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Bidets: Now More Than Ever · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh. There's Chuck. We've lost Jerry sometime ago, but
0:16
Speaker 1: this remains as always Stuff you should Know because Jerry's
0:21
Speaker 1: here in spirit. I can tell you that Jerry's a lie. Okay,
0:25
Speaker 1: that's very very ominous. It totally did know that you
0:28
Speaker 1: mentioned it. We lost Jerry. She's here in spirit. Jerry's
0:32
Speaker 1: may not, she may not have ever existed. Who knows.
0:37
Speaker 1: It's all one big weird dream, right, Yeah, did you
0:40
Speaker 1: see what I titled this episode? By the way, no,
0:43
Speaker 1: I haven't looked yet. Bidats colon now more than ever.
0:47
Speaker 1: That's great, good job, man, because that is true, like
0:52
Speaker 1: having a Biddat right now can really keep you out
0:54
Speaker 1: of the rat race to find toilet paper dude the first,
0:57
Speaker 1: because you know, I used to have one of the
0:58
Speaker 1: toilet attachments and it got lost in the in the
1:01
Speaker 1: renovation and move and I kind of forgot about it.
1:04
Speaker 1: And the very first thing I did when I heard
1:06
Speaker 1: about this toilet paper surge was get online and buy
1:10
Speaker 1: another one of those things. Yeah, yeah, we had had
1:13
Speaker 1: just happened to get one um for other bathroom right
1:18
Speaker 1: before all this happened, So we're all set on the
1:20
Speaker 1: rear situation with the water application clean bottoms. Yeah, I'm so.
1:29
Speaker 1: I was raised the toilet paper guy, of course, and
1:32
Speaker 1: I know how you feel about that. Every once in
1:35
Speaker 1: a while though, I'll remember in our toilet paper episode you,
1:39
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna come out and say it wiping using
1:41
Speaker 1: paper to wipe your bottom with and that's it is
1:44
Speaker 1: just gross, gross gross, And like, like, seriously, I hear
1:49
Speaker 1: that in my head a lot. It's hilarious. But um,
1:53
Speaker 1: to me, that's that to me is like, okay, this
1:58
Speaker 1: this makes sense, feels normal, and I've gotten used to
2:00
Speaker 1: a bidday, but even still like I'm using a little
2:04
Speaker 1: bit of toilet paper there too. Also, we should probably
2:07
Speaker 1: say this episode is chuck full of t M I
2:11
Speaker 1: so just buckle in for that. But yes, I if
2:15
Speaker 1: I use a bid day, I still use a little
2:16
Speaker 1: bit of toilet paper. Um. And the thing that I
2:19
Speaker 1: think got me out of all of this chuck. I
2:21
Speaker 1: just want to stay up front is the science is
2:24
Speaker 1: still out on which one actually is more beneficial for
2:28
Speaker 1: you health wise. There are people saying toilet paper is yeah,
2:33
Speaker 1: I've seen it, and I think this is what I suspect,
2:35
Speaker 1: because there's such a dearth of studies on this, and
2:40
Speaker 1: some of the studies that have been done are showing
2:43
Speaker 1: mixed results. That it basically depends on how your doctor
2:46
Speaker 1: or whoever you're asking um feels about toilet paper or
2:50
Speaker 1: bid days. That's that that that's what they're going to recommend,
2:54
Speaker 1: doctor or whoever likes the bus driver. Min doctor drives
2:58
Speaker 1: a bus too. Yes, but these are hard times, alright.
3:01
Speaker 1: So we're talking about bidets, which is if you don't
3:04
Speaker 1: know what this is, uh, you have been living under
3:08
Speaker 1: a rock. But for a lot of Americans, and we'll
3:11
Speaker 1: get to why Americans haven't been hip to them a
3:13
Speaker 1: bit later, but some Americans still might not be hip
3:16
Speaker 1: to these. A bidet is a little and they can
3:19
Speaker 1: be different things. But the kind of classic modern bidet
3:23
Speaker 1: looks like another little toilet installed beside your toilet or
3:28
Speaker 1: near your toilet. Not quite right though. There's something you
3:31
Speaker 1: can't put your finger on. It ain't quite right about
3:33
Speaker 1: that toilet. Yeah, Like if you walked into a room
3:36
Speaker 1: and you never see it seen one before, you wouldn't
3:38
Speaker 1: be like, well, there's one for pooping and one for peeing. Yeah,
3:42
Speaker 1: I think that definitely does cross your mind either that
3:45
Speaker 1: where else you go? Oh gool. But there are different
3:48
Speaker 1: ways that you can have these modern bidets. Some of
3:51
Speaker 1: them have little water streams that scored up, some of
3:54
Speaker 1: them have a little like a shower handle. Um. But
3:58
Speaker 1: the long and short of it is it's another appliance
4:00
Speaker 1: in your bathroom with water and a little basin that
4:04
Speaker 1: you straddle after you do your business and uh and
4:09
Speaker 1: clean yourself up with water instead of dry toilet paper.
4:12
Speaker 1: That's the classic bidet, right, Yes, the classic bidet, not
4:16
Speaker 1: the biday of olden days? No, no, Um, should we
4:20
Speaker 1: talk about the other types or go back to the
4:22
Speaker 1: olden days? Now, let's go back to the olden days
4:24
Speaker 1: and we'll catch up again. All right, that's a little
4:27
Speaker 1: tease everybody. We're gonna talk about other types of the
4:29
Speaker 1: days eventually. Yeah. And I didn't see exactly. I saw
4:32
Speaker 1: anywhere from lateteen sixteen hundreds to early seventeen hundreds, but
4:37
Speaker 1: definitely European and the first bid days. Uh. The word
4:42
Speaker 1: means pony or cob, which is a kind of a short, little,
4:47
Speaker 1: short legged, strong horse. Yeah. And at the time the
4:50
Speaker 1: frends were crazy about those kinds of horses. Yeah, and
4:53
Speaker 1: apparently that has something to do with how you're supposed
4:55
Speaker 1: to use it. I still don't fully follow that. So,
4:59
Speaker 1: like these original days, it looked like a little kind
5:01
Speaker 1: of mini bathtub, but it also had something like a
5:04
Speaker 1: saddle shape and you squatted over it like you would,
5:08
Speaker 1: almost like you were riding like a little cob horse.
5:11
Speaker 1: All right, Well that makes a little bit of sense,
5:12
Speaker 1: I guess. And it also had like four legs coming
5:15
Speaker 1: out of the body. Did you know, if you think
5:18
Speaker 1: about it, kind of makes sense that it looks like
5:20
Speaker 1: a little tiny horse without the top half or a
5:23
Speaker 1: head or a neck, or ears or a main or
5:25
Speaker 1: tail or hoofs. But other than that all that, it's
5:29
Speaker 1: the spitting image of a cob horse. Yeah, I think
5:31
Speaker 1: it looked They looked a little more like Ottomans with
5:34
Speaker 1: a little chamber pot in the center. Yes, but Ottomans
5:38
Speaker 1: came from the Turks, and the French probably hated the
5:40
Speaker 1: Turks at the time because that was geopolitics, so they
5:44
Speaker 1: would never made that comparison, even though it was like
5:48
Speaker 1: this great elephant in the room's right, but these things
5:52
Speaker 1: were in the bedroom in France in the early seventeen hundreds,
5:56
Speaker 1: next to the chamber pot and the very idea of
6:00
Speaker 1: uh of pooping and peeing in your bedroom, it was
6:04
Speaker 1: pretty new, like the outhouse was like that, you still
6:06
Speaker 1: had an outhouse, but from what I saw, chamber pots
6:09
Speaker 1: and bid days were for nighttime business. Like when so
6:12
Speaker 1: you don't have to leave your bedroom, right? Yeah, I
6:16
Speaker 1: mean it's really kind of sweet if you think about
6:18
Speaker 1: It's like poop and pee in you your bedroom, especially
6:22
Speaker 1: on a cold night. But eventually people were like, well,
6:25
Speaker 1: there's a lot of collar around, there's a lot of typhoid.
