Daniel sent us this one — he's asking whether organic cleaning products can actually do the job, or if they're just feel-good marketing. And the second layer, which I think is the sharper question, is what actually works for someone with asthma or chemical sensitivity who needs their home clean but can't handle the fumes. Two different questions that end up at the same place.
They're questions that send you down a rabbit hole fast, because you realize most of what people think they know about "natural" cleaning is half marketing, half folklore, and almost never tested side by side against the stuff that makes your eyes water.
Before we go further — quick note, this episode's script is being written by DeepSeek V four Pro. So if anything sounds especially clever today, that's probably why.
I'll try not to be offended. So let's start with the core claim you see everywhere, the one that launched a thousand Pinterest boards — vinegar and baking soda are all you need. Is that true?
I've seen you clean with vinegar. You looked like you were punishing the countertop.
The countertop won. Here's the thing — vinegar is genuinely useful. It's acetic acid, typically five percent in the stuff you buy at the grocery store. That's enough acidity to dissolve mineral deposits, cut through soap scum, and break down light grease. The Journal of Environmental Health ran a study back in twenty ten that people still cite — they tested vinegar against a range of household pathogens and found it kills some bacteria, but it's not a broad-spectrum disinfectant. It'll handle E. coli and salmonella at decent rates if you let it sit, but against something like staph or the viruses that actually circulate through a household, it's underwhelming.
It's a cleaner, not a disinfectant.
And that distinction is the thing most coverage misses. Cleaning removes visible dirt and some microbes. Disinfecting kills pathogens to a level that's considered safe by public health standards. It does not disinfect to EPA standards. If you're trying to sanitize a surface after raw chicken, vinegar alone is not your friend.
What about baking soda? The internet treats that stuff like it's powdered magic.
Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. It's a mild alkali, it's abrasive without scratching most surfaces, and it neutralizes odors by reacting with acidic and basic odor molecules — it doesn't just mask them. That part is real. But it has essentially zero antimicrobial properties on its own. You're using it as a scouring agent and a deodorizer. Useful, but not the same category as a cleaning product that's actually killing anything.
The vinegar and baking soda volcano people — they're cleaning with abrasion and acid, not sanitizing.
And the volcano is the problem. Everyone remembers their third-grade science fair and thinks mixing them creates some super cleaner. It doesn't. The fizzing is carbon dioxide being released as the acid and base neutralize each other. What you're left with is basically salty water with a neutral pH. You've cancelled out the one thing that made each ingredient useful.
I've always wanted to say this on air — you're better off using them separately. Vinegar first, let it sit, wipe, then baking soda for scrubbing. Not the volcano.
That's the correct protocol. And I'll add — never mix vinegar with bleach, ever. That creates chlorine gas. Not a theoretical risk. People have ended up in emergency rooms. But that's a tangent.
Worth the tangent. So if vinegar and baking soda are real but limited, what about the actual commercial organic cleaners? The stuff in the green bottles at the store that costs twice as much?
This is where the research gets interesting. Consumer Reports did a big test a couple years ago, and they found that several plant-based cleaners performed just as well as conventional products on standard household dirt — grease, grime, food residues. Brands like Seventh Generation and Method held their own. The catch was always the same: they're cleaning well, but they're not disinfecting. For everyday cleaning, they're fine. For sanitizing during flu season or after handling raw meat, you want something EPA-registered.
The "organic cleaning products don't work" claim is wrong, but the "they do everything" claim is also wrong.
It depends entirely on what you mean by "work." If you mean "remove visible dirt and maintain a generally clean surface," yes, many of them work. If you mean "achieve a four-log reduction in pathogens on a food contact surface," most of them don't. And the labels don't always make that clear. The EPA regulates products that claim to kill germs. If a product doesn't have an EPA registration number and it's making antimicrobial claims, something's off.
Let's get to Daniel's second question then, because this is where it gets personal. You're asthmatic, or you get headaches from strong fragrances, or your kid has respiratory issues. What do you actually use?
