from branch to branch on their way to the ground.

Turkeys have approximately 3,500 feathers at maturity. If you’re particularly industrious, you can use these feathers, along with chicken feathers, to make feather-tick bedding. It’s not nearly so light and comfy as down!

Wild turkeys swim very well. They can flatten their feathers for a stream-lined effect, steer with their tails, and kick with their powerful legs.

Turkey skins are tanned and used to make items like cowboy boots, belts, and other accessories.

The dance called the Turkey Trot was named for the short, jerky steps a turkey makes. It became very popular following its introduction in a San Francisco nightclub in 1910. The movements were so “outlandish” that authorities used to arrest people for Turkey Trotting in public, and Pope Pius X begged his flock not to follow the new dance craze.

Before modern transportation, farmers in the British Isles put leather shoes on turkeys and walked them to market.

The 57th Annual Tremont Turkey Festival was held June 9-11, 2023. The festival features footraces, bed races, horseshoes, music, a parade, food, food, food, and more.

Bottom line: (Some people think) turkeys are kind of cool.

THE WELL-TRAVELED TURKEY

Once Halloween is over, it’s all about Thanksgiving. The shift of focus from goblins to gobblers is instantaneous. Although officially called Thanksgiving, for many it’s really Turkey Day. But beyond dinner, what do people really know of Meleagris gallopavo, the wild turkey that gave rise to the one likely to be on the platter?

Turkeys in North America

flying turkey

Turkeys are native to North America, as are all the subspecies. M. gallopavo silvestris, sometimes called forest turkeys or eastern wild turkeys, are the most numerous of the subspecies, more than five million.

Archaeological evidence suggests that Native Americans domesticated turkeys more than 1500 years ago, before Europeans set foot on the continent. Archaeologists have found turkey bones in burial mounds in Tennessee, Kentucky and some other parts of the South. Turkey relics have surfaced in Arizona dating as far back as 25 C.E., and turkey-raising may well be one of the oldest forms of organized meat production in the Northern Hemisphere.

Indigenous farmers raised turkeys in Mexico and Central America more than 500 years before the Spanish arrived. Evidence of turkey bones at religious sites and burial mounds suggests that turkeys served a ceremonial role as well as providing meat. Although native to North America, the turkey’s range extended into Mexico.

Turkey Trade in Central America

Chalchiuhtotolin, Aztec turkey god
Chalchiuhtotolin, the god of plagues, depicted as a turkey in the Aztec Codex

Central Mexico once acted as a center of turkey domestication. Archaeologists have found bones of Meleagris gallopavo from as early as 8000 B.C.E. in what was once Maya territory. Remains of turkey pens and fossilized poop containing traces of corn suggest ancient Mayans kept and fed turkeys, trading them throughout Central America.

A 1980s archaeological dig at the El Mirador assemblage in Guatemala unearthed seven turkey skeletons. The bones were from more than 2000 years ago and more than 400 miles from their native range in Central Mexico.

One thing is certain, says Erin Kennedy Thornton, an environmental archaeologist at Trent University Archaeological Research Centre in Peterborough, Canada. The turkeys “didn’t walk there [to the Jaguar Paw Temple] themselves.” Like many Native American cultures, she says, the Maya used turkey feathers in ornaments and carved turkey bones into picks, pins, and elaborate tubes.

Ocellated Turkey
Ocellated Turkey – no wonder Hernán Cortés confused them with peacocks in 1519!

Thornton studied the bones, and concluded they did not belong to the indigenous ocellated turkeys that roamed Mayan territory. Those birds are small, with blue heads and iridescent blue, green, and copper feathers, she says,”almost like a cross between a turkey and a peacock.” The bones found in the temple appeared to belong to the larger, duller Mexican turkey.

After reexamining the bones, Thornton collaborated with archaeologist Camilla Speller, an expert in ancient DNA analysis at the University of Calgary in Canada, to confirm that the bones belonged to M. gallopavo. Only one of the bones yielded enough replicable DNA for analysis. That DNA was an exact match with M. gallopavo, and not the ocellated turkey.

Mayan traders maintained long-distance exchange networks between northern Mesoamerica and Mayan territory. They moved many objects such as jade, obsidian, and pottery throughout these networks between 300 B.C.E. and 200 C.E., when the bones likely originated, says Thornton. However, she says, this is the first sign that Mayan traders may have transported living animals as well.

As early as 300 B.C.E, people transported Mexican turkeys between 650 and 950 kilometers outside of the their natural range. In a study Thornton and others published, they argued that this distribution suggests turkey domestication in Mexico may have begun centuries earlier than scientists previously thought.

“I think they did a good job of making the case that the Meleagris gallopavo birds at El Mirador were derived from Central Mexico and were probably being confined,” says William Lipe, an archaeologist at Washington State University, Pullman. However, the small sample of DNA concerns him, and he agrees with Thornton that scientists need to do more research. “My guess is that the history of turkey domestication in the New World is fairly complex and that we are just beginning to see some of the outlines of it.”

Turkeys in Europe

Turks call this bird a “Hindi.” Hindi speakers call it a “Peru.” Arabic speakers call it a “Greek chicken.” Greeks call it a “French chicken.” The French call it an “Indian chicken.”

So, it’s likely that the Mayans of southern Mexico domesticated turkeys, maybe 2000 years ago. Spanish explorers took Mexican wild turkeys domesticated by the Aztecs back to Europe about 1519. These turkeys spread rapidly throughout Europe, and traders introduced them to England between 1524 and 1541. There, they became a highly sought-after element of gourmet dinners.

After those early domestic turkeys spread across Europe in the 1500s, European colonists brought them back. When colonists set off for the New World, they brought turkeys back across the Atlantic, to the land of their origin. At the time, the turkey was already one of the most plentiful foods of Native Americans. The wild cousin is slim, tall and long-legged. It possesses keen eyesight, hearing, and native cunning, making it a difficult target for human and animal hunters alike.

“The wild turkey in a sprint can outrun a galloping horse for a short distance,” said Charles Ruth, Big Game Program coordinator for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR). “Although it is one of the largest game birds, weighing up to 25 pounds, it can fly distances of more than a mile, sometimes at speeds of 55 miles per hour.”

The Modern Turkey

Despite these survival traits, by the early 20th century, wild turkey numbers had plummeted because of overhunting and loss of habitat. In the early 1900s, the population reached a low of around 30,000 birds.

Fortunately, game managers stepped in, re-introducing wild-caught birds to areas where turkeys had disappeared. Thanks to these efforts, since the 1940s, wild turkeys have been prospering. There are now wild turkeys in all of the lower 48 states and even Hawaii, far beyond their original range. They number more than seven million.

Restoration of the wild turkey in South Carolina is one of the Palmetto State’s most noteworthy conservation success stories. In the early 1900s, only small pockets of wild turkeys survived in South Carolina. They lived primarily in the Lowcountry’s Francis Marion National Forest and along the Savannah River swamps. Today, the wild turkey is widespread throughout South Carolina. All 46 counties hold a spring hunting season (there is no fall season). Wild turkey restoration was made possible through the efforts of the SCDNR, the National Wild Turkey Federation, the forest products industry, private landowners, and South Carolina sportsmen and sportswomen.

Myths Busted

The name of the Republic of Turkey (now spelled Türkiye) and the funny-looking bird we eat in November are actually related (maybe). In the 1550s, merchants brought the birds to England by way of Spain and North Africa. People associated the new delicacy with the Ottoman Empire, particularly with the Turkish people.
  • Myth: Benjamin Franklin suggested the turkey as a national symbol or part of the Great Seal for America.
    • Fact: In 1784, Benjamin Franklin did praise the turkey. He wrote that compared to the bald eagle, the turkey is “a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America.” But he never actually proposed the turkey as a symbol for America.
  • Myth: Turkeys are just big chickens.
    • Fact: More than 45 million years of evolution separates the two species. However, both are more closely related to dinosaurs than most modern birds!
  • Myth: Turkeys are so dumb, they’ll stare at the sky during a storm and drown in the rain.
    • Fact: Some turkeys have a unique genetic condition called tetanic torticollar spasms. This condition can result in some strange behaviors, like staring at the sky. No turkeys with this condition have been reported dying from looking up in the rain.
  • Myth: Turkey is high in tryptophan. Eating turkey makes you sleepy.
    • Fact: Turkey is just one of many foods that contain tryptophan. In order to feel the effects, you’d need to eat nearly 8 pounds of turkey in one sitting.