6:28
Speaker 1: We should probably move these two a separate room. And
6:32
Speaker 1: eventually they did, and they called those bathrooms, yeah, or
6:36
Speaker 1: restrooms or toilets or w c's or poop station bills
6:42
Speaker 1: or lose. Oh I've got one for you. I wanted
6:45
Speaker 1: to say this in the last episode we recorded, the
6:48
Speaker 1: wastewater episode. All right, let's hear it. So you know,
6:51
Speaker 1: the word lou means bathroom or toilet in the UK
6:55
Speaker 1: at least, if not more. And they think so when
7:00
Speaker 1: we were in Edinburgh doing those shows, remember you took
7:02
Speaker 1: a nap and I got all bored, so I went
7:04
Speaker 1: and walked around the city by myself. Well, I went
7:07
Speaker 1: to old time Edinburgh like old time. I must have
7:14
Speaker 1: been napping when you went, because I don't know why
7:17
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have just gone with me when I tried
7:18
Speaker 1: to wake you up. But regardless, on this tour, maybe
7:22
Speaker 1: you'll remember this. The the the tour guide said that
7:26
Speaker 1: they think the word lou came from the Scotch people,
7:30
Speaker 1: the Scottish people saying guardiloo when they threw their waste
7:34
Speaker 1: water out into the streets, like they would shout guardilou.
7:39
Speaker 1: And they think that guardi lou came from guard de lee,
7:44
Speaker 1: which means watch the water in French. And so they
7:49
Speaker 1: think that um, guardi lou came from wash the water,
7:52
Speaker 1: and then lou came from guardi loo. And then that's
7:54
Speaker 1: where we got that term for the toilet in the UK.
7:57
Speaker 1: I love that. That's that's one for your next dinner party.
8:00
Speaker 1: Oh oh, I cannot tell you how many dinner parties
8:03
Speaker 1: I busted that out at so b days. Uh back
8:07
Speaker 1: to the Biday. They are or were more of a
8:11
Speaker 1: high society thing, like you know you were using an
8:14
Speaker 1: outhouse if you weren't, I don't know necessarily aristocracy, but
8:18
Speaker 1: you had to be like middle and upper class to
8:20
Speaker 1: have a bidat in your bedroom or in your house. Uh,
8:24
Speaker 1: and probably a chamberpot even for that matter. Well, for
8:26
Speaker 1: a couple of reasons too. I think one, you typically
8:29
Speaker 1: had servants who were going to take it away for you.
8:32
Speaker 1: This number one, you got to change the number number two, right,
8:35
Speaker 1: and the number two. You know, if if this bidat
8:38
Speaker 1: is basically just a wash basin with water, they didn't
8:40
Speaker 1: have running water at the time, which meant you had
8:42
Speaker 1: to haul water, so you probably had a servant hauling
8:45
Speaker 1: water for you as well. So yeah, you were probably
8:48
Speaker 1: this thing that's that that was like a luxury to
8:51
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, was just nothing to you
8:53
Speaker 1: because you didn't have to do anything. You just used it.
8:55
Speaker 1: You didn't have to do any prepper takeaway or anything
8:58
Speaker 1: like that. That's right. And they don't know for sure
9:01
Speaker 1: who invented it, but this dude, Christophe de Rosier UH
9:06
Speaker 1: made one for the French royal family in seventeen. A
9:09
Speaker 1: lot of people point to him as being the inventor
9:11
Speaker 1: of the bidet. Uh didn't take long, you know, within
9:15
Speaker 1: the next thirty or forty years or so, they started
9:18
Speaker 1: having things like things like little hand pumps, so you
9:21
Speaker 1: could kind of have a little rudimentary spraying device to
9:24
Speaker 1: help herself out. That's nice. It is nice. It is
9:28
Speaker 1: I mean because prior to this, it was just again
9:31
Speaker 1: a wash basin that you would straddle and just kind
9:33
Speaker 1: of flip it up onto your underside, your fanny as
9:36
Speaker 1: it were, your hand, right with your hand, and eventually
9:40
Speaker 1: that that water comes back down and mixes with the
9:42
Speaker 1: water you're flipping up and you reach some critical point
9:46
Speaker 1: tipping point is Malcolm Gladbo would put it, and now
9:50
Speaker 1: you're just flipping poop water up onto your nether regions
9:53
Speaker 1: and it's no longer helpful. So the idea that you
9:56
Speaker 1: could just sit there and and spray a pump a
9:58
Speaker 1: stream of water on there and have to just flick
10:00
Speaker 1: the stuff out of the basin onto you. UM, that's
10:03
Speaker 1: an enormous advancement. And they came along pretty early. I
10:06
Speaker 1: think the seventeen fifties, right, Yeah, that's about when the
10:10
Speaker 1: little spray spray thing came along. That's beautiful. And chuck
10:14
Speaker 1: one other thing too. I think about the same time
10:17
Speaker 1: that that pump handle came along. They also UM installed
10:21
Speaker 1: like a refillable tank, so you fill the water with
10:23
Speaker 1: tank and the everything that was in the basin was
10:26
Speaker 1: all just wastewater, So you were good to go by
10:30
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty as far as bidats were concerned, Yes, everything
10:33
Speaker 1: was totally clean and totally safe by seventeen fifty. Nothing
10:39
Speaker 1: could possibly go wrong. So these were big. Obviously in
10:43
Speaker 1: Europe they spread. Italy and Portugal were really big on
10:46
Speaker 1: the bidets still are. I saw Italy may have been
10:49
Speaker 1: the actual inventors of them, and that the French possibly
10:52
Speaker 1: just popularized it. I could see that. Yeah, French and
10:55
Speaker 1: they steal everything they did. But at the same time
11:00
Speaker 1: they were also they were a superpower at the time,
11:02
Speaker 1: and they were also basically global taste makers. So once
11:06
Speaker 1: they became into it, got into bidets, the rest of
11:08
Speaker 1: the world followed suit pretty quickly, or most of the
11:10
Speaker 1: rest of the world. Not if you were England or America,
11:13
Speaker 1: you probably went no, thank you frenchman. Yeah, Uh, South America, UM, Argentina, Venezuela.
11:19
Speaker 1: They're pretty popular. Uh, in the Middle East, and of
11:22
Speaker 1: course Asia and Japan very much leads the way in
11:27
Speaker 1: not only bidet use but bidet technology these days. Yeah,
11:31
Speaker 1: It's a classic example of what I've talked about before.
