Oh, for a simpler time when the most pressing grocery store dilemma was paper or plastic.
These days careful and correct shoppers now must decide between waging germ warfare on the shopping carts or taking their chances with the cooties left by those who came before.
During the past year, all 103 regional King Soopers grocery stores, as well as 38 sister City Markets, have begun placing canisters of anti-bacterial wipes next to the cart corrals so customers can give their buggies a once-over to guard against germs.
Similar dispensing is going on at Wild Oats Markets in the Denver area as well at a handful of grocery chains across the nation.
Some say this is just another in a series of measures, gimmicks and gadgetry that prove we are more attuned – the cynics would say obsessed – with protecting ourselves and our families.
A year ago, staring down predictions of a wicked cold and flu season coupled with the shortage of flu vaccines, the corporate types at King Soopers decided to provide free wipes to anyone who wanted them.
“We did it purely as a customer service,” says Trail Dougherty, a spokesman for the stores. He acknowledged the decision fell more in the “nice thing to do/couldn’t hurt” category than one based on scientific research.
And, in fact, scientists themselves, as well as behaviorists, doctors and the general public, seem split on the true effectiveness of wiping down a grocery cart as a health precaution.
“These are people who clearly watch too much ‘Monk,”‘ sighs Nancy Tomes, referring to the cable-TV show about an obsessive-compulsive detective who is terrified of other people’s germs.
“Lot of rampant anxiety”
Tomes is a history professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook who wrote “The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life.” “There is a lot of rampant anxiety out there,” she says.
People grasp at things to protect themselves in a world that seems out of control, she says. Whether swiping at germs in the grocery store is necessary is open to debate. But, Tomes says, it makes people feel better.
Lisa Girard, a Greenwood Village mother of two, says she never lets her 3-year-old daughter Nikki into the blue plastic King Soopers kiddie carts without first wiping the child seat and all the handles with the store-supplied wipes.
“I’m pretty adamant about it,” she says. “It gives me peace of mind.” Before the store handed them out, she used to bring her own.
However, Michelle Dennis, a Littleton mother of four, steers her cart right by the wipes at the neighborhood King Soopers without stopping.
“I’m just not a germaphobe,” she says, balancing her 3-year-old daughter, Jia Jia, on her hip. “I have a 17-year-old, a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old, and we never had things like this when they were little. They turned out fine. I think kids need to be exposed to germs. That’s part of life.”
Dr. Michelle Barron medical director of Infection Control at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, is skeptical about the big-picture effectiveness of this latest measure.
While swabbing a shopping cart with an anti-bacterial agent will help destroy harmful bacteria, she cautions that the moment you touch the handle with an unwashed hand or plunk a baby in the seat if he or she has a soiled diaper, you have already recontaminated it.
Still, she knows shopping carts can get disgusting. And there is certainly no harm in trying to clean them up a little. Just don’t think it will guarantee a pass from the next round of flu.
You don’t want to know
Wanna know just how disgusting these little germ-mobiles can get?
The University of Arizona Environmental Research Lab conducted a four-year study, sponsored by Clorox, to investigate how germs were transmitted from public places into the home.
Grocery carts were found to be veritable petri dishes teeming with nastiness such as saliva, mucus, urine, fecal matter, as well as the blood and juices from raw meat.
Swabs taken from handles and child seats in 36 grocery carts in San Francisco, Chicago, Tucson and Tampa, Fla., found they ranked third worst in both overall cleanliness and bodily fluid contamination. The only things found to be ickier were playground equipment and the armrests on public transportation.
In fact, grocery carts were even more vile than grocery store bathrooms, which ranked seventh. The reason: the bathrooms are cleaned more often.
Daughtery at King Soopers says individual carts in his stores are cleaned on a “as-needed” basis and that the entire fleet gets a steam cleaning four times a year.
Best move: Wash hands
Kelly Reynolds, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and principal investigator on the shopping cart study, loves the idea of stores providing wipes. She says some stores in her state also supply free squirts of anti-bacterial gels for customers’ hands.
But what about that notion – especially popular with bad housekeepers and college students – that we are actually building stronger immune systems by exposing ourselves to lots of crud?
Nice try, says Reynolds.
That, she says, is mostly an urban myth. While some resistant strains of bacteria are being found in laboratories, it is not generally applicable to normal, everyday living.
To wipe or not to wipe may continue to be debated in grocery aisles, but everyone agrees that the most effective defense against germs is still the most basic: Wash your hands.
Staff writer Jenny Deam can be reached at 303-820-1261 or jdeam@denverpost.com.
The top germ habitats
Household
Kitchen sponge, kitchen sink, toilet bowl, garbage can, refrigerator, bathroom doorknob (in that order)
Workplace
Phone receiver, desktop, keyboard, elevator button, toilet seat
Outdoor/public surfaces
Playground equipment, escalator handrail, shopping-cart handle, picnic tables, portable toilet
Top germ carriers
If you think a toilet seat harbors more germs than any other surface, you’re wrong. University of Arizona researchers say these 10 things are nastier:
Phone receiver
Desktop
Computer keyboard/mouse
Doorknob
Escalator handrail
Elevator button
ATM buttons
Shopping cart handle
Kitchen sink
Subway turnstile