The trigger for most people isn't the cleaning agents themselves — it's the volatile organic compounds, the VOCs, that off-gas from conventional products. Fragrances are a huge culprit, but also solvents like glycol ethers and certain surfactants. A study out of the University of Bergen in Norway tracked over six thousand people for twenty years and found that women who used conventional cleaning sprays regularly showed lung function decline comparable to smoking twenty cigarettes a day. That's not a typo. The damage was concentrated in people who used spray products multiple times a week.
Twenty cigarettes a day. That's a headline that should have been bigger.
It got attention, but the cleaning product industry pushed back hard. The mechanism seems to be chronic irritation and inflammation of the airway lining. The particles in the spray are small enough to get deep into the lungs, and the chemicals irritate the tissue. Over time, that repeated injury adds up. For someone with pre-existing asthma, the effect is magnified.
The first recommendation is just — stop using sprays.
Or switch to trigger sprays that produce larger droplets, or better yet, apply product to a cloth rather than spraying directly onto surfaces. That alone reduces inhalation exposure massively. But the product itself matters too. The American Lung Association recommends avoiding products with fragrances entirely, looking for the EPA's Safer Choice label, and steering clear of anything with ammonia or bleach if you're sensitive.
Safer Choice — that's a legitimate certification? Not just greenwashing?
It's one of the better ones. The EPA Safer Choice program evaluates every ingredient in a product for human health and environmental endpoints. They look at carcinogenicity, reproductive toxicity, aquatic toxicity, persistence in the environment. If a product carries that label, it means every intentionally added ingredient has been reviewed and found to be among the safest in its functional class. It's not perfect — no certification is — but it's substantially more rigorous than a leaf icon and the word "natural" on the label.
"Natural" doesn't mean anything, legally.
It means nothing. There's no regulatory definition for "natural" in cleaning products. Poison ivy is natural. Arsenic is natural. It's a marketing term, not a safety standard. And the industry knows exactly what they're doing with it.
For someone like Daniel's asking about — asthmatic, or just wanting to avoid the intense chemical experience — what's the actual toolkit?
Let's build it from the ground up. First, for general surface cleaning — countertops, tables, floors — a simple solution of soap and water is underrated. Castile soap, which is vegetable-based, is effective at lifting dirt and breaking down oils. It's not a disinfectant, but for daily maintenance cleaning, you don't need a disinfectant. The CDC's own guidance says that for routine cleaning in most households, soap or detergent with water is sufficient.
The baseline is lower than people think. You don't need to nuke your kitchen every day.
For most surfaces most of the time, you're removing food residues and the microbial growth medium, not trying to achieve surgical sterility. Soap and water do that. Add a microfiber cloth, which physically traps particles and microbes, and you're already doing quite well.
What about when you do need to disinfect? Someone's been sick, or you're dealing with raw poultry juice on the cutting board.
This is where the safe alternatives get specific. Hydrogen peroxide at three percent — the stuff in the brown bottle at the drugstore — is an effective disinfectant that breaks down into water and oxygen. No residue, no fumes. It needs a dwell time — about five to ten minutes wet on the surface — to kill most pathogens. The downside is it's not a great cleaner on its own, so you clean first, then disinfect with peroxide.
Dwell time is the thing people always skip. Spray and wipe doesn't disinfect. You have to let it sit.
Every disinfectant has a dwell time. Bleach needs five to ten minutes. Peroxide needs about the same. Quaternary ammonium compounds, the stuff in most conventional disinfectants, need up to ten minutes. If you're spraying and immediately wiping, you're not disinfecting no matter what product you use. The label tells you the dwell time — almost nobody reads it.
What about steam? I've seen people swear by steam cleaners for chemical-free disinfecting.
