HAVE you ever heard of Theodor Escherich? Don’t say no, because you have and he’s currently having a big impact on most of your lives, even though he died in Austria exactly 100 years ago.

You see Theo was so successful in his work as a doctor that they named a bacterium after him. It was called Escherichia coli, or E.coli as you call it – as you panic in your kitchens all over Bucks today.

Now I fully accept that it’s right to be concerned after the lethal outbreak of food poisoning causing death and mayhem in Europe. And I fully accept you should take great care to wash your fruit and veg before you eat it.

But we’ve been here before, haven’t we, with salmonella in eggs, bird flu and mad cow disease? Every so often there is a mass panic over a different type of food and we all fear for our lives. I’m not telling you not to take precautions and not to be careful over what you eat – just don’t be too insanely careful.

Because in the end, none of us will ever dare eat healthy food such as vegetables or eggs. We won’t eat meat any more for the same reasons, but our vegetarian options will be limited to what we grow in our gardens. And then we will all die of malnutrition or from stress brought upon by too much worrying over our diets.

The most important thing is to practice good hygiene at all times. Wash your hands, keep counters clean and watch out for sell-by dates and signs of rot. And then we can all sleep safe in our Bucks beds without worrying too much about the legacy of a long-dead Austrian doctor.