While a lot of people are eating organic, Greene's stunt it noteworthy for its length and thoroughness, eating only organic food — defined as that produced without pesticides, antibiotics or hormones — both at home and in restaurants. "He chose three years as a goal because that was the amount of time it took to have a breeding animal certified organic by the Department of Agriculture. While food growers comply with organic regulations every day, Dr. Greene wondered whether a person could meet the same standards." Obviously, this was pricey — organic food can cost up to twice as much as what Whole Foods parlance terms "conventional," no laughing matter in these straitened times. (He found that cutting down on meat helped equalize the costs.) Then too, even in Dr. Greene's relatively health-conscious neck of the woods (where he was able to join a CSA and shop numerous farmers markets), organic chow could be hard to come by at, say, truck stops. Quoth the good doctor, “It was much more challenging than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be tough. There were definitely days where there was nothing I could find that was organic.” He'd call ahead to make sure restaurants could ensure that no non-organic morsel passed his lips; his family was into it.

Greene's rationale was that "his findings offer new insight into the challenges facing the organic food industry and those of us who want to patronize it." He also hoped it would improve his own health which, anecdotally it has (the scientific verdict is still out on whether organic foods are healthier, with arguments for both sides.)

Three years later, he says he has more energy and wakes up earlier. As a pediatrician regularly exposed to sick children, he was accustomed to several illnesses a year. Now, he says, he is rarely ill. His urine is a brighter yellow, a sign that he is ingesting more vitamins and nutrients.

While the experiment is a laudable one — and, in fairness, predates a lot of the food-related stunt journalism that's glutted the marketplace in recent years, and certainly the recent economic downturn — the rigid and stunt-like nature of it feels slightly arbitrary. It's certainly Dr. Greene's prerogative, and since he has the time and means to do so, more power to him: it's doubtless good to know the practical limitations of theory. It is always encouraging, too, to see a doctor practicing what he preaches. That said, the application is beyond the reach of most everyone, and as such, experiments such as these are feeling increasingly academic.

For Three Years, Every Bite Organic [New York Times]

• A group of eight female teens in Minnesota were charged on Monday with spitting at and groping the elderly residents at the nursing home where they worked at part time. • A new study claims that women's marital satisfaction increases as they get older and when their children leave home. • Guna Harangen, Norway's oldest woman, died on November 25. She was 109. • A former Swedish businessman is currently on trial in the UK for allegedly molesting a female passenger while she had an "orgy dream" during a transatlantic flight last year.• Two young men in Texas were sentenced to up to seven years in prison today for videotaping and coaxing a toddler to smoke pot. • Eleven Chinese girls died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday after they lit a fire in school to keep warm. • In a recent survey, Girl Guides, the English version of the Girl Scouts, said they want to clamp down on peer pressure to have sex and end airbrushing of models in fashion magazines. • BabyCenter.com is now offering text message alerts to let women know when they are ovulating. • On Friday, police in Naples, Florida stopped a 12-year-old girl from allegedly committing suicide while on a webcam website.• Heart attacks are both the No. 1 killers of men and women, but heart attacks and symptoms of an attack can look different to each sex. • A group of mothers, who were enjoying a night on the town with their daughters, were barred entry to a bar in Leeds, England because they were over the age of 35. • Eighty local men from Barre, Massachusetts posed nude for a calendar to raise funds for the Woods Memorial Library. • A new study says that almost 1 in 5 young American adults have a personality disorder that interferes with everyday life. • A new study in England has found that women from poorer areas are more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer than women from wealthier regions. •

[Image via Getty Images.]

1. They're boring. You know that friend who goes on a diet and then talks about nothing else? Fitness mags are like that friend, except the diet (and exercise plan) lasts forever. At least Glamour has stories about bipolar boyfriends and kept women in foreign countries to break up all the expensive shit. But in this month's Shape, even the sex feature is all about exercising and eating leafy greens. Hot.

2. They treat food like an enemy. Sure, fashion magazines have diet tips, but these are mere skirmishes compared to fitness magazines' nuclear war. Shape's editor says in this month's letter that the holidays are a time to enjoy food. But a few pages later, Shape calls this time of year a "diet danger zone" and baked potatoes a "fat and calorie minefield." Cheesecake is not a guy with a grenade hiding in your fridge. It's just a food. Eat it — or don't. But don't take Shape's bizarre and difficult advice and measure out your portion with a shot glass.