Bottom Line: When you think turkey, think beyond the supermarket.

SHOULD YOU EAT THAT? REALLY?

Ever wonder about the safety of the food you put in your mouth or serve to your guests? It should be fine, actually. There are multiple government agencies charged with seeing to it.

Specifically, There are Three US Agencies Dealing With Food Safety

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Norovirus, a primary cause of gastroentiritis cases in the winter, looks disconcertingly fluffy under a microscope.

The FDA is charged with protecting public health. They make sure that foods are safe, wholesome, sanitary and properly labeled. Safety and proper labeling of cosmetics and dietary supplements also fall under FDA oversight.

FDA standards and inspections cover both human and veterinary drugs, vaccines, biological products, and medical devices, ensuring they are safe and effective. This includes tobacco products.

The FDA also protects the public from electronic radiation.

Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)

As part of the US Department of Agriculture, the FSIS, rather than the FDA, has jurisdiction over most meat and egg products sold in the US. From their website, “FSIS protects the public’s health by ensuring that meat, poultry and egg products are safe, wholesome and properly labeled.” The FSIS does this in part by requiring any producer of meat or eggs to follow a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Grapes! No, just Staphylococcus aureus.

Somewhat surprisingly, the CDC leads federal efforts to gather data on food-borne illnesses, investigate food-borne illnesses and outbreaks, and monitor the effectiveness of prevention and control efforts in reducing food-borne illnesses. The CDC also plays a key role in building state and local health department epidemiology, laboratory, and environmental health capacity to support food-borne disease surveillance and outbreak response.

So, How Effective are These Safety Measures?

According to the FDA, Americans suffer approximately 48 million cases of food poisoning every year. The CDC estimates that each year 1 in 6 Americans get sick from contaminated food or beverages and 3,000 die from food borne illness. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that food-borne illnesses cost the United States more than $15.6 billion each year.

Top 15 Foods That Caused Outbreak-Associated Illnesses, 2009–2018*

  • *Vegetable row crops (e.g., leafy vegetables); seeded vegetables (e.g., cucumbers); mollusks (e.g., oysters); root/underground vegetables (e.g., carrots, potatoes)
  • *Unpasteurized dairy products accounted for 80% of outbreak-associated illnesses linked to dairy. Pasteurized dairy products accounted for 10%, and pasteurization status was unknown for 9%.
  • *Other = foods that don’t fit in the top 15 categories and other federally regulated items such as alcohol, coffee, other beverages, ice, condiments, and dietary supplements.
  • **Total of percentages does not equal 100% because of rounding.

Who is Really Responsible for Food Safety?

Everywhere I looked, I had to conclude that food safety still lays largely in the hands of individual cooks and consumers.

Things to Be Aware Of

Campylobacter kind of looks like Cheetos.

Biological hazards include bacteria, parasites, fungi, and viruses and are the main cause of food-borne illnesses. They can develop in poorly handled food or through contamination from an outside source. Ensure that all your produce has been purchased from an approved supplier. In all cases of suspected contaminated food, dispose of it immediately. And of course, that goes double for recalled items.

Chemical hazards are substances such as pesticides or machine oils. Always handle and store correctly. Keep potentially hazardous items stored separately from your food and prep area.

Physical hazards are objects which contaminate your foods such as pieces of glass or metal, toothpicks, jewelry, or hair. The majority of recalls in the food industry in the US are related to physical hazards. Keeping all foods covered in storage will help prevent physical contamination. Take care during preparation to reduce the risk of such contamination in the kitchen.

The Three Main Sources of “Food Poisoning”

A close-up of salmonella looks like candy!

1) Time and temperature hazards result from improper cooking, holding, cooling, and reheating of food, leading to the growth of pathogens.

  • Do not leave cooked food at room temperature for more than 2 hours
  • Promptly refrigerate all cooked and perishable food (preferably below 5°C)
  • Keep cooked food piping hot (more than 60°C) prior to serving
  • Do not store food too long in the refrigerator
  • Do not thaw frozen food at room temperature
  • Know the degree of doneness needed for various foods, especially meat, fish, and poultry

2) Cross contamination occurs when you mix cooked and uncooked food, especially raw meat or fish.

Toxoplasma gondii may look like a Day-Glo ghost, but it’s very dangerous to pregnant women.
  • Assign different containers for the preparation of each kind of food
  • Avoid un-sanitized surfaces, utensils and equipment at all stages of food preparation

3) Poor personal hygiene is a common culprit that’s easily avoidable by following these rules:

  • Wash and sanitize hands properly between tasks and whenever they get dirty
  • Wear single-use gloves while preparing or serving ready-to-eat food
  • Clean and trim nails
  • Bathe or shower daily
  • Keep hair neatly combed, with long hair tied back
  • Wear a hair net or cap and apron at all times
  • Cover wounds at all times and refrain from handling food with open wounds
  • Stay away from the kitchen when sick and consult a doctor as to when it is safe to return
  • Remove jewelry before working
Underwater plant life or Escherichia coli (E. coli)? Who can tell?

Okay, so individually each of these is easy to do. But how many people actually do all of these things all the time?

Bottom Line: It’s surprising that only 1 person in 6 suffers from food-borne illnesses each year.

GOING BANANAS

Bananas: feeding toddlers and entertaining onlookers!

Commercially available bananas are far from my favorite fruit: too soft, too sweet. I may well be in the minority here. In the U.S., they outsell oranges and apples combined.

Just look at the numbers!

Bananas are one of the most consumed and cheapest fruits worldwide: they are the most traded fruit and the fifth most traded agricultural product. In 2022, the global export value of the banana trade totaled US$12.5 billion. Banana growers exported 19.6 billion metric tonnes of bananas (with the exception of plantains) in 2022. Cavendish bananas alone had a retail value of approximately US$ 25.74 in 2022. They are the fourth most important crop in the world, behind wheat, rice, and corn.

Red bananas in Thailand

The U.S. imports bananas primarily from Guatemala, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Columbia, and Honduras. Chiquita-Fyffes, Del Monte, Dole, Grupo Noboa S.A. own or subcontract the majority of banana plantations around the world. According to World Top Exports, “The biggest 5 exporters of bananas (Ecuador, Philippines, Guatemala, Costa Rica then the Netherlands) accounted for three-fifths (60%) of all banana sales on international markets.”

Many banana growing countries don’t export them; banana growers sell them for domestic consumption.

A Brief History of Bananas

Wild bananas have lots of hard seeds.

But what are we talking about, really? Botanically, a banana is a berry that grows on several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. These plants look like trees but are actually giant herbs. The Latin name for banana, musa sapientum, translates to “fruit of the wise men.”

Food historians believe the first wild bananas grew in jungles in regions of Asia such as the Philippines and Indonesia. Researchers have found domestication projects of the fruit in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Based on archaeological evidence, the cultivation of bananas in the highlands of New Guinea dates back as far as 8000 BCE.

Alexander the Great first discovered the taste of bananas while campaigning in India in 327 BCE. Islamic conquerors brought the banana back to Palestine in 650, and Arab merchants eventually spread them around Africa.

Portuguese sailors brought bananas from West Africa, introducing them to the Americas in the 16th century. Its Guinean (Wolof) name was banema, which later became banana in English. From Guinea, we also get the word guineo for an unripe banana.

Merchants introduced bananas to North America in the 1880s. Fashionable people ate them with a knife and fork.

Gros Michel banana plants affected by banana wilt (1919)

What we eat in the U.S. today is almost exclusively the dessert banana Cavendish. Prior to the 1950s, the Gros Michel variety dominated the US market. However, a combination of fungal plagues, particularly Panama disease, wiped out nearly all of the Gros Michel plantations.

Artificial banana flavoring actually tastes like a Gros Michel banana (or an English pear, depending on who you ask). When you eat banana flavored candy, you’re getting a taste of the past!

