>> I still contend that I never get sick precisely because I am exposed to all those germs that people nowadays are so afraid of.
I agree.
The Yale graduate department of nutrition / food science (whatever they call it) did a field trip to China many years ago. They had done some calculations on the diet reported in remote villages, and thought that the people there SHOULD all have multiple deficiency diseases.
They confirmed NO deficiency symptoms, and the diet WAS too sparse to provide enough of several critical vitamins (or maybe other nutrients, I forget).
So they took a lot of notes, and when they went home, they put a bunch of grad students on that exact diet. Right away they came down with every nutritional disease expected.
The Chinese village farmers had NOT evolved to produce their own vitamins.
It turned out that the cooks at Yale were WASHING all the foods much too well. The bacteria and soil fungi remaining in the small amount of soil clinging to food in villagers' diets was providing them with the essential nutrients they needed.
So a little soil can be good for you.
Perhaps needless to say, they were not using herbicides or insecticides at that time, because they couldn't afford them and none were trucked in.