3. They remind you of your mortality. Look, times are hard. Everyone is worried. The last thing we want is to remember that our health is extremely tenuous and the most innocent-seeming habits might kill us. Unfortunately, fitness magazines have to put out an issue every month, so they need a constant supply of newer, weirder health scares. Shape's latest: petting your dog. It won't give you a cold, but it could give you E. coli. So play it safe and wrap your entire body in plastic. Cut two holes. One is for shoving in leafy greens. The other is for sex, but only because it's good for you.

SPENCER: Enough with this Joe-the-Plumber shit already. At my debate-watching get-together last night, I wondered who would be the first douchey pundit to proclaim that JTP won the debate, and sure enough this guy said it and so did That One. The internet means your cliches have a shorter half-life. In other news, good morning. What did you think of what McCain had to say about, why... women's issues!

MEGAN: I guess I would start with... wow, when did Sarah Palin's positions start to seem less extreme than McCain's on reproductive choice?

SPENCER: Might you be referring to his dismissal of "women's 'health'"?

MEGAN: Like, since when is having an abortion to avoid dying an extremely infanticidal decision?

SPENCER: Extremely Infanticidal should be the name of my band's EP.

MEGAN: You're totally welcome to it! When did "choose life" become "there's only one potential life that matters, and it isn't yours"?

SPENCER: On the basic political calculation behind his 15-minute long attack on women: I had thought he was trying to peel off HRC voters. Do you think he (a) figured he can't, and might as well consolidate the anti-choice base, or (b) acted without any regard to strategy? (As illustrated by this.)

MEGAN: I think the crazy just came out of his mouth. I mean, only 10 percent of people think abortion should be illegal without exceptions. At that point, he's more extreme than most of his own party, male or female. Even South Dakota wrote exceptions into their fucking referendum this year. Speaking of, I have to say, I thought Obama's point about not letting states decide the applicability of our constitutional rights by referendum was good. I also wish he'd pointed out that, by amending the Constitution, we'd sort of already taken states' feelings into account on those things. Of course, I thought that while I was typing just now and not at the time, but bygones. I think where he was probably trying to go but failed to articulate properly was this fucked-up right-wing idea that a "mental health" exception is an extreme exception that someone tagged Obama with having for late term abortions months ago, but it was way past Peepaw's bedtime at that point.

SPENCER: One quick thing, and this isn't really directed at you so much as it is the Culture: everyone, I want you to stop using cutesy goyische nicknames for "grandfather" and "grandmother." This shit is really annoying. Remember what I said earlier about the internet accelerating the halflife of cliches? Anyway: back to McCain and women's issues. So he starts talking about the Culture Of Life and such —

But that does not mean that we will cease to protect the rights of the unborn. Of course, we have to come together. Of course, we have to work together, and, of course, it's vital that we do so and help these young women who are facing such a difficult decision, with a compassion, that we'll help them with the adoptive services, with the courage to bring that child into this world and we'll help take care of it.

— and here I just thought I heard this from Bush for the past eight years and abortions have increased. The "Culture of Life" — is this all the right has to talk about abortion, aside from shaming women? IS THIS IT?

MEGAN: I love how there he ignored Obama's whole point about sex education and economic well-being would be better ways to reduce abortion, and just went straight for "y'all bitches can just adopt" as though that's difficult, logistically speaking. Yeah, I mean, there's only one life the Culture Of Life embraces, and that's the tadpole in one's uterus. Your life? Pshaw. The lives of convicted felons? Hardly. Save tax money and whatever, because that's a defensible moral position. Your quality of life? Also not important, only the fetus gets to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness before you even expel it from your womb because you obviously forfeited your rights to any of those by having sex you dirty, dirty slut. Also, here is your scarlet S, please staple it to your breast plate and carry on, you need to be marked so men will know your sin.

SPENCER: You really need to start a band. Times like this I miss Adrienne Droogas. But I want to press you on the politics of this, since I have a feeling this blog's readership agrees on the substance here (and rightly so): did McCain just write the women's vote off?