The Cavendish banana variety is now under threat from the same disease that struck its predecessor. Panama disease has evolved into a new strain (Tropical Race 4), which can resist many of the quarantine and anti-fungal measures of farmers. Since researchers first identified Tropical Race 4 in Australia in 1997, they have traced its spread across Oceania, South-East Asia, and the Middle East. In 2021, the Peruvian government declared a phytosanitary emergency for the whole country after detecting the new strain of Panama disease. (Researchers think Panama disease actually originates in South-East Asia, not Panama or anywhere in South America.)

And then there’s banana ketchup. During World War II, ketchup producers in the Philippines faced a shortage of tomatoes but had plenty of bananas on hand. Maria Orosa, a Filipino chemist and food scientist, created banana ketchup to solve both problems. She made a paste of bananas, vinegar, sugar, and spices, and added red food coloring. People who have tried it claim it tastes just like the ketchup you’d find in any fast food restaurant in America.

But How Much Do You Really Know About This Fruit?

One might think that a banana is a banana, but there are between 500 to 1000 different varieties of bananas growing around the world, subdivided into 50 groups. Some are sweet, like the Cavendish banana, which is the most common and most widely exported. In many countries, people differentiate between bananas (sweet and eaten as a snack or dessert) and plantains (starchy and used in cooking).

Banana Varieties

Cultivated bananas reproduce asexually. Each plant basically grows as a clone of its elder, starting from suckers or pups growing out of its base. The lack of variety and adaptation leads to extreme vulnerability, such as from Panama disease.

Banana Tree in Vietnam

Due to their need for a warm, tropical climate, bananas can not grow easily in most of the United States. Many farmers in Hawaii grow some of the lesser well-known varieties of banana, such as Blue Java bananas, which purportedly taste like vanilla ice cream. Small groves of banana trees grow throughout the American south, in Florida yards and along Louisiana highways.

Banana bunches grow pointing up. Growers call these bunches “hands.” Each hand typically has about 20 “fingers”.

In 2001, a banana cluster took the title of the “largest bunch of bananas.” It held 473 individual bananas or “fingers” and weighed a whopping 287 lbs (130 kg). Kabana SA and Tecorone SL grew the bunch in the Canary Islands.

Consider health benefits in particular. Bananas are nutritious. They have approximately 89 calories per 100 grams (3.5 oz). Bananas are most known for their potassium content but also contain B vitamins, vitamin C, magnesium, and fiber. These support heart health and digestive health. According to research, eating bananas can lower the risk of strokes and heart attacks. Foods that are high in potassium might stop fatal blockages from occurring and can also inhibit the hardening and narrowing of arteries.

Banana cart in Vietnam

Bananas contain serotonin, a natural substance that alleviates depression and balances other moods. This form of serotonin cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, so bananas don’t act as a kind of natural antidepressant. However, a banana’s high concentration of vitamin B6 can help the body to produce its own serotonin naturally. This chemical also contributes to an overall well-balanced feeling amongst consumers.

If you have a bug bite, the inside of a banana peel can relieve itching. The natural oils found in the banana skin contains a chemical that helps alleviate irritation from mosquito bites and poison ivy.

Fun Facts

Banana leaves make versatile, biodegradable, and very handy packaging!

If bananas are too green to eat, put them in a paper bag with an apple or tomato. The banana’s ripening will speed up overnight. These helpers release more ethylene than others. This is the chemical that helps fruits ripen over time.

For the same reason, don’t keep fresh flowers on a counter or table next to bananas. The released ethylene will make the flowers wilt more quickly.

In 2016, police in Mumbai forced a thief to eat 48 bananas so that they could retrieve the gold chain he stole and swallowed.

Authorities in China have banned seductively eating a banana during a live stream, as of 2016. This is to keep under-aged women from attracting older male audiences. The Chinese government deems such acts harmful to social morality. Wearing suspenders on a live stream is also illegal.

Jordan Maddocks set a record for running the fastest marathon while dressed as a fruit in 2020. He ran the Rock n’ Roll Arizona Marathon in 2 hours and 41 minutes.

APOPO trains African giant pouched rats to identify landmines and tuberculosis, often by rewarding these HeroRATS with bananas, one of their favorite foods.

Banana fruits are naturally radioactive! This radioactivity is present in fruits containing potassium and potassium decays. You could die of banana radiation poisoning if you were able to eat 10 million bananas at once. You might experience chronic symptoms if you were to eat 274 bananas every day for 7 years. What are the chances?

The Guinness Book of World Records recognized Patrick Bertoletti as the man who could eat the most bananas in one minute. He peeled and ate eight bananas on the 14th of January in 2012 at Sierra Studios, Illinois, USA. In 2015, Pedro Aguilar from Mexico City, Mexico matched the record on July 26, 2015. You can do the math!

If a child hands you a banana, you are legally obligated to hold it to your ear and answer it like a phone.

Fifty percent of people who are allergic to latex are allergic to bananas as well. The term for this phenomenon is latex-food syndrome or latex-fruit allergy. While few people are born with allergy, it can be developed later on in life.

Bananas can float on water. They have relatively low density and multiple air pockets. Similar fruits such as watermelons, oranges, and apples are also naturally buoyant.

Bananas are approximately 75% water, which seems like a lot. By comparison, cucumbers or radishes have 96% and 95% water respectively.

A team at Kitasato University in Minato, Japan won the 2014 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics for calculating precisely how slippery a banana peel is. As it turns out, it is all down to the polysaccharide molecules in the peel, a substance also found in our joints. When crushed, the cells in a banana peel release these polysaccharide molecules as a gel, coating whatever surface they touch.

The International Banana Museum in Mecca, California

Rubbing the inside of banana peels on leather products like handbags or shoes works like shoe polish. The potassium in bananas, just like the potassium in leather polish, conditions and shines leather. Just rub the banana peel on the surface needing a polish and wipe off any residue with a cloth.

The use of “bananas” or “going bananas” to mean insanity may stem from flapper slang in the 1920s. The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang and Unconventional English traces this use back to the late 1910s, when flappers used “banana oil” to mean “nonsense.” Alternatively, a glossary of criminal slang from 1935, The Underworld Speaks, noted that “bananas” meant “sexually perverted.”

The Coat of Arms of Fiji, featuring bananas on the lower right

A monkey peels a banana upside down compared to our method: they pinch the nub at the floral end and split the skin to peel it down toward the stem. The most nutrient-dense part of a banana is opposite the stem, the part that would be pointed up when a banana was growing on the tree. Peeling a banana from this end allows the monkey (or you) to reach the best part of the banana first. People who peel a banana from the floral top are also slightly less likely to contaminate the fruit with bacteria from the stem. Hungry monkeys will sometimes just eat the whole banana, peel and all!

Humans share about 41% of our DNA with bananas.

Banana leaves have nearly as many uses as the fruits. When cooked, they have many nutritious benefits. People use them as a building material or for rain protection. They can be formed into biodegradable cooking or eating utensils. Weavers can process fibers from banana leaves and stems into rope and fabric.

The Dark Side of Bananas

I don’t like to write downer blogs, but be aware. There is evidence of price fixing on bananas, keeping them at 79 cent a pound. This is possible because of the concentration of banana plantations and export under the control of just a few companies. The cost savings to consumers means that those actually growing and harvesting the fruit often live on subsistence earnings.

Bottom Line: Bananas are popular and convenient and more complicated than you probably knew.

Market in Huế, Vietnam

Hygiene and Mental Health

mental health hygiene
Today’s guest blog post was written by Kathleen Corcoran.

Mental health and cognitive decline can have a serious impact on a person’s ability to maintain regular hygiene and grooming routines. At the same time, changes or lack of regular hygiene and grooming routines can seriously impact a person’s mental health. Today is World Mental Health Day, a good day to consider how hygiene and mental health are woven together.

You’ve probably heard the saying “cleanliness is next to godliness” at some point. Many people subconsciously apply this moral judgement to the personal hygiene of those around them. As society’s standards of hygiene and grooming have changed over the centuries, so have the judgements on those who do not meet those standards.

This can have deleterious impacts on people already struggling with mental health or cognitive ability. Social stigma can deter people from reaching out for help, whether to mention their struggle to a therapist or ask for physical assistance. Self-consciousness about grooming standards may then contribute to isolation and loneliness.

“Unfortunately, at both ends of the spectrum, a lack of personal hygiene or an obsession with personal hygiene create additional stress and anxiety for the sufferer,” says Carla Manly, PhD, a clinical psychologist and author.

mental health hygiene
When mental health issues get in the way of regular showering or bathing, many people turn to alternative methods of maintaining hygiene.

