Ya gotta wash your hands in the kitchen. The chance of your dying from some bacterial infection you catch because of your slovenly habits around the house - yes, you - is much higher than your risk of getting mad cow.

Cutting boards are another area of concern. Turns out that wooden boards are safer than plastic, because the cellulose in wood absorbs bacteria but won't release it. Plastic absorbs bacteria in a different way. "When a knife cuts into the plastic surface," said Professor Dean Cliver, of the University of California at Davis, " little cracks radiate out from the cut. The bacteria seem to get down into those knife cuts and they hang out. They go dormant. Drying will kill, say, 90% of them, but the rest could hang around for weeks." Holy Moley!

In one experiment performed by Professor Cliver, raw chicken juices were spread on samples of used wood and plastic cutting boards. Both boards were then washed in hot soapy water and dried, then knives were used to simulate cutting vegetebles for a salad. No bacteria appeared on the knives cut on wood, but there were plenty on the knives used on a plastic board.

Professor Cliver found that running plastic boards through the dishwasher only spread the bacteria around. The bacteria in the cracks remained.

In another experiment, performed by Professor Janet Anderson of Utah State University, a chicken was covered with a product called Glo Germ, which is invisible in daylight but visible when exposed to ultraviolet light.

The chicken was then given to a home cook, who was asked to prepare it. By the time the chicken was done, Professor Anderson said, the UV light revealed chicken juices everywhere - on the counter, in the sink, on cabinet handles, even on the sippy cup of the cook's two-year-old child.

Chuck Gerba, a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Arizona who has studied bacteria in home kitchens, said that he found that people who had the cleanest-looking kitchens were often the dirtiest. Because "clean" people wipe up so much, they often end up spreading bacteria all over the place.

The cleanest kitchens, he said, were in the homes of bachelors who never wiped up and just put their dirty dishes in the sink.

Here's how bookofjoe runs his kitchen: there are no dish towels to spread stuff: I let everything air dry in the dish rack. I never use the dishwasher: I can't stand the noise. There is no kitchen sponge. I use one of those plastic scrubbers, which sits out in the air. I change it weekly. I never buy raw meat, only frozen stuff which I microwave.

I never buy fresh fruit or vegetables. I get all that when I eat out. I have a huge wooden cutting board which I bought a zillion years ago. I have a bottle of liquid Soft Soap at the kitchen sink, and use it often. There is no bar of soap. I don't let dirty dishes sit long, and try never to leave pots or vessels full of water overnight on the counter. I use paper towels to wipe off counters, the stove, etc.

I rarely get sick.