MEGAN: I think that to have done so would require some forethought, which his answer didn't have. Also, women make up 52 percent of registered voters in this country and slightly more of a percentage of participating voters and when independent women swing, they tend to swing en masse and get the guy elected. See: GWB. So, Hillary's voters aside, I don't think it was deliberate. What I think it was last night was some combination of fatigue and not parsing his words, and his mask that he's not really into the culture wars and meh on criminalizing abortion slipped. James Dobson apparently didn't look deep enough into his soul during the primaries to notice that, beneath his convenient political veneer, McCain is a solid, extremist anti-choice politician like any other.

SPENCER: I guess it's just hard to know what McCain actually thinks on an issue he seems not to really care about, but his cavalier-to-contemptuous attitude toward women in general would surely color his politics here. And speaking of cavalier, that brings us to the best moment of the entire debate. Obama's excellent, excellent, excellent answer on Roe — full throated defense, "correctly decided," "right to privacy," etc; when was the last time you heard a Democrat say things like that in a general election? never — preceded a gracious-to-awesome acknowledgment of a substantive division in the country on the issue. And then came this:

But there surely is some common ground when both those who believe in choice and those who are opposed to abortion can come together and say, "We should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and that they should not be engaged in cavalier activity, and providing options for adoption, and helping single mothers if they want to choose to keep the baby."

Let it be known that I want my imaginary Jezebel byline to be Spencer "Cavalier Activity Machine" Ackerman.

MEGAN: Seriously, you had a kitchen full of women going, what the fuck does Spencer have to do with UVA with your Twitter about "cavalier activity wanted" last night.

SPENCER: That's how I do, girl.

MEGAN: See, now, at the time, blogging away, I heard that as "having unprotected sex" but seeing it written out, I guess he did mean promiscuous. Oh, Barack, I didn't avoid teenage pregnancy because I had sacred, loving sex. I avoided it because I used condoms when I boned. Plus dumb luck a couple of times when I did have serious, relationship this-will-last-forever sex with my boyfriend when we stupidly neglected the condoms.

SPENCER: Wait, is there a serious point to make about "cavalier activity"?

MEGAN: I think there's a serious point about legislating and trying to teach morality in public institutions, but SILLY ME I want the government away from my personal life. Gosh, I sound like a Republican only they just pay lip service to that the same way John McCain is paying lip service to cutting spending and Joe the Motherfucking Plumber. Who, by the way, is a flat tax proselytizer and an unregistered voter. You know what that means, right?

SPENCER: That he's the Real American we'll never be?

MEGAN: I was going to go with crazy, mouth-breathing, close-talking, civic-duty shunning libertarian, but either way. At least he's not a Fair Taxer, those guys are completely insane. But he is a racist.

SPENCER: According to Dean Baker at TAP, JTP will see his taxes rise under Senator Government's plan by zero to $900. The American dream IS DEAD.

MEGAN: Dude, that's $900 he could spend on belts and condoms for when the lonely housewives start checking him out.

• A poll of British mothers reveals that 16 percent of respondents have a favorite child and 50 percent love both "equally but in different ways." • A claim that steroids may prevent a third of miscarriages raises questions about how normal early miscarriages are for women who are trying to conceive and if they need to be "cured." • A study of young girls and boys reports that boys with conduct and oppositional defiance disorders had lower heart rates and sweated less than boys without those conditions while playing a money-making computer game but girls showed no physiological differences while playing. • Concita de Gregorio appointment as editor-in-chief of one of Italy's most prestigious newspapers, L'Unita, signals the rise of women in the workplace in Italy. • The soccer players of FC de Rakt, an amateur Dutch women's soccer team, all play in short skirts (over hot-pants) because they feel that the look is both more "elegant" and comfortable. • Residents of San Francisco are split over a new proposition that would make prostitution legal in the city: The city's health department backs the proposal but the Mayor and DA say that it will ruin neighborhoods. • An internet advice site about divorces in the UK says that 10% of divorces happen during the second year of marriage and "online divorces" are contributing to a "throwaway" culture. • The "upscale bums" of Beverly Hills benefit from the neighborhood's rich residents but must "act respectful" and not be turned off by the wealthy in order to not get attention from cops. • A judge in Texas has ordered a woman to stop bearing children as part of her 10-year-probation after the woman admitted to not providing care for her 19-month-old daughter after the child was severely beaten by her father. • Computer models that are commonly used by doctors to determine if a woman would benefit from genetic testing for ovarian and breast cancer have underestimated the probability ofAsian women having a genetic mutation that could lead to cancer. • The various relationships between a Saudi woman and her driver all reveal a deep frustration with the inconvenience of not being able to drive themselves. • Why have Crayola crayons removed their old smell from their products? • A trading website for mothers in Australia called Mum Swap encourages free trading (instead of spending) of goods and services from clothes, babysitting, tips, and vacation homes. • High-class escorts in India are sharing in the country's booming economy but they are also evidence of the rising focus on materialism for women in the globalized economy. •

