Dig In, the Doc Says it Good for You

March 26, 2004 11:32 AM

Digging for Nasal Gold with a Doc's Blessing
An Austrian doctor is proposing that children be encouraged to pick their nose and to eat their boogers. "Dr Bischinger said: 'With the finger you can get to places you just can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner.'"
And ".....people who pick their nose and eat it get a natural boost to their immune system for free."
Who knew that the dirty kid in your grade school class who picked his nose all the time and ate it would have a stronger immune system?
Do kids really need to be encouraged to go mining in their faces at every opportunity?
posted by fenriq (33 comments total)

So if I eat my boogers I'm ok but if I keep them in my nose I'm not? So confused.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:37 AM on March 26, 2004

Second opinion, please.

Just because something has bacteria in it doesn't make it good for you to ingest.
posted by goethean at 11:50 AM on March 26, 2004

20 years ago, one reading Reiser's Gros Deguelasse (NSFW) cartoon strip would have be told the exact same thing -- the nose is a mildly saline environment, weakening the captured germs. Absorption of weakened germs is a form of vaccination.

I remember that at the time, it struck me as making a lot of sense.
posted by NewBornHippy at 11:50 AM on March 26, 2004

Have we indeed ever figured out if anything published on Ananova is true?
posted by Lynsey at 12:00 PM on March 26, 2004

Oh I'm sure not one MeFi person has ever, EVER picked their nose and snacked.

*crickets*

Right, well, me neither.
posted by vito90 at 12:05 PM on March 26, 2004

Don't be snotty.
posted by jonmc at 12:11 PM on March 26, 2004

I left my booger out on the underside of my computer desk overnight. Is it still safe to eat? Should I have refridgerated?
posted by Blue Stone at 12:17 PM on March 26, 2004

MetaFilter: Where Best Of The Web=Booger Eating 'R Us

Well, if this doesn't say something about the demographically dominant age cohort...

Then bring on the wieners!
posted by y2karl at 12:26 PM on March 26, 2004

The purpose of vaccination is to help us develope resistance to germs we haven't yet been exposed to yet, so wouldn't we be better off eating each other's boogers instead of our own?
posted by Jos Bleau at 12:28 PM on March 26, 2004

Next up on ask.mefi, "I just found out on the blue I'm going to live forever, please list suggestions of what I should do with the next thousand years"
posted by m@ at 12:28 PM on March 26, 2004

Is this OK for both straight AND gay boogers?
posted by norm111 at 12:28 PM on March 26, 2004

The purpose of vaccination is to help us develope resistance to germs we haven't yet been exposed to yet, so wouldn't we be better off eating each other's boogers instead of our own?

A good portion of the booger you are eating is made up of particles that were filtered from the air you breathe. Unless you're a hermit (nothing against hermits), you're exposed to air that other people have been shedding dander and other lovely items into. You don't just breathe the dust you create, so I'd think there's no need to be eating your neighbor's boogers.
posted by o2b at 12:50 PM on March 26, 2004

Why am I not surprised this got posted?
posted by konolia at 12:53 PM on March 26, 2004

They're not your neighbors' boogers anymore. You snorted them, fair and square, and hey, possession is nine-tenths of the nugget, as they say. Somewhere.

[/sings "Do your boogers lose their flavour on the bedpost overnight?"]
posted by chicobangs at 12:56 PM on March 26, 2004

You think a post about boogers is funny, but it'snot.
posted by JoanArkham at 12:58 PM on March 26, 2004

o2b - when I'm not teaching, I work form home, but my neighbor commutes downtown via public transportation and works in an office full of people from all over the metro area. Lots of her co-workers have kids. Very different evironments from where I'm at now.

You don't think I'd benefit from eating her boogers when she gets home from a long day at the office?
posted by Jos Bleau at 1:02 PM on March 26, 2004

Shit, man, if this is true, elementary schoolteachers should be able to sell their boogers on eBay.
posted by scarabic at 1:09 PM on March 26, 2004

My nana had a recipe for a beautiful paella featuring the pureed boogers of small children.

Course, we haven't had it since she was inexplicably fired from the daycare centre back in '78. Stupid activists.
posted by chicobangs at 1:11 PM on March 26, 2004

I just hope someone's working on a "who's booger should you eat" quiz website. With my luck, it'll tell me I should eat Courtney Love's boogers ....
posted by Jos Bleau at 1:17 PM on March 26, 2004

Well, to each his own, I say, but the thought of eating my boogers is so revolting to me it is making me sick thinking about it.
posted by PigAlien at 1:18 PM on March 26, 2004

When I was a lad, this song was popular:

Everyone's doin' it, doin' it,
Pickin' their nose and chewin' it!


And now, for my next number...
posted by tommasz at 1:19 PM on March 26, 2004

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose.

Got it?
posted by Guy Smiley at 1:21 PM on March 26, 2004

I just picked my nose and tried to eat it, but I could not bring myself to do it. I remember being unable to NOT eat buggers as a kid, it was such a strong habit. But now I am a big boy, and I do not eat my boogers.
posted by ericost at 1:56 PM on March 26, 2004

Soylent green is boogers!
posted by ColdChef at 2:01 PM on March 26, 2004

If I can't bring myself to eat boogers can I get a similar innoculation by licking door handles around the office?
posted by Tubes at 2:17 PM on March 26, 2004

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose.

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't wipe your friends on the sofa.
posted by hurkle at 2:29 PM on March 26, 2004

Tubes, I think that's a good way to get diseases.

I have this image of some kid up to his second knuckle saying "Ha, I told you it was good for me!" to his mother with a prescription to go digging for the gold.

You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose but you shouldn't use your nose to pick your friends (unless you live in a stinky Patchouli infested hippy town like Santa Cruz and its easy to discern bathers from non bathers).
posted by fenriq at 3:16 PM on March 26, 2004

Shit, man, if this is true, elementary schoolteachers should be able to sell their boogers on eBay.

Well, at least you'll find a place to keep 'em.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:05 PM on March 26, 2004

posted by moonbird at 8:02 PM on March 26, 2004

*tries to erase mental pic of Augustus Gloop chowing down*
posted by amberglow at 8:10 PM on March 26, 2004

Henry Kissinger's been down with it for years.

Just sayin'.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:51 AM on March 27, 2004

MeFi Swap
posted by Feisty at 11:47 PM on March 27, 2004

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't can pick these girls' noses. [NSFW]
posted by CountZero at 12:26 AM on March 28, 2004