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In a recent New York Times piece, Human Food Project founder Jeff Leach argues it's time to dirty up our diets. New evidence suggests that the rise in allergic and autoimmune disorders in the past few decades is due, at least partly, to our obsession with sanitation and aversion to dirt. 


Leach will join The Daily Circuit Tuesday to talk about bringing dirt back into our diet.


"We have a long evolutionary history with microbes," he said. "Up until the last .001 percent of human history, we were covered in dirt. When you remove a major component of our microbes - the yuck factor, triple wash, shower all the time etc - we find that many of the microorganisms trained our immune systems. When you remove it, it doesn't get trained."


Rob Knight, Knight Lab principal investigator at the University of Colorado at Boulder, will also join the discussion.

Gallery

New evidence suggests that the rise in allergic and autoimmune disorders in the past few decades is due, at least partly, to our obsession with sanitation and aversion to dirt. Do we need to dirty up our diets to stay healthy?

Is squeaky-clean food hurting your immune system?

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