The two drugs studied, GW1516 and Aicar, work by increasing a gene-controlling protein called PPAR-delta that remodels the muscle and increasing the growth of Type 1 fibers within the muscle, which makes the muscles resistant to fatigue. There are two types of muscle fibers, Type 1, and Type 2 which tires more easily. Athletes and fit people have lots of Type 1 fibers and people with obesity and diabetes have more Type 2. With the first drug, GW1516, the mice had to have had exercise training to show endurance, while the second drug, Aicar, required no training to show increased endurance.

Basically, this pill isn't a free ride for those too lazy to walk around the corner to go to yoga and want to take a pill to make up for lost gym days; it's more of an enhancement drug for athletes (just in time for the Olympics) but it can also help people who would benefit from exercise but are too weak to do so, like those suffering from diabetes or morbid obesity.

Drug Offer Promises Of Fitness Without Effort [IHT]
Just Sitting Back To Get In Shape: Two Pills Do The Work Of Exercise [WSJ]
'Exercise Pill' Burns Fat— If You're A Mouse [CNN]

• Women taking antidepressants and experiencing a hard time achieving orgasm as a side effect of the medication may benefit from taking Viagra.

• "Grammar Girl" is out to get rid of bad grammar. • A former Muslim sex slave who was targeted for her ethnicity when Serbs attacked tells her heartbreaking story to CNN. • Southern New Hampshire towns are reporting an increase in domestic abuse calls and arrests, which police says is linked to the poor economy. • A self-instructional program on reproductive health and sex-education for teen girls with diabetes will help them understand the risks of unplanned pregnancy while diabetic. • Inflation, high security at hotels and popular venues, and traffic jams have made weddings a real bummer in Sri Lanka. • A weak baby dolphin that was caught in Japanese fishermen's nets has regained its ability to swim after being outfitted with a special lifejacket. • Meet Rampa Rattanarithikul, a Thai mosquito scientist who has researched and collected mosquitoes for 50 years. • Two dogs that were allegedly trained to have sex with their female owner have been accepted into a no-kill animal sanctuary in Utah. • Cute puppy news! Look at this newborn french bulldog set to Chopin. (Image via She Cards.)

Some reporter interviewed you about the improvement in metabolism in the lab mice. You said,

"I think it's an important result because not only does it say that not all fat is bad, but I think it points to a special aspect of fat where we need to do more research."

Love,
Kim Kardashian.

Scientists Find Something Good About A Big Bottom [Reuters]

A study done at the University of Minnesota showed that one in five young women say they eat fast food more than three times a week, while 33% of dudes head out for Mickey D's more than three times a week. It makes me wonder, though, just how accurate these surveys are because they're self-reported by the eaters themselves. I've certainly lied before about what I'm eating to make it sound healthier. Are the men in your life really chowing down on Doritos more than you, or are you an equal opportunity junk food offender?

Diet Survey: Men Eat Meat, Women Eat Veggies [CNN]
Study: Young Men Eating More Fast Food [Minnesota Public Radio]

Related: Cohabitation Is Bad for Women's Health [New York Times]

Three years ago my dad got prostate cancer. It had been misdiagnosed as a urinary tract infection for about a year, so he'd been on Cipro, which could not have been great for his immune system, but whatev. Prostate cancer is a pretty common cancer to get; in fact if you cut open all the prostates of men who'd died at a certain age you'd find prostate cancer in something like 90% of them, but it is not considered particularly scary because the prostate is something you can live without and cancer inside it generally grows slowly. That was not the case with my dad. By the time they took the biopsies, all sixteen of them came back with "Gleason" scores — the Gleason scale ranks the cancer's aggressiveness from 1 to 10 — of 8 or 9. To contrast, Rudy Giuliani's Gleasons were supposedly something like 2. Anyway! So no one wanted to remove his prostate. Straight to radiation and chemo; they all said. (They: Sloan-Kettering, Johns Hopkins, Penn.) But my dad was annoyed: he just wanted the thing out. Was that so hard? He finally went home to Georgetown, where they'd misdiagnosed it the first time and felt sufficiently bad to give him the surgery he wanted. In the meantime I bought like 10,000 boxes of macrobiotic dumplings and udon snacks. The only thing he refused to give up entirely (figures) was wine. My parents got a new puppy.