11:34
Speaker 1: The Japanese say, oh, I really like this invention. We
11:37
Speaker 1: can improve it by a hundred and thirty pc. So
11:39
Speaker 1: let's do that, And that's exactly what they did. That's
11:41
Speaker 1: a good Japanese accent. Thanks. I added a little vocal
11:46
Speaker 1: fry there at the end to make it particularly confusing.
11:50
Speaker 1: So maybe let's take a quick break, go cleaner uh
11:53
Speaker 1: bombits as my daughter says, and we will talk about
11:57
Speaker 1: what's the deal with America and why we hate cleaning
12:01
Speaker 1: our butt holes the right way? Right after this, to
12:28
Speaker 1: check you, we're talking about butth holes, I believe before
12:30
Speaker 1: the break, let's pick up. Let's pick up where you
12:34
Speaker 1: left off. Yeah, what's up, America? Why don't you clean
12:37
Speaker 1: your butt hole the right way? I thought this was
12:39
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. There's a guy who I guess is a
12:43
Speaker 1: bidet expert um who was speaking with the New York Times,
12:47
Speaker 1: and we happened to overhear it. He had some theories
12:50
Speaker 1: about why America didn't like bidets, and one you kind
12:54
Speaker 1: of touched on before, which was that England hated France
12:58
Speaker 1: at the time. They were I have a world superpowers,
13:01
Speaker 1: much akin to America and the United States during the
13:06
Speaker 1: Cold War. I mean in the USS are America, USSR
13:10
Speaker 1: Draco versus Rocky during the Cold War? Right, Um, so
13:15
Speaker 1: the English hated everything associated with the French and they
13:18
Speaker 1: would just have never gone from bidays. But that seems
13:22
Speaker 1: to have carried over into the colonies like America, which
13:26
Speaker 1: is a pretty good theory for why Americans have never
13:30
Speaker 1: adopted bidays. Yeah, and those were you know, in the
13:32
Speaker 1: early days of non adoption. Uh, World War two happened
13:37
Speaker 1: and and this is uh, this sounded kind of like
13:41
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure I believed this at first, but then
13:43
Speaker 1: I saw it in a different way in a bunch
13:45
Speaker 1: of different places, So I do believe it. Yeah. But
13:48
Speaker 1: apparently American soldiers would go to brothels in Europe and
13:52
Speaker 1: in Japan, and depending on what theater of war you
13:55
Speaker 1: were stationed at, and you would see these bays and
14:00
Speaker 1: you would associate it and there were a few different
14:02
Speaker 1: things going on. You might associate it with sex work.
14:05
Speaker 1: I think you gross um. At the time, the there
14:10
Speaker 1: were people that thought using a bid day after sex
14:13
Speaker 1: uh could be a contraceptive practice. Not true at all. Well, yeah,
14:17
Speaker 1: they thought that douching was a reliable contraceptive practice, and
14:23
Speaker 1: it wasn't until like the twenties or thirties where it
14:25
Speaker 1: was proven basically indisputable that no, it basically does absolutely nothing.
14:30
Speaker 1: But the idea that you would use the bid day
14:31
Speaker 1: to do that, um, kind of further associated it with
14:36
Speaker 1: sex work as well. Yeah. And then the other thing,
14:39
Speaker 1: which is incredibly sexist, uh and maybe throw in just
14:43
Speaker 1: a dash of misogyny, is that uh, women on their period.
14:48
Speaker 1: It was it hasn't been that long that women have
14:52
Speaker 1: been able to get products to deal with that and
14:56
Speaker 1: to talk about it as if it were just a
14:59
Speaker 1: normal thing that happens to the human body. It was
15:01
Speaker 1: very much under the table. Um, I think we should
15:04
Speaker 1: do something, man, if we if we dare go down
15:06
Speaker 1: that road on Springtime Flower Blossom episode, well, I was
15:11
Speaker 1: thinking maybe a shorty just on um like tampons and
15:15
Speaker 1: maxi pads and the development of of those things, because
15:18
Speaker 1: it took way too long, uh for the for the
15:21
Speaker 1: awful awful reason that manufacturers just didn't want anything to
15:24
Speaker 1: do with that. Right, Yeah, for sure, Um, I'm down,
15:29
Speaker 1: all right, Well let's do it. But menstruation had a
15:31
Speaker 1: lot to do with uh BI days not being used
15:34
Speaker 1: in America because no one wanted to talk about menstruation
15:37
Speaker 1: for a long long time. So you've got g i's
15:40
Speaker 1: returning from uh overseas where they visited brothels and aren't
15:44
Speaker 1: particularly looking forward to introducing their wives to bidays because
15:48
Speaker 1: they associated them with sex work. They're also really useful
15:51
Speaker 1: for menstruation, which wasn't talked about at the time. Um,
15:54
Speaker 1: and then they remind everybody the King of France, who
15:59
Speaker 1: everybody hated. And you put those three things together, that
16:03
Speaker 1: makes it really difficult to market in America. And so
16:06
Speaker 1: they think that one or all of those reasons are
16:09
Speaker 1: why Americans never really got into bid day's not until
16:13
Speaker 1: the Japanese said, hey, everybody, UM, check this out. But
16:19
Speaker 1: we'll get to that, not quite yet. Yeah. Another reason,
16:23
Speaker 1: and this was mentioned as a chicken or the egg thing,
16:26
Speaker 1: I personally think because the idea is that American bathrooms
16:30
Speaker 1: aren't big enough for this extra thing in there. But
16:33
Speaker 1: I think had we adopted it to begin with, we
16:35
Speaker 1: would have made our bathrooms a little bigger to fit
16:37
Speaker 1: these things personally totally, because I mean, our bathrooms are
16:42
Speaker 1: enormous now and they could totally fit a bid at.
16:44
Speaker 1: But if you if you look at most bathrooms, they're
16:47
Speaker 1: like a master bath in the suburban house. Like the
16:51
Speaker 1: bathrooms big, but the toilet is still small the little
16:53
Speaker 1: toilet area. So yeah, I think we totally would have
16:57
Speaker 1: expanded our bathrooms to allow it. I think we just
16:59
Speaker 1: didn't need to have bigger bathrooms because we didn't have it.
17:02
Speaker 1: So I say, disdaining for biddat lead to smaller bathrooms
17:08
Speaker 1: rather than vice versa. Where do you fall? Yeah? I agree. Um,
17:12
Speaker 1: I'm kind of mad because this this was my chance
17:14
Speaker 1: when we renovated our house to put a real deal
17:16
Speaker 1: biday in there, and you want one. Yeah, I didn't
17:19
Speaker 1: even think about it. Um, But like you know, like
17:22
Speaker 1: you said, our our toilet is wedged in a little
17:25
Speaker 1: zone like all toilets. We could have made our shower
17:29
Speaker 1: smaller and stuck a Bidday next to it. I guess uh.