Depression

Maybe chicken flavored toothpaste makes oral hygiene easier?

The fatigue and lack of motivation that often characterize depression make otherwise routine tasks monumentally impossible. Executive dysfunction can be paralyzing in the face of all the minor steps needed to shower or bathe.

Additionally, depression sometimes causes sensory issues that make bathing physically painful. The temperature changes, scents, or lights can be overwhelming for someone with severe depression.

Instead of traditional bathing practices, those with mental health challenges might turn to alternative methods of hygiene. Dry shampoo, mouthwash, and wipes can enable someone with depression to stay clean when everything is difficult.

Alzheimers and Dementia

People with cognitive decline issues, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, often have trouble maintaining regular bathing and grooming routines. They may bathe repeatedly, forgetting that they have already done so. Or they may forget to bathe entirely. Alternatively, they may have physical issues that prevent them from bathing. Issues with regular bathing can lead to health complications, such as skin infections or gum disease.

People who can live alone may be able to address this by setting alarms or writing reminders. Maintaining a routine for daily grooming and hygiene can help it become automatic rather than something to remember. Adjustments like hose attachments and rubber mats can remove some of the physical impediments to routine bathing.

mental health hygiene
People in advanced stages of dementia may require help from caregivers to perform regular bathing and grooming.

Nurses, caregivers, and health aides can help patients who need more assistance with bathing. Keeping up habits established over the course of a lifetime can make assisted bathing easier. Bathing at the same time, using the same products or scents, might make a patient less agitated. Focusing on hygiene rather than grooming can help eliminate stress.

Ablutophobia

mental health hygiene
Humans with ablutophobia are not alone in the animal kingdom.

Many young children fear taking a bath or shower, but they generally grow out of it as they become more familiar with the routine or associate the bath with pleasant sensations. However, some people develop ablutophobia, an extreme fear of bathing or washing. This may be due to a sensory processing disorder, a traumatic experience, changes in brain function, or an underlying anxiety disorder.

When people with ablutophobia try to perform routine hygiene or grooming rituals, they may experience the symptoms of a panic attack or dissociation.

In the short term, people with ablutophobia can use alternative forms of cleaning, such as wipes or dry shampoo. However, treating ablutophobia will ultimately require psychotherapy or medication, which may allow a patient to uncover and address an underlying cause.

PTSD and Anxiety Disorders

Both post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety disorders can cause difficulties with regular standards of cleanliness. These mental health challenges can cause people to go to either extreme of hygiene and grooming. Sometimes people avoid bathing entirely because it triggers traumatic memories or causes a spike in anxiety. At other times, people fixate on removing dirt, performing ritualized grooming behaviors, controlling elements of their environment, or perfecting their outward appearance.

At either extreme, a person will likely feel an increased sense of social stigma and isolation, compounding the pain from mental illness.

Some people may prefer to take dust baths rather than water baths.

Short-term solutions may include changing the method of bathing, such as cleaning body parts individually to limit vulnerability, or switching from baths to showers. Changes to the bathing environment may also help, such as removing or installing locks on doors, turning down the temperature of the water heater in the home, or removing harsh scrubbers.

“The ultimate goals with such behaviors are to reduce a sense of being violated and ‘dirty’ and to increase a sense of safety,” says Carla Manly.

Schizophrenia

People struggling with schizophrenia often have difficulty maintaining regular routines and lose interest in daily activities. This includes habits like showering, brushing teeth, or changing into clean clothes.

Additionally, many medications to treat schizophrenia have side effects that contribute to problems with hygiene or grooming. Antipsychotic drugs often cause dry mouth, which can lead to gum disease, cavities, and halitosis. These medicines may also cause incontinence, which makes maintaining hygiene very difficult.

Some people find written reminders or alarms helpful to encourage regular hygiene or grooming rituals. Adjusting medications or dosages may help with side effects. Chewing gum and drinking lots of water can help with dry mouth, improving oral hygiene.

Bottom Line: Hygiene and grooming serve two different functions in our lives. When mental health issues make everything more difficult, focus on hygiene rather than grooming.

ATHENS, OHIO: HOTBED OF THE SUPERNATURAL

Athens, Ohio, as Dean Winchester mentions in the “Route 666” episode of Supernatural (Season 1, Episode 13), is one of the most haunted areas in the U.S. I lived in Athens for seven years during my undergraduate and graduate years, and if ghosts roamed the area, I never noticed them. Or maybe they didn’t notice me?

Or maybe I’m generally oblivious to such things? I’ve been enlightened recently by reading “The Most Haunted Places in the Athens Area” by Alicia Szczesniak, published just a year ago, October 24, 2022. She discussed the following five locations. The quoted material is from this article.

The Ridges

The former Athens Lunatic Asylum now houses the Kennedy Museum of Art and some Ohio University offices.

On a hillside near the Hocking River are the grounds currently known as The Ridges. At one time, this was site of the Athens Lunatic Asylum, later renamed The Athens Hospital for the Insane. The stately brick buildings served as a mental hospital from1874 to 1993. With over a hundred years of patients, and over 1,700 identified people buried in its cemeteries, it’s prime real estate for ghost stories.

“The most well-known ghost story of The Ridges centers around Margaret Schilling, a patient who was accidentally locked into a seldom used building during a game of hide and seek. After being missing for a month, a janitor found her remains on the floor. Due to the decomposition, a massive stain was left. As a result of this, stories surrounding both the stain and Margaret Schilling’s ghost circulate around the former asylum.”

In addition, stories abound of apparitions, disembodied voices, and objects moved by unseen hands.

Much of this and what follows is recent urban legend. As a doctoral student in psychology, I worked for a time at what was known colloquially as “the state hospital.” And although I could testify to the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and have no reason to doubt the performance of lobotomies, as far as I know, there were no ghosts or other spirits roaming the halls while the hospital was in operation. So much of this has arisen in the last thirty years.

Wilson Hall (Ohio University)

Wilson Hall is one of several buildings that make up West Green dormitory complex. In the 1970s, a male student died in room 428. I don’t know the circumstances, but a few years later, another the student committed suicide in that room. He was rumored to have chosen the room for its energy. Ohio University officials sealed the room.

“Students have reported demonic faces scratched into the wood, apparitions of the students who passed away, objects flying across the room and disembodied voices that ranged from whispering to shouting.

“The dorm room’s closing makes it the only dorm officially sealed off for paranormal activity in the nation.”

Here again, until relatively recently, West Green’s claim to fame on campus was that the women who lived there had exceptionally muscular legs from hiking uphill to the main campus!

West State Street Cemetery

There are graves there dating back to the 1800s. Many of these burial sites are for soldiers who fought in the Civil War—including Athens residents who joined the army—and those who died in a battle just north of the city.

A statue in the cemetery known as “The Angel of the Unknown Soldiers” memorializes these unidentified soldiers. “Many visitors have reported seeing the angel flutter its wings, blink or shed tears, adding an even creepier ambiance to an already creepy place.”

I lived on West State Street for a time, completely unaware of the cemetery—and never before heard of the statue or its manifestations.

Moonville Tunnel

A coal mining town in that area was abandoned in the 1940s. A few structures remained: the supports of a bridge, a cemetery and the tunnel. The basic story is that a ghost haunts the tunnel after being killed by a train.

“There are variations in the story, with some saying the victim was a pregnant woman, others saying it was an 8-foot-tall man and more. However, the most common variation centers around a railroad worker who was struck by the incoming train, then doomed to haunt the tunnel.”

Prior to the alleged train death, multiple deaths occurred in the area, from accidents in the tunnel, accidents from the bridge or unknown causes. The ghosts of these dead people are said to haunt the area, “taking the forms of apparitions or ghostly orbs of light floating in the tunnel and the surrounding woods.”

Suffice it to say, I never heard of the Moonville Tunnel before reading this article.

Mount Nebo

Located northeast of The Plains is Mount Nebo, a hilltop that once served as the grounds of a cabin owned by Johnathan Koons in the 1850s. For a time, many people knew of the area because of its importance in the early American Spiritualism movement. I never heard of Mount Nebo when I lived in Athens, let alone know that it had been a hotbed of spiritualism. That changed when a friend gave me a copy of Enchanted Ground: The Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons, by Sharon Hatfield (2018).