They took the prostate out. And the Gleason score had somehow gone down. Now it was a six or seven. Why? Oh who the fuck knows; the point is it had somehow not spread. Sometimes I hate telling the story, because it came on the heels of watching a close friend's two parents die of cancer within three years of one another, because I am a smoker and a sinner and I didn't deserve for that to happen and having cancer in remission is sort of like being in the mob, and having your worst enemy in prison temporarily on tax evasion. It will come back. Like acne! But with death.

Okay, so...back to the pancreas. I don't know what it does or why it makes such a willing host to cancer cells, but there's a Weird Al song that sort of explains it.

In the meantime, Patrick Swayze and all you cancer-affected people out there: our prayers, good vibes and $5 Kmart checkout counter donations to the March of Dimes or whoever are with you.

Lea Thompson: Patrick Swayze Will Be Resilient [US Magazine]

The Utne Reader reports that the summer issue of food and culture publication Gastronomica, a writer found that the more money you make, the less likely you are to be called fat: A Google search for "portly" resulted in descriptions of doctors, lawyers, and professors, but rarely for janitors and plumbers. Plus! Bonus race/gender discrepancies:

Although "white man," "white woman," "black man," and "black woman" all got around the same number of hits when the phrases stood alone, adding "fat" skewed the results. The phrase "fat black woman" got eight times as many hits as "fat white woman," while "fat white man" got 12 times as many hits as "fat black man." And black women were dubbed fat, obese, and overweight at far higher rates than the others.

Your Momma's So Portly... [Utne]

Nothing in the news today unscores this reality better than the story of Christi Layne, currently in the hospital and suffering from stab wounds inflicted by her estranged husband. Ms. Layne, a teacher, was attacked in front of her fifth grade class at Notre Dame Elementary school in Portsmouth, Ohio yesterday, just 13 days after she filed for divorce from her husband, William Michael Layne (Mr. Layne shot himself to death shortly after his attack). Remember, ladies, if you need help (or someone you know does), the number for the National Domestic Violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE.

Quarter Of U.S. Women Suffer Domestic Violence: CDC [Reuters]
Teacher Is Shot By Husband In Front Of Students[MSNBC]

Oh, and about that obesity epidemic: Science Daily reports that, after examining the average population weight gain in the United States over the past 42 years, British doctors are arguing that claims about the problem "often exceed the scientific evidence" and that "the categories of normal, overweight and obese is entirely arbitrary and at odds with the underlying evidence about the association between body mass index and mortality." Health economists and epidemiologists counter that the associated health care problems associated with obesity — diabetes, heart disease, elevated blood pressure — are not only well-established but growing. Whatever the experts say, the least we can do today, if not get on a treadmill and eat a spinach salad with steamed chicken, is exercise our right to vote.

Actually, A Long Healthy Life Costs More [MSNBC]
Fat People Cheaper To Treat, Study Says [Breitbart]
Is The Obesity Epidemic Exaggerated? [ScienceDaily]

Is this the real reason for being a "vegansexual"?

And finally, could the government ban lacing the feed of farm animals with antibiotics already? In a few years there are going to be no drugs for this. (That's why I try to keep my immune system in working order.) (Or something.)

Oh, and why is the image of Uristat I just downloaded from the corporate website called "beauty"?

Uristat
Related: The Beef About UTIs
A Constant Urinary Tract Infection That Won't Seem To Go Away

According to the article, fat bloggers "Celebrate their full figures and call on readers to accept their bodies, quit dieting and get on with life." There's no focus on diets, but there's no encouragement to pig out, either: "One of the first obstacles to fat acceptance is breaking down the question of whether being fat is a choice," says Shapely Prose blogger Kate Harding. "No fat acceptance advocate is saying you should sit around and wildly overeat. What we're saying is that exercise and a balanced diet do not make everyone thin."