The heat denatures proteins and kills microbes. Steam at two hundred twelve degrees Fahrenheit will kill most pathogens on contact if applied for a few seconds. The limitation is that it's only effective on surfaces that can handle the heat and moisture — not great for unsealed wood, not great for electronics. But for tile, sealed stone, bathroom fixtures, it's effective with zero chemicals. It's just slower and more labor-intensive than spraying something.
The equipment costs more than a bottle of Lysol.
But you're not buying refills. The cost per use over time is basically the water and electricity to heat it. For someone with severe chemical sensitivity, it can be worth it.
Let me ask about one more category, because I know you've looked into this — hypochlorous acid. I've seen it marketed as the miracle cleaner that's safe enough to spray in your mouth but kills everything.
This one is actually fascinating, and it's not a scam. Hypochlorous acid is what your own white blood cells produce to kill pathogens. It's a weak acid with powerful antimicrobial properties. You can buy generators that electrolyze salt water to produce it at home, or you can buy it in bottles. The EPA lists it as effective against a broad spectrum of bacteria and viruses, including norovirus and COVID. And it's low-toxicity — it's used in wound care and eye care. The catch is stability. It degrades over time, especially when exposed to light or heat, so you need to use it relatively fresh.
It works, but you can't just keep a bottle under the sink for six months.
It loses potency. The generators solve that problem — you make it as needed — but the generators aren't cheap. The Force of Nature brand, which is one of the more established ones, charges about seventy dollars for the starter kit and then you're just buying salt and vinegar cartridges. Over time it's cheaper than buying bottles, but there's an upfront commitment.
What about for laundry? I know Daniel's wife Hannah deals with eczema, so this is relevant — what do you use when detergent fragrances are a problem?
Laundry is one of the hardest categories because residues stay on fabric and you're in contact with them for hours. The main offenders are fragrances, optical brighteners, and certain preservatives like methylisothiazolinone — which is a common allergen and asthma trigger. For someone with sensitive skin or respiratory issues, the recommendation is usually a fragrance-free detergent with the fewest ingredients possible. Brands like Molly's Suds or the Free and Clear lines from the major manufacturers strip out most of the problematic additives. You can also add a second rinse cycle to reduce residue.
What about using vinegar in the rinse cycle? That's another internet favorite.
Vinegar in the rinse cycle works as a fabric softener because the acid helps remove soap residue and mineral buildup. It doesn't leave a scent once it dries. It's not going to disinfect your laundry — the washing machine's agitation and the detergent do most of the work, and if you need sanitizing, hot water at one hundred forty degrees or higher is what actually matters. But for softening and residue removal, vinegar is cheap and effective.
To pull this all together — the answer to Daniel's first question is yes, organic cleaners can do a good job at cleaning, but they're not disinfectants, and you shouldn't expect them to be. And for his second question, the safe alternatives are things like soap and water for daily cleaning, hydrogen peroxide or steam or hypochlorous acid when you need to disinfect, and fragrance-free everything.
That's the practical summary. And I'd add a layer that I think gets overlooked — cleaning frequency matters more than product choice for most households. If you're wiping surfaces daily with a simple soap solution, you're preventing biofilm buildup and keeping the microbial load low. That's more effective than letting things go and then blasting the kitchen with bleach once a week.
That's the unsexy truth of it. Consistency beats intensity.
There's also a psychological dimension here that I think is worth naming. A lot of people associate the smell of bleach or ammonia with "clean." That association has been built by decades of marketing. Switching to fragrance-free or low-odor products can feel wrong even if the surface is objectively clean, because the sensory cue is missing.
That's a real thing. The "clean smell" isn't clean — it's a fragrance designed to signal clean.
Some of those fragrance compounds are the very things triggering asthma symptoms. It's a cruel loop. The thing that makes you feel like your house is clean is also the thing constricting your airways.
Let's talk about what the research says about long-term exposure, because that University of Bergen study you mentioned is striking. Twenty-cigarettes-a-day equivalent. Does that hold up across other studies?