Note: For the short version of the Koons legends, see the Alicia Szczesniak article. For the long version, see the Hatfield book.

Koons was a fairly prosperous farmer in the hills outside Athens. The story goes that upon arriving at Mount Nebo, the Koons family began to experience strange phenomena, such as paranormal activity and otherworldly sensations. He became interested in Spiritualism in 1852 and was told at a séance that he was “the most powerful medium on Earth” and that all of his eight children had psychic gifts. Acting on spirit instructions, he built a “spirit room” for the use of visiting spirits. Koons built a log house, 16 X 12 feet, and equipped it with all kinds of musical instruments.

The family quickly gained acclaim as spiritualists in the area, with people visiting to experience the Koons’ séances and commune with the dead in their “spirit room.” Soon the place became famous, and people traveled great distances—at least as far away as New Orleans— to see the curious phenomena.

The eldest boy, Nahum, age18, sat at the “spirit table,” the audience on benches beyond, twenty to thirty people at a time. The lights would go out, and visitors experienced a variety of otherworldly sensations. Spectral faces appeared. Objects flew through the air. Floating pistols shot targets across the room. Disembodied hands, lit by phosphorescence, touched participants. A trumpet floated around the ceiling and called out the names of guests, passing on messages from deceased loved ones.

J. Everett of Athens County, Ohio, who investigated the Koons’ phenomena, published the messages of the spirits under the title A Book for Skeptics: Being a Communication from Angels (1853). He also printed a number of documents describing occurrences in the spirit house, including a chart of the spheres Nahum Koons drew while in a trance. Charles Partridge wrote of his visit in the American Spiritual Telegraph of 1855.

Mount Nebo and the The Plains area of Ohio has several earthen mounds presumably built by the Adena people (1000-1750 AD). Many early Spiritualists claimed the sacred influences of these mounds contributed to the supernatural occurrences in the area.

Neighbors of the Koons family were more disapproving. Mobs attacked the Koons house, set fire to their crops and barns, and beat their children. Finally, the Koons left the area and began missionary wanderings, which lasted for many years. They provided free medium services to the public, and they greatly advanced the cause of early American Spiritualism.

While the actual spirit room has long since weathered away, this story is still more truth than fiction. Archaelogists have found graves of deceased Koons children in the area. Historians have records and documents detailing the trek to the spirit room. Some descendants of Johnathan Koons still possess the artifacts the dead told him to find.

Much less famously, two or three miles from the Koons’ farm was another lonely farmhouse, belonging to John Tippie, where another “spirit room” was laid out on the same plan. The manifestations in the Tippie family were identical to those in the Koons’ log house. Each had a “spirit machine” that consisted of a complex arrangement of zinc and copper for the alleged purpose of collecting and focusing the magnetic aura used in the demonstrations. The Tippies had ten children, all mediums.

So there you have it! Hatfield’s written a well-documented non-fiction book as entertaining as a novel, and I highly recommend it.

Supernatural in America

Mary Todd Lincoln (photographed here with the ghost of Abraham Lincoln) was a strong believer in spiritualism, holding séances in the White House and communicating regularly with her husband after his death.

Apparently, I lived in near proximity to all sorts of supernatural phenomena for years, completely unaware. Perhaps I was focused on classes and jobs to the point of oblivion. Or perhaps I’m just not psychically receptive.

Forty-one percent of Americans believe in ghosts, according to a YouGov study in 2021. (Twenty percent polled were unsure if they believe in ghosts.) Simultaneously, 43% of Americans polled believe demons exist.

Eighteen percent of adult Americans claim they’ve seen or been near a ghost, according to a 2009 Pew Research Center survey. Twenty-nine percent claim they have been touched by someone who died.

Older Gallup polls found that about three-fourths of Americans profess at least one paranormal belief. The most popular was extrasensory perception (ESP), mentioned by 41%, followed closely by belief in haunted houses (37%). A special analysis of the data shows that 73% of Americans believe in at least one of the 10 items listed, while 27% believe in none of them.

Bottom Line: Are you in the majority?

BELOW THE CHIN: CLEANING VS. GROOMING

Last week, I wrote about the difference between cleanliness and personal grooming habits. Hygiene refers to cleaning habits performed to remove pathogens and keep yourself healthy (such as flossing). Doctors and researchers provide guidelines for how and how often to clean yourself for hygiene’s sake. On the other hand, people determine how and how often to groom themselves based on cultural norms and personal identity (think shaving facial hair).

Involving an elephant in your daily hygiene ritual makes everything better.

But there is more to the human body than the head, no matter what science fiction might dream up. How to determine grooming and hygiene standards below the neck?

Clean Hands

The effectiveness of any handwashing technique is directly related to the amount of splashing.

Correct hand washing plays a major role promoting health and hygiene. Even Louis XIV of France, who took only two baths in his adult life, washed his hands daily. In the past few years, we’ve all (hopefully) become more conscientious about keeping our hands clean to prevent the spread of disease.

So how many times a day should you be washing your hands? According to experts, aiming for six to 10 washes a day can make a big difference when it comes to keeping viruses and bacteria at bay. Up to 80% of communicable diseases are transferred by touch.

Failing to wash hands correctly contributes to nearly 50% of all food-borne illness outbreaks. Only 20% of people wash their hands before preparing food, and 39% before eating food.

One USDA study found that up to 97% of people don’t wash their hands correctly when cooking at home. While 58% of people wash with soap and water, very few people wash their hands for long enough. Most people only wash their hands for 6 seconds. Around 33% of people don’t even use soap when washing their hands.

The CDC recommends always washing your hands after you use the toilet, whether it is in your home or somewhere else. Germs in feces (poop) can make you sick. These germs can get on your hands after you use the toilet or change a diaper.

A pre-Covid study by the CDC showed that only 31% of men and 65% of women washed their hands after using a public restroom. That number has risen since the pandemic, but still not enough.

Extremely sterile locations, like hospitals, might require infra-red sanitization in addition to regular hand washing.

According to one bit of research in 2009, 69% of men don’t wash their hands every time they use a toilet or urinal. Another study from 2019 suggests that 6% of men only wash their hands after having a bowel movement.

Less than 1 out of 5 people wash hands after handling money. Less than half of Americans wash their hands after cleaning up after their pets.

Nearly twice as many bacteria are transferred during a handshake compared with a high five, whereas the fist bump consistently gave the lowest transmission.

The average human hand houses 150 different kinds of bacteria. There are typically between 10,000 and 10 million bacteria on each of your hands. Most germs can survive on your hands for three hours. Besides coughing and sneezing, door handles are the most likely way that cold viruses spread.

Showering and Bathing

As I’ve discussed before, washing the entire body tends to be more a question of social norm than actual hygiene. In Australia, 80% of people say they shower every day. In China, half the population regularly bathes only twice a week. A majority of Brazilians shower twice a day!

In many areas, particularly those with naturally occurring hot springs, bathing is a communal activity.

Approximately two-thirds of Americans shower daily, according to a 2021 survey. In the US, the habit of daily showering tends to start around puberty and becomes lifelong.

Women are more likely to shower or bathe less than once a day (38% compared with 29% of men); they are more likely to shower every other day (23% of women doing this compared with 14% of men). More men also admit that they never shower or bathe – 3% saying so (compared with 0% of women).

A recent survey showed only 60% of American men showered daily, but 12% of those men showered more than once a day. (Maybe these guys all lived in a tropical rainforest?) 15% of guys showered every other day, 9% every few days, and a particularly stinky 2% showered once a week or less.

While the majority of Americans shower every day, some experts say it is probably not necessary. Although many doctors say a daily shower is fine for most people, more than that could start to cause skin problems. But for many people, two to three times a week is enough and may be even better to maintain good health. It depends in part on your lifestyle.

Keep in mind that showering twice a day or frequently taking hot or long showers can strip your skin of important oils. This can lead to dry, itchy skin. Additionally, dry, cracking skin can provide gaps for infectious bacteria.

Wear a full hazmat suit to protect skin while showering.