Of course, thin people have blogs as well (the pro-ana presence on the Web has been well-documented). But while Hollywood and fashion magazines continue to promote an extremely-skinny woman as the ideal, the reality is that most chicks are not under a size 6. Isn't it okay to be proud of that fact? Plus, in a recent survey, women were asked if they'd rather have Jennifer Aniston's body or be a millionaire and 78% said they'd take the money. Cash buys you a trainer if you want it — or more Haägen-Dazs. Call it "extroverted" or whatever you like: In contrast to how skinny girls are nervous about staying that way, these writers make being "fat" seem like fun.

Sociable People Get Fat, Worriers Thin: Japan Study [Reuters]
In the Fatosphere, Big Is in, or at Least Accepted [NY Times]
Have Bod Like Jennifer Aniston, Or $1M [CBS News]
Earlier: Teen Vogue Message Boards: "I Gained Alot Of Weight Over The Summer. Its Disgusting."
Dying To Be Thin

After a highly scientific poll we conducted on the coffee drinking habits of the Bleeding-Heart Bleeding-Sexed, Socially-Conscious Clive Owen-Worshiping Slobs out there shows that 30% of you make your own fancy-schmancy, highly caffeinated java at home. 20% of you are nancy tea drinkers, 13% of you like your Starbucks with even more juice, and 10% of you like your Starbucks the way God and the body-obsessed intended: with fake sugar.

We're still waiting on tomorrow's study that shows caffeine may cause us to grow a third eye, become a sex fiend, and eat babies. Until then we'll continue to drink enough coffee to drown a horse.

Drinking Coffee May Lower Ovarian Cancer Risk: Study [Reuters]
Three Cups Of Coffee A Day 'Can Cut The Risk Of Ovarian Cancer'[Daily Mail]
Ovarian Cancer Risk Not Affected By Alcohol And Smoking, But Reduced By Caffeine [EurekAlert]

Earlier: Coffee Causes Miscarriage (Except When It Doesn't)
Rachael Ray On Dunkin Donuts Coffee: "What Is This Shit??"
The Jezebel Reader: Profile Of A Bleeding-Heart, Bleeding-Sexed, Socially-Conscious Clive Owen-Worshiping Slob

Dr. Shoenfeld has studied lupus, arthritis and rheumatism, and found that depression accompanying lupus is not just an emotional reaction to being sick — it appears to have a biological cause. The fact that sense of smell and depression can be linked, however, should come as no surprise to anyone who's ever been depressed. Not only do you cease to feel, taste or smell, you might even stop seeing colors. Some of us know, because, once we were treated for depression, we were absolutely astonished at how the world was suddenly quite pretty and brightly-hued. What is surprising? That there might be a low-tech, ancient way to treat mood disorders. "I think that science is able to show that aromatherapy might not be just for quacks," Dr. Shoenfeld says. "After all, some of these remedies have been used since the time of the Egyptians to treat organic diseases." Bring on the grapefruit-scented candles!

Wearing Too Much Perfume May Indicate Depression [Science Daily]
Why Some Depressed Girls Can't Smell The Roses [EurekAlert]

When the great plagues came, the Black Death, in the 14th century, the king of France asked the medical faculty at the Sorbonne in Paris, "What is causing this hideous plague that is killing one out of every three Europeans, and what can we do to prevent it?" And the doctor said the people who were at risk for getting the plague had opened their pores in warm or hot water, in the baths, and they were much more susceptible. So in France and England and most European countries, for about five centuries, people really believed that it was very, very dangerous to get in water.

Of course, many doctors and scientists believe we've gone too far — that we're not giving our immune systems enough dirt and germs, and therefore allergies and asthma take over. In fact, Ashenburg spoke to doctors who believe washing your hands is important, but claim there's no health benefit in bathing every day. "We've never needed to wash less in the developed Western countries, and we've never had more pressure to wash more. If your job is in front of your computer, and if you have a house full of labor-saving devices, you're not scrubbing floors too often, and if you have access to a car or public transit where you live, you're just not sweating the way that people did 50 years ago. But I think the daily bath is almost becoming the minimum. I'm hearing about more and more people who take two showers a day."

Why do we feel the need to be so clean? And isn't it crazy that our germophobia can actually be making us sicker? Save special conditions (camping, Burning Man, traveling in a foreign country), would you be able to start being dirtier in your everyday life? Could you take fewer showers? Ditch the hand sanitizer? Or do you just feel better when you're clean?

The Filthy, Stinking Truth [Salon]

Earlier: How Long Could You Go Without Showering?