17:34
Speaker 1: I can see you like dropping your highlighter while you
17:36
Speaker 1: were researching this article, like when it struck you like um. Interestingly, though,
17:43
Speaker 1: the um kind of one of the bigger bidet models
17:47
Speaker 1: that was popularized around the world, was invented by an
17:51
Speaker 1: American named Arnold Cohen. In the nineteen sixties. Yes, dude,
17:56
Speaker 1: So I had no idea about this, but the bid
18:00
Speaker 1: day seat that you use, that I use that basically
18:04
Speaker 1: all Americans are starting to be like, hey, this is
18:06
Speaker 1: kind of awesome that everybody in Japan uses, that a
18:09
Speaker 1: lot of people around the world used today was invented
18:14
Speaker 1: by a guy named Arnold Cohen in the nineteen sixties
18:19
Speaker 1: in the United States. Yeah. I also saw him referred
18:23
Speaker 1: to as the bid At King. Yeah, man, and God
18:26
Speaker 1: bless this guy. He tried his best. Uh. He created
18:29
Speaker 1: this thing for his dad who was older and not
18:32
Speaker 1: doing too well. And we'll talk about medical benefits here
18:34
Speaker 1: in a minute, but um, if you have a rash
18:38
Speaker 1: back there, if you have a hemorrhoid or an anal
18:40
Speaker 1: fissure or something like that. Um, there is some research,
18:44
Speaker 1: like you said, not enough, but some research that shows
18:46
Speaker 1: that a biday can really be helpful if you have
18:49
Speaker 1: one of those conditions. And his dad did so. He
18:52
Speaker 1: was a former ad guy. He tried his best and
18:55
Speaker 1: it just didn't quite work out. In America for Arnold Cohen, Yeah,
18:59
Speaker 1: he aided a model called the American Sits Bath s
19:04
Speaker 1: I t Z Bath, which is weird because it's not
19:06
Speaker 1: a Sitz bath. No, and there are six baths now
19:10
Speaker 1: and I don't know if they predated it or and
19:12
Speaker 1: he just kind of adopted that or what. But he
19:15
Speaker 1: basically took a toilet seat and modified it, added a
19:19
Speaker 1: foot pump to pump water under your bum with um
19:24
Speaker 1: he uh. He went to trade shows, he tried to
19:27
Speaker 1: market it as much as he could, and he also
19:29
Speaker 1: was very much ahead of his time. And then again,
19:31
Speaker 1: this is the nineteen sixties and he was still a
19:34
Speaker 1: young man at the time. Um that that he was
19:38
Speaker 1: trying to He saw that it was a problem how
19:41
Speaker 1: much toilet paper Americans use. That was one of his
19:45
Speaker 1: driving forces, in addition to trying to come up with
19:47
Speaker 1: something that could help people like his dad who are
19:49
Speaker 1: suffering from rectial issues. Um. And he said, I think
19:54
Speaker 1: one of his quotes is nobody wants to hear about
19:56
Speaker 1: tushy washing one oh one. It was just too difficult
19:59
Speaker 1: to market and so he kind of he gave up.
20:02
Speaker 1: I guess to an extent, and I guess sometime in
20:04
Speaker 1: the seventies he either approached a company called TOTO, which
20:09
Speaker 1: stands for Toyo Tokei or Oriental ceramics and Japanese um
20:15
Speaker 1: Or they approached him and they licensed his concept and
20:19
Speaker 1: kind of tinkered with it, made it better, made it
20:21
Speaker 1: much more automated, made it electronic, and um they deybuwed
20:26
Speaker 1: the washlet in in Japan, and it took a little
20:31
Speaker 1: like getting used to over there as well, but in
20:33
Speaker 1: very short order, the Japanese kind of clumped onto it
20:36
Speaker 1: and it became like part of their culture as much
20:38
Speaker 1: as like sushi. Sure, Sure, we did a great episode
20:46
Speaker 1: on sushi. We did. I was also gonna say chopsticks anime,
20:51
Speaker 1: um cuteness who knows a lot of stuff. You could say,
20:55
Speaker 1: Sure maple Japanese maples. A couple of those, M Yeah,
21:00
Speaker 1: they're beautiful. Man. Do you have the kind of like sweeping,
21:03
Speaker 1: spreading kind or the upright kind? I have. One of
21:06
Speaker 1: my favorite ones are the small low spreaders, and I
21:09
Speaker 1: got a couple of those. I don't think they're gonna
21:11
Speaker 1: be huge, but the way I have them in our
21:13
Speaker 1: garden and it's just very lovely. It's one of my
21:15
Speaker 1: favorite trees. Yeah, you don't want them to be huge
21:18
Speaker 1: when they're like that, because they're supposed to be kind
21:20
Speaker 1: of subtle, understated and like low growing. You know. Yeah, boy,
21:23
Speaker 1: there's one around the corner for me that I just
21:25
Speaker 1: I have Japanese maple envy in a big way. It's
21:29
Speaker 1: it looks like a it looks like a twelve foot
21:33
Speaker 1: umbrella that's about four ft off the ground. It's just gorgeous. Yeah,
21:38
Speaker 1: I'll bet it's old. Yeah, it's got to be. I
21:40
Speaker 1: just want to sit in it every time I go
21:42
Speaker 1: by their yard. You you probably lay under it and
21:45
Speaker 1: just tickle it. Did I say sit under it or
21:47
Speaker 1: sit in it? You said sit in it? Yeah, I'm
21:49
Speaker 1: in sit under it. Okay, you're gonna be the weird
21:53
Speaker 1: neighbor who just sits in people's yards. Maybe I've wanted
21:57
Speaker 1: to do that so many times and I just you know,
21:59
Speaker 1: and oh you can't do it, especially as they've grown adult.
22:03
Speaker 1: So what kind of a day do you have? You
22:04
Speaker 1: don't have the buzz market, But I got kind of
22:06
Speaker 1: one of the um like a seventy five dollar model,
22:09
Speaker 1: but that go under your existing toilet seat. But I
22:12
Speaker 1: know that some of these Japanese models it's actually part
22:16
Speaker 1: of the toilet seat and has dryers and they talk
22:19
Speaker 1: to you and all that good stuff. I will buzz
22:22
Speaker 1: buzz buzz, because I love mine. I have to total
22:25
Speaker 1: washlets and they it's not like the highest n one
22:29
Speaker 1: where like you stand up and it flushes automatically or
22:32
Speaker 1: um it talks to you or has lights. They have
22:35
Speaker 1: some that have like UV lights built in so when
22:38
Speaker 1: the lids shut like kills everything in sight. Um. But
22:42
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a good good washlet has like
22:45
Speaker 1: a heated seat and everything, um, and like it's it's
22:49
Speaker 1: just wonderful to have. It's just really that's the one
22:52
Speaker 1: where the seat is part of the unit, right, Yeah,
22:55
Speaker 1: Like the whole thing replaces your toilet seat, and there's
22:58
Speaker 1: like a big kind of bulky contraption in back that
23:01
Speaker 1: I think is like a water tank and where all
23:02
Speaker 1: like the mechanations are. But it's like you take your
23:05
Speaker 1: old toilet seat and you throw it out the window
23:07
Speaker 1: into your neighbor's yard under their Japanese yep, next to
23:11
Speaker 1: year old spirit tires and and dead possums, and you
23:15
Speaker 1: replace it with this one, you know, bidet toilet seat
23:19
Speaker 1: you connected to the water supply and then you plug
23:23
Speaker 1: it in and there you have it. I'm looking at
23:27
Speaker 1: this thing now, I kind of want to get one,
23:29
Speaker 1: but I don't have a I don't have a power
23:31
Speaker 1: outlet over there. That can be a problem. So you
23:34
Speaker 1: have to That's like an added cost a lot of
23:37
Speaker 1: the times. Unless you're comfortable with just having like an
23:40
Speaker 1: extension cord and surge protector or something, we're just fine.