Dr. C. Brandon Mitchell, a professor of dermatology, suggested showering or bathing once or twice a week. In general, experts say a few times a week rather than daily is plenty. Also, keep showers short and lukewarm, as too much water, particularly hot water, dries out the skin. Showering less often in winter makes sense, dermatologist Dr. Jennifer Herrmann noted.

Americans have voted with their tweets, overwhelmingly in favor of the bath. People in 44 states preferring a bath over a shower. Only people in Idaho, North Dakota, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Alabama prefer showers over baths. I find this hard to believe, and tweeting hardly constitutes a scientific study.

Industry experts noted that most people who renovated their bathrooms in 2022 added or adapted a shower.

How do you know when you need to shower or bathe? Perhaps the most immediate (and obvious) clue is odor. It’s not just sweat that makes you stink. The bacteria multiplying on your body produce gasses as they consume proteins and fatty acids.

Baths are more fun than showers!

Deodorant and Antiperspirant

Deodorants and antiperspirants don’t serve any medical purpose. People use them strictly for grooming purposes rather than hygiene.

Sometimes, your coworkers might insist you wear deodorant.

Young Americans make up the largest group of deodorant users worldwide. 90% of Americans age 18-29 use deodorant daily, as opposed to only 78% aged 60 and over. The United States of America is the largest market for deodorant use, with nearly $5 billion in sales.

Like brushing your teeth or washing your face, putting on deodorant or antiperspirant every day might seem like one of those rituals crucial for basic hygiene. But your decision is most likely based more on personal and cultural preferences than any potential medical necessity, dermatology experts say.

Dr. Joshua Zeichner is a dermatologist and associate professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital in in New York City. “We live in a society where body odor is not universally accepted, making deodorant a part of your daily hygiene routine. There’s also a stigma surrounding wetness of the clothes because of sweat, which has pushed antiperspirants into daily skincare routines.”

Antiperspirants are deodorants, but not all deodorants are antiperspirants.

Dr. Jeannette Graf, is a dermatologist, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital, and author of Stop Aging, Start Living. “If you’re trying to stay dry and control sweat, you’ll need an antiperspirant with aluminum salts to target your sweat glands. If odor is your only concern, deodorant will offer odor protection.”

Every job has its perks!

Not everyone wants their glands to be plugged by anything at all, much less by aluminum and/or other related ingredients.

There’s no reason to limit your use of deodorant to armpits. Lume describes itself as “whole body deodorant.” Their website suggests, “Think pits, underboobs, belly buttons, tummy folds, butt cracks, thigh creases, vulvas, balls, and feet!”

And Last but not Least: Body Hair

Competitive swimmers and divers often remove all body hair to improve performance.

By and large, removing body hair is more a matter of culture and personal preference than of health and hygiene.

Any place that grows hair is shaved by somebody. Skipping lightly over arm pits, legs, chests, backs, etc., and going straight to the most private body hair, here’s what’s happening.

A recent study by JAMA Dermatology surveyed 3372 American women and found that more than 80 percent groom their pubic hair regularly. About 5 percent groom daily, but a monthly regimen is more common. About 75 percent stick to removing hair from the front and the bikini line. More than 60 percent have gone completely bare.

Some work uniforms draw more attention to your grooming habits.

About 50 percent of men reported regular manscaping, according to a 2017 study. Of those who groom, nearly 90 percent take away hair that’s front and center, and more than half remove hair from the scrotum and shaft as well. And, FYI, it’s totally normal to have hair on your penis.

Those who groom are more likely to engage in or receive oral sex. How you choose to groom your pubic hair — or if you choose to trim at all — is a matter of personal preference. And your choice won’t have a direct impact on your orgasm or fun.

The majority of women who groom (59%) cite hygiene as a reason. And about 60 percent of men (age 25 to 34) report the same motivation. According to Dr. Tami Rowen, professor of gynecology at UCSF, “It’s a misconception that pubic hair is unhygienic.”

The presence of pubic hair doesn’t make you smell bad. Yes, more of your natural scent might cling to your hair, but that might be a good thing. Those pheromones produced by our apocrine glands are part of the science behind attraction.

Bottom Line: Clean and well-groomed are two very different things.

TOO CLEAN? NOT CLEAN ENOUGH?

When we talk about cleanliness, we often combine grooming habits with hygiene. Society dictates certain standards of personal grooming, such as combing hair or masking body odor, that we unconsciously absorb. These habits might contribute to health, but they might simply be the result of doing it the way you’ve always done it.

Hygiene, on the other hand, refers to grooming practices that contribute to health or prevent the spread of disease. Habits like regularly flossing and washing your face can help you to stay healthy.

Personal grooming is largely a matter of personal preference, but researchers have determined the ideal levels of cleanliness for best hygiene.

So, how clean should you be keeping everything above your neck?

Note: Grooming patterns, hygiene standards, and social expectations of cleanliness vary wildly around the world, but this blog will focus on America.

Wash Your Face

Experts do not recommend using a squirt gun to wash your face. Or your sister’s face.

When it comes to cleanliness—to hygiene—one of the first activities that comes to mind is washing hands and faces.

In general, wash your face twice a day. According to Nazanin Saedi, MD, a board-certified dermatologist based in Philadelphia, “I tell patients that it’s important to wash your face in the morning and at the end of the day.”

Washing your face is an important tool to keep yourself healthy, especially during cold and flu season. In addition to removing dirt and sweat from your skin, proper face-washing removes germs that could spread illness. In particular, you can help stop the spread of airborne, respiratory infections (like Covid-19 and the common cold) by regularly washing off droplets from coughing and sneezing. Washing your face is particularly effective in removing allergens, bacteria, and viruses that spread through contact with mucous membranes (like pink eye).

hygiene
Face washing

If you’re not doing it frequently enough you might notice a buildup of skin cells and clogged pores, which could result in acne. How often you wash your face often depends on your skin type, your goals, and (to some extent), your environment. On average, you should be washing your face one to two times per day. But do we?

According to a recent study, 55 percent of people say they don’t cleanse their faces each day, a statistic that most dermatologists would shake their heads at. The study found that 48 percent of Americans don’t use cleanser when they do wash their faces—and almost half admit to using shampoo or conditioner or hand soap instead. Not only are people choosing the wrong products (a.k.a., ones that aren’t meant for facial skin), but many are also using the same washcloth up to four times before washing it. (For reference, experts say you should use a clean cloth every single time.)

Note: Splashing one’s face with water in the morning isn’t washing at all.

A 2017 survey showed that 60% of men don’t wash their faces at all. Most men, along with 48% of women, admitted to often skipping facial cleansing before bed.

Which Brings Us to Oral Hygiene

oral hygiene
Veterinarians recommend brushing your dog’s teeth as often as you brush your own. Instead of mint, dog toothpaste often tastes like meat or peanut butter!

Good oral hygiene plays a surprisingly large role in maintaining overall health. It can help prevent endocarditis, periodontitis, and pneumonia. People with good oral hygiene habits have lower incidences of cardiovascular disease and fewer pregnancy complications.

The American Dental Association recommends brushing your teeth at least twice a day. However, fewer than 70% of Americans report meeting that standard. This means that more than 30% of Americans don’t brush enough.

Additionally, only 1 in 10 Americans brush their teeth correctly. Most people spend only about fifteen seconds per round of brushing. Studies have shown that you need a full two minutes of brushing to properly clean all tooth surfaces.

Frayed bristles can’t clean correctly, and even worse — they harbor all kinds of nasty germs. The American Dental Association suggests changing your toothbrush every three or four months.

Our modern standard of having perfectly white, even, straight teeth stems from black and white films. Because naturally-colored teeth showed up as gray on screen, many stars whitened their teeth or wore veneers. Ordinary people soon began to follow the fashion of bleaching and straightening their teeth for cosmetic reasons. Today, the American smile has become a $29.6 billion industry.

Electric toothbrushes may clean teeth and gums much better than a manual toothbrush. Either sort of toothbrush can be effective, though electric toothbrushes are easier to use effectively. People who use an electric toothbrush generally have healthier gums and less tooth decay. They also keep their teeth for longer, compared with those who use a manual toothbrush. But electric toothbrushes can be messy!

