Indians have been trained from their childhood to take off their shoes when entering someone's home. We roam around barefoot indoors after all, so it only makes sense.
And yet, a lot of the western world has failed to learn this simple concept yet. But science has just confirmed it as the correct thing to do, validating the knowledge of old Indian tradition.
freestockphotos
They should follow suit though, if for nothing else but the sake of their health. That's because those shoes they wear everywhere are covered in more bacteria than a toilet seat. And they're tracking all those germs around their homes.
According to Charles Gerba from the University of Arizona, the microbiologist that lead the study, the results even took him by surprise. "I'm starting to make myself paranoid," he told the Baltimore Sun when his study came out a few years ago. "It seems like we step in a lot more poop than I thought." That's because a lot of those germs picked up are fecal bacteria.
In the study, 10 people were asked to wear brand-new shoes for two weeks, the way they normally would. The scientists then sampled them for bacteria. Apparently, the outsides of the shoes averaged about 421,000 units of bacteria, compared to just 2,887 on the inside. And a whopping 96 percent of the shoes were coated with fecal bacteria.
Wikimedia Commons
That indicates the shoes had "frequent contact with fecal material, which most likely originates from floors in public restrooms or contact with animal fecal material outdoors," Gerba said. And the rate at which that bacteria transferred from shoes to clean tiles was 90 percent.
Can you imagine how much of it was rubbing off on carpets as well?
This bacteria included E. coli, which can cause urinary tract infections and diarrhea, as well as other bacteria that causes things like pneumonia and respiratory tract infections. We may not not necessarily have the scientific data to back that up, but living in India teaches you that what you step in outdoors should ideally remain outdoors.?
But my god, can you imagine how much poop they're spreading when these crazy people jump into bed with their shoes on?!
Giphy