I think I'll use gloves next time I go shopping. Consider this information from one of my favourite sites, which you can read all about if you :
"According to a four-year study conducted by the University of Arizona's Environmental Research Lab and sponsored by Clorox, grocery carts are veritable petri dishes teeming with human saliva, mucus, urine, fecal matter, as well as the blood and juices from raw meat. Swabs taken from the handles and child seats of 36 grocery carts in San Francisco, Chicago, Tucson, and Tampa showed these common surfaces to rank third on the list of nastiest public items to touch, with only playground equipment and the armrests on public transportation producing more disgusting results. In terms of playing host to germs and bacteria, the carts are far worse that public bathrooms..."
And to think of all the unpackaged foods you put in contact with the carts. And to think of how my children sometimes lick on the handles.
Howard Hughes was right after all.