Listerine created the word “halitosis” as part of a marketing campaign to sell mouthwash. Humans have had bad breath for as long as we’ve had teeth, but a Listerine campaign in the 1920s turned it into a social problem. By gargling with Listerine, people could remove an invisible barrier to popularity, sex appeal, marriage, and career advancement. (Listerine also worked as a dandruff shampoo, cold remedy, and floor cleaner!)

oral hygiene

Daily flossing prevents cavities and helps to keep our gums in good shape.

Surveys conducted by the American Dental Association have shown that less than 50 percent of adults in the U.S. floss on a daily basis. In fact, studies show that only 30% of Americans floss at least once a day.

The majority of adults, about 68%, reported flossing at least once weekly. A 2023 Delta Dental national public opinion poll of 1,003 adults found that 20% of Americans never floss. A report published in the Journal of Periodontology found that 32% of adults reported no flossing in the past week.

What About Hair Care?

shampoo hygiene
“Shampoo” comes from the Hindi word chapo (चाँपो), meaning “to press, knead the muscles.” It was first used in English as a cleanser for hair in 1860.

With the exception of treating certain conditions like head lice or ringworm, regular hair washing is not medically necessary. The scalp naturally produces sebum, an oil that protects against infection as well as moisturizing the skin. In fact, washing hair too frequently can strip the sebum from the scalp and cause itchiness and flaking.

Today, most people’s hair hygiene routine stems from social or cosmetic reasons rather than health concerns. A recent survey conducted by LookFantastic found that 49% of women polled reported washing their hair every day.

Carolyn Goh, MD, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA says, “There is no blanket recommendation. If hair is visibly oily, scalp is itching, or there’s flaking due to dirt,” those are signs it’s time to shampoo.

Hair texture plays a huge role in determining hygiene routines. People with thin or fine hair may need to wash more often. Those with thick, curly, or coiled hair might be more comfortable waiting longer between washes.

Experts recommend using the flat side of a hairbrush rather than the bristles to avoid breakage and split ends.

For the average person with straight hair, shampooing every other day, or every 2 to 3 days, is generally fine. Hair with a very straight texture is likely to start looking oily and limp faster, calling for more frequent washing.

People with curlier or wavier hair may be able to go longer between washing before their hair starts to look dirty. Some dermatologists recommend washing hair no more than once a week or even every other week. This will help prevent build-up of hair care products, which can be drying to the hair.

The scalp can produce varying levels of sebum, which also affects how often hair needs to be washed. Washing too often can cause the scalp to overproduce oil as well as upsetting the pH balance of the microbiome on the skin. According to dermatologist Blair Murphy-Rose, MD, “Too frequent washing of the scalp with harsh cleansers can upset that microbiome, and an imbalance in the microbiome can lead to scalp problems.”

And Last But Not Least: Facial Hair

The World Beard and Moustache Association hosts a facial hair competition every year.

Like washing the hair on your head, shaving the hair on your face generally serves no medical purpose. However, the presence or lack of facial hair is highly important to a sense of self-identity and social acceptance. Grooming or removing facial hair is an integral part to many people’s hygiene routines.

Having hair and not wanting it leads many people to bleach, shave, or wax to remove or disguise hair temporarily. Laser hair removal or electrolysis treatments kill hair cells below the skin surface for permanent hair removal.

Facial shaving in women is more common than you might think. It’s done to remove vellus and terminal hairs from the cheeks, chin, upper lip, and side burn areas. Facial shaving also provides mechanical exfoliation, which can help skin look brighter and cleaner.

Many women wax their chins or upper lips to remove unwanted facial hair. Using warm or cool wax to pull hairs out by the roots gives a longer-lasting smoothness, but the risk of side effects is higher. People have reported pain, rashes, sun sensitivity, or even scarring after facial waxing.

Some facial hair can be cleaned in the dishwasher!

Rather than removing unwanted facial hair, some people choose simply to bleach it. Lightening hair follicles reduces the appearance of facial hair but leaves it in place. Though generally easier and cheaper than waxing, bleaching hair still runs the risk of irritating skin.

Three out of four American women ages 18 to 34 have had facial hair removed or done it themselves in the last year. Most common removal locations are eyebrows (58 percent), upper lip (41 percent) and chin (21 percent), according to a 2014 survey by Mintel, which did not track removal methods.

How often a woman shaves her face is usually down to genetics and personal preferences. In general, the recommendation is that women shave their faces every 2-3 days if they like a clean shave and every 3-5 days if they’re just looking to style or trim.

A 2019 survey showed that more men [35%] than women [6%] shaved once or more daily (though razors marketed to women cost more).

Not every facial hair transplant looks natural.

The presence or absence of facial hair serves as strong indicator of gender in our society. For many transgender people, transitioning begins with the daily application or removal of facial hair. Hormone therapy can eventually help people to grow or stop growing facial hair on their own. Transgender women report laser hair removal as the most common form of facial procedure. Transgender men may turn to hair transplants to fill in hairlines and eyebrows as well as beards and moustaches.

Some cisgender men also use hair transplants to achieve their desired facial hair. Doctors move strips of hair or individual hair follicles from the back of a patient’s head to the jaw, cheek, or upper lip. Because this is such an expensive procedure, many medical tourists travel to Turkey for hair transplants.

During a June 2017 survey, 29 percent of men reported trimming or shaving their beard every day.

Bottom Line: Too clean or not clean enough? YES!

Sometimes you might need a little hygiene help from a friend for those hard-to-reach places.

PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES: WHAT MAKES THEM TICK?

I’ve been watching the U.S. Open tennis matches, and of course hearing lots of sports talk and announcements about various elite athletes—tennis and otherwise—past, present, and future. And I asked myself, “Who are these people?”

The World Sheepdog Trials will take place this weekend in Northern Ireland. The elite athletes in this competition display many of the same mental traits as those identified in human athletes.

I’ve written before about underlying mental traits that contribute to common personality types (such as optimists, pessimists, addicts, and cult members). As it turns out, whatever your favorite sport, your “heroes” are much the same.

Mental Traits of Elite Athletes

Coco Gauff

New sports science research reveals that there are consistent similarities among athletic super achievers, showing that it’s a lot more than sheer talent. Here are 7 of the top traits that help phenomenal sports stars thrive, that separate the best from the rest. According to the latest sports science research published in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology and summarized by neurotrackerx.com, here are excerpts of their points.

1. Supreme Concentration

Truly great athletes get into the zone when they need to. A mental state of total focus allows them to channel all their skills into competition when it matters most.

As sports psychologist Dr. Daniel Brown put it, “To concentrate on being a champion, your mind has to be developed to such an extent that you can really stay very tuned in to what you’re doing.”

Patrick Mahomes

2. Commitment to Excellence

Being a perfectionist can be seen as a flaw, but for elite athletes, an obsession with getting it right is a key ingredient to success.

Roy McIlroy

3. Desire and Motivation

To get to the top of their game, it’s often a long hard road that started with an enduring passion to make it happen. As NFL football player and coach Vince Lombardi put it, “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.”

Michelle Wie

4. Goal Setting

Super-elite athletes always have goals beyond what they have currently achieved. As Michael Jordan said, “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”

5. Positive Mind-state and Optimism

High-achieving athletes are optimistic about their own growth and untapped potential. Sports stars have a great need to work on deficiencies, seeing weaknesses as golden opportunities for improvement. They can imagine success against the odds, envisioning achievement and reward. As soccer super-star Pelé said “The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.”

6. Confidence and Self-Belief

Ben Shelton

Professionals in athletics possess a steely inner strength and an unshakeable faith in numero uno. On the flipside, the greater an athlete’s confidence, the more willing they are to keep trying even when failing. Michael Jordan exemplified this belief in learning from failure, because without failure there’s little room for evolving new abilities.

7. High-Quality Relationships and Support

Last but not least, sports stars build strong relationships with people who have their backs. This can be the emotional support from friends and family, the deep camaraderie from training partners or teammates, or a great coach. As Los Angeles Lakers’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explained, “One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.”

Further Mental Traits of Great Athletes

Katie Ledecky

The Sports Management Degree Guide also lists 20 characteristics of high performing athletes. There’s a lot of overlap with the above, of course. Here’s the list. (I’ve elaborated only on the ones that might not be clear in the previous list.)