23:43
Speaker 1: It's at the end of the world. But if you're not,
23:44
Speaker 1: then yes, you need to have an electrician comput a
23:46
Speaker 1: power outlet next to year. Yeah, yeah, because you could
23:52
Speaker 1: have done that when you're doing that that Sorry I
23:55
Speaker 1: didn't warn you. That's all right. So I guess since
23:58
Speaker 1: we're talking about Bidet's seats, I guess we should talk
24:01
Speaker 1: about the cheaper ones. You can get them for like
24:02
Speaker 1: anywhere from thirty to fifty bucks. And like we said,
24:06
Speaker 1: that goes under your seat, and you have a little
24:08
Speaker 1: control device on the side of your toilet seat that
24:11
Speaker 1: you just turn on the spray and it shoots out. Um,
24:14
Speaker 1: it's cold water and less do you have the means
24:18
Speaker 1: to hook it up to warm water? Um, but ours
24:22
Speaker 1: is cold water, so you know, so it's a little
24:24
Speaker 1: bit of a h of a wake you up in
24:26
Speaker 1: in the morning, you know, Yeah, is your warm I
24:30
Speaker 1: guess yes, it is it's warm, the seats warm. It's
24:33
Speaker 1: just beautiful. I just want to poop at your house now.
24:36
Speaker 1: It's you come over and use it anytime you want,
24:39
Speaker 1: because I know you pee sitting down, so you're okay
24:41
Speaker 1: in my book. But these washlets, so get this man.
24:45
Speaker 1: The washlet when it was introduced in and the washlet
24:49
Speaker 1: is like, I don't know what you call it, but
24:51
Speaker 1: they took let's wash and turned it into the washlet
24:54
Speaker 1: when they released it. But as of two thousand seven
24:58
Speaker 1: total had sold seventeen million of these worldwide about nineteen
25:03
Speaker 1: eighty it is amazing. As of two thousand nine, twelve
25:06
Speaker 1: years after that, it was fifty million. They sold ten
25:10
Speaker 1: million since two thousand and sixteen or so, I'm sorry.
25:13
Speaker 1: Two thousand nineteen was fifty million, two sixteen was forty million.
25:17
Speaker 1: So at some point along the way, a big portion
25:21
Speaker 1: of the world said, I like that, We're going to
25:24
Speaker 1: try it, and I'm gonna get one. Because the sales
25:27
Speaker 1: have taken off even before this um coronavirus shut in
25:30
Speaker 1: toilet paper run that we're experiencing in America. Yeah, I
25:33
Speaker 1: wonder I was gonna say if they had like a
25:35
Speaker 1: counter of that said like fifty million clean butt holes.
25:37
Speaker 1: But there's more than that, is you have two butt
25:41
Speaker 1: holes in your house, right exactly. So I mean that's well,
25:45
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that people point to is like, well,
25:47
Speaker 1: you know, there's a cost savings if this thing lasts
25:50
Speaker 1: long enough, you'll eventually pay for it, will eventually pay
25:54
Speaker 1: for itself, and savings from having to buy toilet paper,
25:58
Speaker 1: and well, and we'll get to the waist and toilet paper.
26:00
Speaker 1: But that is a problem. Yeah, yeah, because even if
26:03
Speaker 1: the cost thing doesn't quite work out, you are still
26:07
Speaker 1: you know, it's coming close to breaking even it's not
26:09
Speaker 1: like a complete like waste of money, but also money aside. Ecologically,
26:16
Speaker 1: it's probably a much better thing than toilet paper by
26:20
Speaker 1: any measure, any metric. All right, well, should we take
26:23
Speaker 1: another break? I think so, all right, let's take another break,
26:26
Speaker 1: and we'll, believe it or not, we're gonna tell you
26:28
Speaker 1: how to use these things right after this. Okay, Chuck,
26:55
Speaker 1: so I teased it earlier. I think we should start
26:58
Speaker 1: with this, uh, this this third act by talking about
27:02
Speaker 1: the different kinds of bidats. We've already talked about two. Right,
27:06
Speaker 1: there's the little cob horse bidet that looks like a
27:10
Speaker 1: tiny bathtub next to your toilet. There's the um. The
27:15
Speaker 1: washlet is a brand name, but it's almost become a
27:18
Speaker 1: proprietary eponym. It's so so um, so um widespread. Yes, um.
27:25
Speaker 1: But that's also called the bidet seat that you replace
27:28
Speaker 1: your toilet seat with. And then the third type is
27:32
Speaker 1: a hose that looks like you know, the dishwashing hose
27:35
Speaker 1: that you have, like as coming out of your your
27:38
Speaker 1: kitchen sink, if you if it's like that, but next
27:44
Speaker 1: to your toilet. That's the third kind of bidat. It's
27:47
Speaker 1: called like a water wall, a wall mounted shower head bidet. Yeah.
27:51
Speaker 1: I don't think these are nearly as common, are they.
27:55
Speaker 1: I didn't get that impression either, But when I looked
27:57
Speaker 1: it up, a lot of different images came up on Google.
28:01
Speaker 1: I don't even want to do that. All right? So
28:04
Speaker 1: are we can we talk about how we use these things? Yes,
28:07
Speaker 1: But I just want to say one more time, I'm
28:10
Speaker 1: thoroughly engrossed by the wall mounted showerhead bidet. You have
28:16
Speaker 1: to see one of these. Sometimes I've seen pictures, I
28:19
Speaker 1: just haven't seen them in person. Okay, I got it,
28:22
Speaker 1: neither of I but I've just I spend a good
28:24
Speaker 1: hour like staring at pictures, he thinks, and imagining. You know, sure,
28:29
Speaker 1: all the possibilities, so go so go ahead. I think
28:33
Speaker 1: this part I cobbled this together from a bunch of
28:35
Speaker 1: sources from the Atlantic, from How Stuff Works, I think
28:39
Speaker 1: New York Times, but me, I think was mental floss.
28:42
Speaker 1: And I think this came from How Stuff Works. This
28:46
Speaker 1: step by step for how to use a bid day
28:49
Speaker 1: and uh. The first step they say is locate the bidet.
28:56
Speaker 1: That is a good first step. I can't believe they
28:59
Speaker 1: put that in there. I thought that was very funny. Actually,
29:02
Speaker 1: technically their first step, if you're going by bullet points,
29:04
Speaker 1: was used the toilet toilet as you normally do both
29:08
Speaker 1: for urination and for defication. That's step one as far
29:13
Speaker 1: as the editors of How Stuff Works is concerned. Oh,
29:16
Speaker 1: that is really funny. Um. Yes, And actually they do
29:20
Speaker 1: point out in that step one that whether or not
29:22
Speaker 1: you wipe a little with toilet paper first, I don't.
