It's quite common, nowadays, to find upon entering a grocery store, or a shopping mall, or the airport, to find a convenient hand sanitizer to utilize in order to cleanse one's hand of germs. In fact, at grocery stores they even offer hand sanitizing wipes to clean off the handle of the grocery cart that you push around the store. Since germs can spread from the hands of one person to another, there is something beneficial about hand sanitizers but one must also keep in mind that hand sanitizers are effective, but not nearly as effective as good soap and clean water, in addition, a hand sanitizer does nothing to preclude germs from being spread by someone sneezing or coughing or someone else with dirty hands, themselves. Further, hand sanitizer like a lot of things that are sold to Americans in the first place, is sort of a substitute for the very best way to cleanse our hands of germs which is soap and water, because soap and water, done right, involves, getting your hands completely wet, lathering, scrubbing, rinsing, and then drying your hands, which is what you see done by your doctor in your doctor's office, and is by far the most appropriate way to cleanse your hands.
Not too surprisingly, hand sanitizers contain chemicals, in which, it is claimed such chemicals are not harmful, but triclosan, which is a chemical commonly used in antibacterial sanitizers is known to detrimentally alter hormone regulation in animals, so that, one should take into consideration, that one probably shouldn't routinely use hand sanitizer as the preferred way to keep your hands clean, but more as an adjunct when you are precluded from using good soap and clean water. It is a good thing, when people are responsible and concerned about germs and the spreading of such, which can occur from one person to another, in which illnesses can be passed from coming into contact with infectious germs, the most appropriate way to interdict such germs, is to keep one's own hands clean through soap and water, and to reduce one's contact with their own eyes, nostrils, and mouth.
If the message that grocery stores want to get across to its customers, is that they want you to be safe, and thereby to reduce the spreading of germs onto produce and fruit by the fact that you have used a hand sanitizer, one must commend such, but such real difference that is made, probably isn't nearly as much as one might imagine or believe. It is, instead, more of a fairly simple and straightforward way to send the message that the store cares about providing you with a shopping experience in which you feel more safe and clean in that experience. The bottom line, though, is that hand sanitizers are a weak substitute for good soap and clean water, in which, the basic teaching of such, as well as other hygienic areas in life that we deal with on a daily basis, would do a whole lot better if each of us had a clear understanding of the important value of appropriate cleanliness and how to most effectively accomplish it in our own lives, as well as to how to be more considerate of others in the public sphere in regards to the spreading of germs.