1. Self Confidence

2. Strong Sense of Motivation

3. Inner Desire to Succeed

4. Natural Goal Setter

5. Self-Discipline

6. Optimism

7. Sense of Belonging

8. Natural Leader

Madison Keys
  • High-performing athletes tend to be natural leaders both on and off the field. Besides their focus and sense of motivation, they bring out the best in both themselves and those around them.

9. Willingness to Take Criticism

  • Top-tier athletes understand the importance of remaining “coachable” — that is, taking criticism at every opportunity and learning from it.

10. Humility

11. Ability to Manage Stress

  • The stress of losing, the stress of injury, the stress of embarrassing themselves, their coaches, their families — the list never ends—but high-performing athletes manage their stress. Whether that ability comes naturally or has been learned, these athletes are able to compartmentalize their worries to focus on the task at hand.
Mia Hamm

12. Low Anxiety

  • Related to (11): top-tier athletes tend to be low anxiety. They can change strategy or face a challenge without the debilitating nerves that have ruined many other talented people. For some, this is natural. For others, it’s the result of years of hard work spent learning to compartmentalize their greatest fears.

13. Strong Sense of Focus

14. Trust in the Process

15. Resiliency and the Ability to Learn from Setbacks

16. Vulnerability

Breanna Stewart
  • Vulnerable athletes realize that failure is inevitable, and that they can learn more from that failure than they do success. Each time a vulnerable athlete falls, or loses, or makes a game-ending mistake, their resolve to get stronger and better grows.

17. Perfectionism

18. Killer Instinct

  • Many wins come down to a corner cut, a gutsy pass, a risk taken. They have the courage to make tough, spur-of- the-moment decisions that often mean the difference between winning and losing.

19. Willingness to Fight

  • A final push of effort, even when the tank is empty, often separates the winner from the losers. High-performing athletes always cross the finish line having given their all.

20. Appreciation

Devon Singletary
  • High-performing athletes appreciate everything involved in their professions—the good, the bad, and the boring—because they get to continue chasing the goals and the dreams which consume them.

So there we have it: Those who claim to know these things agree that elite athletes are more alike than different. In terms of the most influential of agreed-upon traits, many experts believe that focus and concentration are the most important.

Bottom Line: October has more opportunities for sports lovers than any other single month. Get ready to appreciate what’s behind those great performances.

For more elite athletic performances, check out agility competitions, working dog trials, or dock jumping!

SOMETIMES WRONG, NEVER IN DOUBT

We are all decision makers. It’s inescapable. One of the primary dimensions on which decision makers differ is decisiveness/indecisiveness.

According to Merriam-Webster, decisive means having the power or quality of deciding; resolute, determined; purposeful.

During the first stage in any decision making situation, everyone experiences a transitory level of indecision. In the second stage, the more stable proneness regarding decision-making tasks comes into play.

decisiveness
Teeter-totter… which way to go?

Decisiveness

Decisive people are confident decision-makers. They tend to make up their minds quickly and stick with their chosen course of action. What are the characteristics of a decisive person?

decisiveness
The paradox of choice: having too many options can make it more difficult to choose one.
  • They make decisions relatively quickly and don’t seem to stress over them.
  • They’re confident making decisions.
  • They tend to be more comfortable with risk, especially if it’s an informed risk.
  • They can be resistant to change once they’ve made a decision.

The decisive person is really good at being curious and asking the right questions, evaluating all of the relevant information available, and looking at it from multiple angles to determine the best decision and course of action.

Such people understand that deciding is only half the battle. They are also determined people who see their decision through. They act on it, and upon completion, analyze the results to determine how effective their decision was at solving the issue.

Other character traits might contribute to a person’s decisiveness.

  • Brave
  • Confident
  • Curious
  • Determined
  • Focused
  • Motivated
  • Perceptive
  • Responsible
  • Steadfast
  • Resilient

Indecisiveness

Someone who is indecisive has trouble making decisions. People who are only somewhat indecisive may take their time with decisions and want to consider their options before moving ahead. Extremely indecisive people may put off making decisions for so long that they run out of time, or keep waffling on choices they’ve already made.

What are the characteristics of indecisive people?

  • They have a hard time making decisions and may be very stressed when they have to do it.
  • They’re easily influenced by others with strong opinions (and may even prefer that someone else make the final call).
  • They may lack confidence in their decisions, even after the choice is made.
  • They carefully consider all the options and weigh the pros and cons of each.
decisiveness
Sometimes, everyone wants to go in a different direction…

Difficulty in making decisions can be caused by several factors, such as a fear of failure and a lack of confidence or information. Perfectionists often struggle with indecisiveness, putting off making any choice until they can be sure they’ve made the best one.

Too much information can also contribute to indecisiveness. When a family member suggests one course of action, a friend recommends another, and a coworker thinks a third path is best, it can be difficult to decide which advice to follow.

Having too many choices can also contribute to indecisiveness. When faced with choosing from forty varieties of coffee, a cafe patron is likely to be less satisfied with whatever drink they choose.

An indecisive person is deeply insecure and hardly ever takes chances. Leaps of faith are nearly impossible because they do not trust themselves to choose. Depression and anxiety lead the way to negative predictions and living in limbo.

A hallmark feature of being indecisive is struggling with self-doubt. Doubt can pervade and disrupt any aspect of life, be it careers, relationships, worldview, or identity.

All of these options look painful.

Executive Function Disorder

Indecisiveness can also be a symptom of an underlying issue. Mental health conditions, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) can cause difficulties with cognitive flexibility or inhibition control. Developments such as dementia, addiction, or head injuries can also interrupt one’s executive function, particularly by impairing a person’s working memory. In some cases, these conditions cause executive dysfunction.

Difficulties with working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibition control can cause an inability to make decisions. In extreme cases, executive dysfunction can be paralyzing. Even minor decisions like when and what to eat for dinner become insurmountable obstacles. A person may experience time blindness, inability to focus, or difficulty determining which steps need to be implemented in order to complete a task.

In cases like these, a person may require extensive therapy and even medication to regain the ability to make rational decisions.

Some decisions are harder than others.

False Decisiveness

But decisiveness isn’t always smooth sailing. Consider the following decision-making traps:

  • Disregarding new information and making biased inferences. This closed-mindedness can manifest, for example, in poorer short-term memory.
  • Suffering confirmation bias—the tendency to rely on information that confirms what we already believe, and to discount data that may contradict our pre-existing positions.
  • Jumping from decision to rapid implementation seems to be what underpins the problems. When asked to consider the advantages and disadvantages of a course of action, those in an implemental mindset report few, if any, downsides.
  • The illusion of control. This is overestimating one’s amount of control regardless of feedback.
  • Everyone is susceptible to illusions of invulnerability (especially teenagers), which leads to downplaying risk.

According to research, business leaders are no less vulnerable than other research subjects to overconfidence. Using massive, multi-year surveys of CFOs, researchers found that respondents significantly underestimated the volatility of an overall stock index and the share performance of their own company.

The Trolley Problem

Downsides to Decisiveness

Sometimes decisiveness is dangerous. In business, the biases outlined above contribute to under-performing deals, cost overruns, and failed product launches. These shortfalls can be amplified by other biases. For example, if a decision-maker already believes in the merits of a particular course of action, the previously mentioned confirmation bias can skew how new information is interpreted.

Research by Jana-Maria Hohnsbehn and Iris Schneider at Technische Universitat Dresden indicates that “trait ambivalence” may actually lead people to overcome confirmation bias and correspondence bias. People who stop to evaluate all available options tend to make decisions or evaluations rooted in fact rather than leaping to conclusions.

Parallel dangers exist for decisive military leaders, politicians, doctors, lawyers, etc. In personal/friendship/family relationships:

  • Decisiveness may come across as domineering, pushy, uncaring, impulsive, stubborn, closed-minded, and more.
  • Indecisiveness seems wishy-washy, lacking in passion, lacking in spontaneity, unsupportive, dependent, clingy, and more.

While decisiveness is usually perceived as a virtue (and indecisive as a weakness), it’s important to remember that these traits exist on a spectrum. Extreme indecisive personalities and extreme decisive personalities can both create problems. Some situations do require more decisiveness. In others, indecision won’t present a problem, especially if the risks are high.

Bottom line: Remember that decisiveness (or indecisiveness) as a personality trait doesn’t necessarily correlate with good judgment.

decisiveness
Always choose cake.