29:25
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do that. I would uh. And how I
29:27
Speaker 1: do it as I wet to my bum first with
29:30
Speaker 1: a good spray, and then I used just a little
29:32
Speaker 1: bit of toilet paper and that's the great thing is
29:35
Speaker 1: is you're not using nearly as much. You can just
29:37
Speaker 1: use a few squares to kind of just make sure
29:39
Speaker 1: everything's cleaned up and dry. If you don't have a
29:41
Speaker 1: fancy pants dryer like yours. Yeah, I've found that the
29:45
Speaker 1: dryer takes so long that I don't have the patience
29:48
Speaker 1: for it. Now, who does you know, crazy psychos? Maybe
29:53
Speaker 1: unless you're you know, got a good book or something. Sure,
29:56
Speaker 1: and Uncle John's bathroom reader that would do it. That
29:59
Speaker 1: would keep me on the can long enough to air
30:02
Speaker 1: dry with the blow dryer. Or a little book coming
30:04
Speaker 1: this fall? Oh yes, shall we plug it? I think
30:08
Speaker 1: it's a great time to plug our book. It's called
30:11
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know, an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting
30:15
Speaker 1: things that's right coming to bookstores this fall. You can
30:19
Speaker 1: pre order now. And uh, I think all signs are
30:23
Speaker 1: still full bore ahead. And though we're in the midst
30:26
Speaker 1: of a global pandemic, in fact, hopefully they're thinking this
30:29
Speaker 1: is just what people need. Yeah, and hopefully it is.
30:32
Speaker 1: And at the very least it is guaranteed to keep
30:34
Speaker 1: you on the toilet until your legs going numb. That's right.
30:38
Speaker 1: So that's an old George Carlin joke. Oh really, what
30:43
Speaker 1: to sit on the toilet to your legs go? Num?
30:45
Speaker 1: Now he did some like some. He was talking about
30:48
Speaker 1: some game show and one of the contestants was introduced.
30:51
Speaker 1: One of her hobbies was sitting on the toilet until
30:53
Speaker 1: her legs went, which is not good for you, they say,
30:57
Speaker 1: especially if you have hemorrhoids. It can make that a
31:00
Speaker 1: lot worse. So you're supposed to do your business and
31:02
Speaker 1: get off. I could totally see that. You're also not
31:05
Speaker 1: supposed to, like watch TV in bed. Beds supposed to
31:07
Speaker 1: be for sleeping, So if you ever have trouble getting
31:09
Speaker 1: to sleep, um, they suggest that you like go read
31:13
Speaker 1: out on the couch until you start to get drowsy,
31:15
Speaker 1: and then go to bed and fall asleep, so that
31:17
Speaker 1: you'll your body and your mind will start to associate
31:20
Speaker 1: bed strictly with doing your sleeping business. I say, poop poo,
31:24
Speaker 1: did that because I love watching TV in bed? Yeah, Hey,
31:28
Speaker 1: I'm with you. It's a nice, nice little treat. It's great.
31:30
Speaker 1: I get why people don't do it, but uh, you know,
31:33
Speaker 1: I'm not one of those people. Hey, to each his own,
31:36
Speaker 1: we always say, right to reach their own teach their own. Yeah, alright,
31:40
Speaker 1: so I guess we're at medical. Oh no, wait, we did.
31:43
Speaker 1: We located the bidet right right, You've done your business. Uh.
31:48
Speaker 1: To me, the downside of having the separate bidet is
31:52
Speaker 1: you do your business and then you gotta get up
31:53
Speaker 1: and like remount another device, so like you've got it
31:57
Speaker 1: going on with your your fancy pants washl I think
32:00
Speaker 1: I think that's why I was so surprised that you
32:03
Speaker 1: wanted a regular biddat, because there's like a whole drippy
32:09
Speaker 1: um step moving from one to the other, you know.
32:14
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think when you get a washlet, you're
32:18
Speaker 1: not going to want a regular bidet any longer. I
32:21
Speaker 1: can't get a washlet, dude, I don't have the power.
32:25
Speaker 1: You can hire an electrician to come run an outlet.
32:29
Speaker 1: It's very easy. I know. Now I'm going to look
32:32
Speaker 1: into that. You're right, Okay, you're gonna love it, Chuck, Okay, okay,
32:37
Speaker 1: what does yours talk? I forgot No, it doesn't talk.
32:40
Speaker 1: That would be amazing. I've never seen a talking one
32:42
Speaker 1: except on the Simpsons. Well maybe that's where I got
32:46
Speaker 1: there was Yeah, because there's that one that says I
32:48
Speaker 1: am honored to accept your waist. I think that's where
32:51
Speaker 1: I got it. Surely some of them talk, right uh.
32:54
Speaker 1: Probably think Japan is famous for for talking appliances right sure,
32:58
Speaker 1: and just having like weird random stuff written on their appliances. Yeah,
33:03
Speaker 1: I mean I've talked about that rice maker. I think
33:05
Speaker 1: you have the same one or one of the same versions.
33:08
Speaker 1: That thing makes all kinds of fun sounds. Yeah the
33:12
Speaker 1: uh um oh, hey, while we're talking about this stuff,
33:16
Speaker 1: let me say, um, Mike's Mighty Good Ramen looked us up. Dude,
33:23
Speaker 1: that was so nice. Well, like, I'm first of all,
33:26
Speaker 1: thank you for mentioning it, because you got us hooked
33:28
Speaker 1: up big time. I did not anticipate that much Ramen
33:31
Speaker 1: coming no, like a box full of Mike's Mighty Good
33:35
Speaker 1: ram and basically saying, hey, thanks for the shout out.
33:37
Speaker 1: So um, I had never tried it before, and it
33:40
Speaker 1: is really good stuff, and we have a bunch for free,
33:43
Speaker 1: which is nice because it also stores really well too
33:46
Speaker 1: during times like this. Yeah, and I had already also
33:49
Speaker 1: purchased about a hundred dollars worth and it all kind
33:53
Speaker 1: of came at once, so I have literally a big
33:55
Speaker 1: moving storage been full of Mike's mighty good and I
33:59
Speaker 1: eat it for lunch every day. Today I had the
34:02
Speaker 1: vegetable cooking up milk lemongrass and it is delicious. Yes,
34:06
Speaker 1: it is amazing. I think the beef is my favorite
34:08
Speaker 1: so far. I love that spicy beef. Have you augmented
34:11
Speaker 1: yours yet? No, I'm I'm a novice still. I'm just
34:15
Speaker 1: kind of taking it a little by little. But I
34:16
Speaker 1: saw that on they have like a recipe card for
34:19
Speaker 1: suggesting how to kind of dress it up a little bit. Yeah.
