Elevator buttons: dirtier than a toilet seat. Photo © Dan Taylor, via creative commons and flickr

Nature Boy recently scaled back using his hands.

He stopped coughing and sneezing into them during the SARS outbreak in 2002. He now spews his sputum and microbes into the insides of his elbows. This prevents him from spreading his viruses to everything and everyone he touches.

It’s all part of his civic/civilized duty, he says.

Then he cut back on direct contact with certain fixtures in public and semi-public spaces—toilet-flush levers, washroom and drink-fountain taps, and telephones that he hasn’t personally sanitized.

Too much television prompted the escalation of Nature Boy’s no-hands policy. According to MythBusters, the popular Hollywood-effects show where the hosts shoot and blow up things—all in the name of proving or debunking common wisdom, each square centimetre on an office telephone can harbour more than 10,000 microbes, while a square centimetre on a public water fountains can hold as many as one million bacteria.

By limiting direct contact with those fixtures, Nature Boy limits the microbes he picks up from those surfaces. He instead enlists go-between materials, such as tissue for the washroom fixtures, or pencil or pens to call out from telephones. As for holding telephones—“I prefer the speaker function,” he says, waving the eraser end of a pencil at me.

This squeamishness is entirely out of character for Nature Boy. He does, after all, spend his time handling dog-poo-eating banana slugs, being peed on by turtles, and swamping around for bullfrogs. He also knows there’s more to him than himself—his body contains many more bacteria than human cells.

Nonetheless.

He recently added elevator buttons to the no-touch list….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

Nature Boy faced a dilemma last night. As the person tasked with the weekly grocery run, he had splurged on tenderloin steaks.

As anyone who has recently emptied their wallets at the super market knows, buying high-end grilling meats these days practically requires pre-approval from a bank manager. According to Statistics Canada, retail prices for grilling steaks and ground beef increased by about 11 and 12 per cent since this time last year. That’s six times Canada’s overall inflation rate for the same period.

“Couldn’t we use that money for a vacation instead?” I asked. But Nature Boy pointed out that grilling season is upon us and, besides, the temperature outside these days simply requires use of the barbecue.

“Hmmm, okay. Just this once.”

The dilemma came in the evening. Nature Boy had seasoned and grilled the steaks—rare to medium rare… perfect. He deftly removed them from the heat and placed them on a clean plate. After turning the barbecue off, he took the plate and turned towards the door.

And tripped.

Through an impressive combination of flailing, twisting and flexibility, he saved himself and the plate.

The steaks, however, went flying. The year’s big vacation landed on the patio paving stones. The juice ran down the sliding doors.

There went France….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

Grape clusters. Photo © Scott Mair

We rarely see grapes being crushed by foot these days, but visitors to the Cowichan Wine and Culinary Festival earlier this month witnessed an old-fashioned grape stomp. Seven teams, dressed in costume, with grape juice soaking the hems of their trousers, shorts, gowns and dresses, competed against each other to stomp the grapes the fastest.

Their bare feet and enthusiasm served to remind spectators of wine making’s fundamentals.

Here and everywhere, wine making starts with sun, water, soil, and vines that take all of the above and turn it into grapes. Those who tend the vines and those that turn the grapes into wine strive to create product that represents and reveals the most desirable qualities of the fruit, place, climate, and so on. Each resulting bottle contains a bit of the heart and soul of the land and of the people who work it.

Yet, behind the growers of grapes and makers of wine, another community of players calls the shots. I’m not talking about grape stompers, who have been mostly replaced by mechanical presses these days. I’m talking about more enduring, pervasive contributors.

In the most basic sense, microbes make the wine….

Continue reading this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….

Grape vineyard. Photo © Monique Keiran 2009.