According to Discover magazine, your body is a planet; population 100 trillion cells. However, 90 trillion of them are not your cells. They are bacteria, viruses, yeast and other critters that keep you functioning. Most of them also help defend you from the occasional bad bugs that hurt your walking ecosystem.
Our modern society tends to think that the only good bacteria is a dead bacteria. We tend to focus so much on our fear of the bad bugs that we forget about the good ones. It is not good to eliminate bacteria. It is important to keep a high ratio of good to bad.
Bacteria are everywhere. One teaspoon of soil may contain up to 10,000 species of micro-organisms and billions of individuals. There are specialists for just about every situation that might come up. By changing the ecology, we can encourage certain specialists to flourish. For instance; after an oil spill, the oil eaters take over and help clean up.
When we try to kill bacteria without understanding the ecology, we are likely to set up a situation where the bad guys have no competition, with disastrous results.
The bottom line is two part action...
Clean up anywhere you expect bad bugs (around meat etc.)
Encourage good bugs (healthy soil, yogurt, kefir, etc)
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