34:22
Speaker 1: I mean I usually just because it's a good, good
34:25
Speaker 1: quick meal to go and a pretty low calorie, very
34:27
Speaker 1: low calorie. But the other day I did have some
34:30
Speaker 1: beef brisket and I minced that up really small, and
34:33
Speaker 1: I cooked, I did a boiled egg and cut that
34:36
Speaker 1: thing in half and it was so good. Man, that
34:40
Speaker 1: sounds good. Yeah. I mean, we don't buzz mark it much,
34:43
Speaker 1: but it is delicious. And they hooked us up. So
34:46
Speaker 1: thank you, Mike. Yeah, and thank you also. Um. The
34:49
Speaker 1: thing that made me think of it was the Zoji
34:52
Speaker 1: rushi rice makers. They liked us talking about them, and
34:55
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, you guys want some, You want a
34:57
Speaker 1: thermis yeah, it was pretty Maybe I'll get a washlet. Yeah,
35:03
Speaker 1: Toto brand washlets are really great, Chuck, I can recommend
35:06
Speaker 1: him highly. All Right, so let's talk about um medical uses. Uh,
35:15
Speaker 1: they're like you said, there hasn't been a ton of research,
35:17
Speaker 1: and there has been a little conflicting research, but a
35:20
Speaker 1: lot of doctors GPS do say and specialists. If you
35:24
Speaker 1: have colitis, if you have ib s, if you have crons,
35:27
Speaker 1: if you have colon cancer, then a bidet seat might
35:30
Speaker 1: be right up your alley to help you out back there.
35:35
Speaker 1: It will be. But also, Chuck, I just realized we
35:37
Speaker 1: never finished saying how to use the bidet. Well, now
35:40
Speaker 1: you know you scorch your butt, right, and it said
35:42
Speaker 1: that you either can dry it padded dryer or have
35:45
Speaker 1: a dryer. What else is there? So, oh, yeah, you
35:49
Speaker 1: we did make it through that. Wow, it just went
35:50
Speaker 1: so quickly. I think one of the things just I
35:52
Speaker 1: want to point out really really really quickly is that,
35:55
Speaker 1: like the whole point of it is that you're using
35:57
Speaker 1: water to clean off your bottom in the exact same
36:01
Speaker 1: way that you would use toilet paper to clean off
36:04
Speaker 1: your bottom um or your other bits, depending on if
36:08
Speaker 1: you have other bits. Down there. How do you how
36:11
Speaker 1: do you put this? I don't know. Well, whatever's job,
36:15
Speaker 1: thank you very much. But in some people prefer to
36:19
Speaker 1: use toilet paper to dry off, like it sounds like
36:21
Speaker 1: both of us do. Some people just air dry um,
36:25
Speaker 1: or they use the blow blower attachment or whatever, but
36:28
Speaker 1: like that's it, there's nothing more to it. I've read
36:31
Speaker 1: that some people use soap, which is crazy to me,
36:34
Speaker 1: but okay, and then some people chuck, I ran across this,
36:39
Speaker 1: they don't even use a but at if they poop,
36:42
Speaker 1: they take a shower after a word. Have you ever
36:45
Speaker 1: heard of anything like that before in your life? No,
36:48
Speaker 1: you know, I would say that's an extreme clean freak
36:52
Speaker 1: germophob clean freak is probably not a nice way to
36:55
Speaker 1: say it, but le phobia is about that stuff. But
36:59
Speaker 1: from what I there's a significant number of people, at
37:02
Speaker 1: least in the United States who like, you poop, you
37:06
Speaker 1: take a shower. That's just what you do after you poop. Interesting,
37:09
Speaker 1: I would take seven showers a day if you have
37:14
Speaker 1: water crisis, just from you know what a waste so well, yeah,
37:18
Speaker 1: that is a huge waste um. And that's actually kind
37:20
Speaker 1: of a criticism of bidats is like while you're using
37:23
Speaker 1: water instead. But as we'll see in a little bit,
37:27
Speaker 1: you're using a resource one way or another down there.
37:29
Speaker 1: So there you go. But okay, so you were talking
37:32
Speaker 1: about um medical issues. Sorry about that. No, that's right. Um,
37:36
Speaker 1: I talked about all the uh the ones dealing with
37:38
Speaker 1: your bottom. But um, apparently, and this is I don't
37:42
Speaker 1: know how much research they've done on this, but apparently
37:43
Speaker 1: they can help out with U T I s as
37:45
Speaker 1: well if you get frequent U T E s. Yes,
37:47
Speaker 1: And here's how they suggest that, Um, if you're a woman,
37:51
Speaker 1: you use the bidet on your woman parts before and
37:57
Speaker 1: after sex, and that that will help cut down on
38:01
Speaker 1: fecal bacteria entering your vagina and becoming part of your
38:06
Speaker 1: vaginal micro flora, which can lead to U T eyes. Interesting.
38:11
Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty interesting as well. Um, and
38:14
Speaker 1: don't take offense. Well, now you know you can get
38:18
Speaker 1: a prostate infection from from not keeping very clean down there. No,
38:22
Speaker 1: I just mean you know, if you if you make
38:25
Speaker 1: love and then your girlfriend and wife jumps up and
38:27
Speaker 1: runs in there and and cleans out real good. Yeah,
38:31
Speaker 1: just be a man about it, right, You should probably
38:34
Speaker 1: not take offense to that kind of thing should we
38:36
Speaker 1: be talking about this? Yeah, yeah, we haven't crossed the linet.
38:40
Speaker 1: I think I think you established a new line in
38:43
Speaker 1: the student Loans episode, so I think we're well within there. Well,
38:48
Speaker 1: my my reasoning there is if there are any like
38:50
Speaker 1: elementary school kids listening to student Loans, then their little
38:54
Speaker 1: Alex P. Keaton's they can handle it. Alex peakey, Man,
38:58
Speaker 1: what a great, great shout out there? What else here?
39:02
Speaker 1: If you're elderly and if you have arthritis or something,
39:06
Speaker 1: it's tough man, if you you might just physically have
39:09
Speaker 1: a harder time wiping your bottom, have to use the bathroom.
39:12
Speaker 1: And apparently as you age one of the single biggest
39:17
Speaker 1: factors for staying independent. Like you can still cook, you
39:20
Speaker 1: can still clean, you can still take care of yourself,
39:22
Speaker 1: but you might have a hard time wiping your bottom.
39:25
Speaker 1: You can still stay independent. Uh, if you can get
39:29
Speaker 1: that bidet going. Yes, And again, if you're sitting there
39:33
Speaker 1: like just like, wait, what are you guys talking about?
39:35
Speaker 1: If you were raised on toilet paper from from what
39:40
Speaker 1: there's a huge divide right now in the world. Apparently
39:43
Speaker 1: a good three quarters two thirds the three quarters of
39:48
Speaker 1: the world does does not use toilet paper, or they
39:50
Speaker 1: use it much more sparingly and they use a bidet instead,
39:53
Speaker 1: and they consider that clean. They consider using toilet paper unclean.
39:58
Speaker 1: And this this is this, whether toilet paper or b
40:01
Speaker 1: days are clean or unclean is so culturally ingrained that
40:06
Speaker 1: it's almost un imaginable considering one cleaner than the other,
40:12
Speaker 1: depending on what you've been raised on. But that is
40:15
Speaker 1: the case. And they've done a lot of well they
40:17
Speaker 1: haven't done a lot of studies, but some of the
40:19
Speaker 1: studies they've done have shown like, yeah, this actually is cleaner,
40:22
Speaker 1: or no, this isn't as clean as you think. Um.
