A friend and I need to settle a bet. Given someone in a general state of health (no active infections, etc), would it be safer to consume (or otherwise come into contact with) their snot or their feces?
No, I’m not planning on doing either. This is a purely theoretical question of which is more biologically dirty.
Well, their snot just came out of their nose, which is connected to the throat, and the feces just came out of their lower GI tract. In neither case would the person be consuming any bacteria or other biological material that isn’t already present in their body.
Other than being disgusted, I doubt any disease at all would be caused.
This is how a foodservice worker that does not wash his/her hands after using the restroom can infect others, but not themselves.
I think he means coming into contact with someone elses snot or feces. I susspect it would depend on whatever pathogens the supplying person has.
Yes, I mean would it be safer for someone else to come into contact, etc. And yes, it would depend on the specific person, which I assumed would be read in. I mean on average. You’re presented with a sample of each from the same person and told that he or she was in general good health, but no more about them. Which do you choose?
Feces would probably be more risky (and disgusting), simply because it’ll have a lot more microbes per gram. It’s typically about one third (mostly dead) bacteria by dry weight.
Forgot to add…by contrast, snot is not primarily microbial. It will have picked some stuff up from the environment, but not all that much.
Well, general good health would probably rule out a sinus infection or upper respiratory disease, making the snot safer. Feces will always be a nice collection of the other person’s E. Coli, etc. Plus snot would have significantly less of an icky-factor. In fact, I cannot stress enough how much less gross that would be. Not that I’d do it to begin with.
Damn. thats some quick posting action.
Are we talking about sex here?
Hmm…
What colour is the snot ? <pukey smiley here>
I’d have to go with the snot for the above reasons, plus the likely populations of each. Feces is likely to have the aforementioned E. coli plus probably some Campylobacter, some Salmonella, maybe some Yersinia or some Clostridia and perhaps a nice Giardia, Norwalk virus, tapeworm egg, etc. Those are things that make you sick…really gruesomely sick. And, since they live in the gut, they are more likely to survive the stomach. Snot, OTOH, is mostly Staph and Strep. They cause their evils with toxins and are less likely to survive the gut. If they do make you sick, you puke, the toxins are gone, the snot is gone, you are all better. Have a glass of juice to replenish your fluids.
Hopefully not some Y. pestis…
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I’m going to be a snot and move this shit over to IMHO, since it’s a poll of sorts.
(The above is not to be construed of any opinion about the subject matter or validity of posts, simply a bad joke. Although you’re right, strong stomach is required.)
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You can definitely infect yourself, a harmless bacterium in the colon can be a pathogen elsewhere. The most obvious example is peritonitis resulting from a rupture of the intestine which leaks the normal gut flora into the abdominal cavity. Quite nasty and potentially fatal.
Nope, its cousin Y. entercolitica
But things in the GI tract are usually not dangerous to other parts of the GI tract. The question was eating, not injecting into the peritoneal cavity.