40:24
Speaker 1: But one thing that really kind of stuck out to me, Chuck,
40:27
Speaker 1: was the idea that water alone can make you cleaner
40:32
Speaker 1: than wiping your bottom, which makes total sense if you
40:36
Speaker 1: step back and think about it, because all you're doing
40:37
Speaker 1: is wiping paper on your bottom. But to me, it's
40:39
Speaker 1: like you're you're getting stuff out of there and and
40:43
Speaker 1: you're getting it away, which I guess you're doing with
40:46
Speaker 1: water as well. Uh yeah, I mean that's that's kind
40:49
Speaker 1: of it with I mean, like you said, they've done
40:51
Speaker 1: some studies and they have shown that it can eat
40:55
Speaker 1: some of these symptoms of anal fissures and hemorrhoids. There's
40:58
Speaker 1: something called itchy anus that it can help up with.
41:00
Speaker 1: That is a real thing. But there was also a
41:03
Speaker 1: study about ten years ago in Japan that said if
41:07
Speaker 1: you use a warm water bidat, uh, and if you're
41:10
Speaker 1: a woman, it can kind of jostle loose your microflora
41:16
Speaker 1: in your vagina and you can just kind of knock
41:18
Speaker 1: things out of whack down there, and it can lead
41:21
Speaker 1: to more vaginal bacterial infections. Yeah. So in the study,
41:25
Speaker 1: it was like two sixty eight women, um, and they
41:30
Speaker 1: found that normal microL microflora was not present in forty
41:35
Speaker 1: three percent of bidat users and only eight percent of
41:40
Speaker 1: non users of bidats had normal microfloora not present. That's
41:44
Speaker 1: pretty significant. And then of of the fifty out of
41:48
Speaker 1: the tight who had fecal bacteria present in their vaginal microflora,
41:53
Speaker 1: forty six of that fifty used bidats. So that was
41:57
Speaker 1: a really surprising thing to a lot of people because
41:59
Speaker 1: they're like, no, no, no, this is this is clean. Um,
42:02
Speaker 1: this is way cleaner than using toilet paper, And this
42:04
Speaker 1: study suggests that that's not necessarily true. Now, was that
42:08
Speaker 1: for only for warm water though from what I saw, yeah,
42:11
Speaker 1: it with warm water. Yeah, use that cold water. Sure,
42:14
Speaker 1: it really gets you up in the morning, like you said. Uh.
42:17
Speaker 1: And then I guess finally we're at the point where
42:19
Speaker 1: we talked about just toilet paper. We covered toilet paper
42:22
Speaker 1: in our episode on toilet paper, but as a reminder
42:26
Speaker 1: about of toilet paper in the United States comes from
42:30
Speaker 1: Canadian forests. Um, And that's not cool. Americans represent uh,
42:37
Speaker 1: less than five percent of the world's population, but we
42:40
Speaker 1: used of the world's toilet paper and that's got to stop, Yes, dude.
42:45
Speaker 1: So those Canadian forests, they're talking about old growth boreal forests,
42:51
Speaker 1: and there's a term I saw, the tree to toilet pipeline.
42:56
Speaker 1: I saw twenties seven thousand trees a day go down
43:01
Speaker 1: the toilet in the form of toilet paper. And again
43:05
Speaker 1: this is mostly old growth trees. Um. And I guess
43:09
Speaker 1: the toilet paper industry in the United States is like
43:12
Speaker 1: a six six billion dollar industry from what I saw.
43:16
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's a lot of I think each American
43:18
Speaker 1: uses about forty rolls of toilet paper every year. The
43:21
Speaker 1: average household uses a hundred and fifty. There's a lot
43:24
Speaker 1: of room for improvement. And that's a big, big plus
43:28
Speaker 1: for bidays that you even if you still use toilet
43:31
Speaker 1: paper to dry off, you're using so much less than
43:34
Speaker 1: you would without a bidat that it's it's um. You're
43:37
Speaker 1: just saving tons of trees by using a bidet. That's right.
43:41
Speaker 1: You are using water. But if you've ever used one
43:43
Speaker 1: of these seat attachments or seats like you have, it's
43:46
Speaker 1: not a ton of water. Um, it's not like a
43:49
Speaker 1: bathtub or anything like that. You know, no, not at all.
43:52
Speaker 1: It's um. And if you have, you know, the more
43:54
Speaker 1: advanced your your bidat is. And it doesn't have to
43:58
Speaker 1: be like the most high end bidet for this to happen.
44:00
Speaker 1: But I mean, like pretty quickly as far as technological
44:04
Speaker 1: development goes in the biday you get um, the amount
44:07
Speaker 1: of water is going to be much more efficient than
44:10
Speaker 1: you know, just like say scorting a a dishwasher hose
44:14
Speaker 1: up there. I'm just fascinated by that. It's pretty great.
44:19
Speaker 1: Do you got anything else? I had nothing else? Well,
44:21
Speaker 1: there you have. Everybody. There's bid days. We told you
44:24
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of t m I and
44:25
Speaker 1: we delivered. And since I said t m I, everybody
44:29
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. Uh. This is from Mary
44:34
Speaker 1: Kerr in Buffalo, New York. Hey, guys, been listening to
44:36
Speaker 1: stuff you should Know for years. It's been my companion
44:39
Speaker 1: on many a morning run, road trip, and just tidying
44:42
Speaker 1: up around the house. I listened to the shorty on
44:45
Speaker 1: six six six and Chuck mentioned his license plate had
44:48
Speaker 1: six six six in there. I thought of the story
44:51
Speaker 1: about my brother Matt. He recently moved to Wisconsin and
44:54
Speaker 1: was at the d m V to change his license plates.
44:57
Speaker 1: The d m V employee handed him his new license
44:59
Speaker 1: plate and number, which was six six six mph like
45:05
Speaker 1: six hundred sixty six miles per hour. I know, I'm
45:08
Speaker 1: I love it, not bad. Uh. The employee looked at
45:11
Speaker 1: the plates and said, uh, do you want a different number?
45:14
Speaker 1: And he thought about it for a second, and he
45:15
Speaker 1: thought a different number would be best so that he
45:18
Speaker 1: didn't appear to be a speeding Satan lover. And so
45:22
Speaker 1: the the d m V employee graciously changed out the plates.
45:26
Speaker 1: Um And I'm not gonna read what plate they changed
45:29
Speaker 1: it out for, because it's just now occurring to me
45:31
Speaker 1: that I don't want to out her brother's license plate
45:33
Speaker 1: for some reason, Oh, that's that's true. It was, um,
45:38
Speaker 1: asked man. She said, just a silly story. Couldn't help
45:43
Speaker 1: a share. Thank you for your knowledge, levity and distraction
45:47
Speaker 1: that you've provided over the years, especially in this time
45:49
Speaker 1: of stress and uncertainty. And keep doing what you're doing.
45:52
Speaker 1: And that is from Mary and Buffalo, New York. Nice.
45:55
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, very much appreciate it, Um. Although I
45:59
Speaker 1: do have to say person only, I'm a little disappointed
46:01
Speaker 1: in your brother. But that's okay because he probably doesn't
46:04
Speaker 1: care if you want to get into this like Mary
46:07
Speaker 1: did till so you can hear that we're disappointed in
46:09
Speaker 1: your your your sibling. Well, you can send us an email,
46:14
Speaker 1: then wrap it up, spank it out of the bottom,
46:16
Speaker 1: and send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio
46:19
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
46:25
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
46:28
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
46:31
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.