The Bergen study is the most cited, but it's not alone. A Harvard study in twenty eighteen found that exposure to cleaning products in early life was associated with increased risk of childhood asthma and wheeze. The Environmental Working Group has done extensive testing and found that over fifty percent of conventional cleaning products contain ingredients that can harm the lungs. The mechanism they identified wasn't just acute irritation — it was chronic inflammation leading to remodeling of the airway tissue. That's permanent damage.
This is mostly occupational exposure, or household?
Both, but the Bergen study specifically looked at household use. The effect was strongest in people who cleaned frequently — multiple times a week. Professional cleaners showed the most severe effects, which you'd expect, but the household data was alarming enough. The takeaway isn't "never clean." It's "maybe don't aerosolize harsh chemicals in enclosed spaces multiple times a week for decades.
Which brings us back to Daniel's question about asthmatics. If you already have compromised lungs, the threshold for harm is lower.
The threshold for noticing is lower. An asthmatic person might react immediately to something that would take years to affect someone with healthy lungs. That immediate reaction is a warning sign. The product isn't just unpleasant — it's actively triggering bronchoconstriction.
What about the argument that conventional products are more effective and therefore you use less of them, meaning less exposure overall?
I've heard that argument, and I think it falls apart on examination. The issue isn't just volume — it's potency and persistence. A highly effective conventional cleaner might require less product per use, but the VOCs it releases are more numerous and more irritating per unit volume. And many of those compounds linger in the air for hours after cleaning. A study in the journal Environmental Health tracked indoor air quality after cleaning and found VOC levels remained elevated for up to four hours after using conventional products, even with ventilation.
Even if you're not in the room when it's sprayed, you're walking back into a chemical cloud.
A low-level chemical cloud, but yes. And for someone with asthma, that's enough. The bronchial tubes don't care about parts per billion — they care about whether the irritant is present at all.
Let's get specific about product categories. Bathroom cleaning — soap scum, mildew, the stuff that actually requires some chemical muscle. What are the safe options there?
Bathroom cleaning is the hardest test case because you're dealing with mineral deposits, soap scum which is basically fatty acids bound to minerals, and mold or mildew in the damp areas. For soap scum and mineral buildup, citric acid is excellent and completely non-toxic. You can buy it in powder form and make a solution. It chelates the minerals — binds to them chemically — and breaks down the scum. It's the active ingredient in a lot of commercial bathroom cleaners, just without the fragrances and solvents.
For mildew, hydrogen peroxide is your friend. Spray it on, let it dwell for ten minutes, scrub, rinse. It kills mold and mildew and breaks down into water. The limitation is that it doesn't penetrate porous surfaces well, so if mildew has gotten into grout or caulk, you might need to replace those. No cleaner is going to pull mildew out of degraded caulk.
What about tea tree oil? I've seen that recommended as a natural antifungal.
Tea tree oil does have antifungal and antibacterial properties — there's decent evidence for that. The issue is concentration and consistency. You need a fairly high concentration, like five to ten percent, to be effective against established mildew, and tea tree oil is expensive. It also has a very strong scent that some people find irritating. It's not a bad option, but it's not the miracle some blogs claim. And for someone with asthma, the strong essential oil vapor can itself be a trigger.
That's the irony — "natural" doesn't mean "non-irritating." Essential oils are concentrated volatile compounds. Your lungs don't care whether the molecule came from a plant or a factory.
The lung doesn't have a natural-versus-synthetic detector. It has an irritant detector. And some essential oils, like eucalyptus and peppermint, contain compounds that can trigger bronchospasm in sensitive individuals. The fact that they come from plants is irrelevant to the mast cells in your airway.
Let's talk about cost. Daniel mentioned organic products specifically — is the price premium justified?
It depends on the product and what you're comparing. A bottle of Seventh Generation all-purpose cleaner is maybe four to five dollars. A comparable conventional cleaner might be three dollars. The premium isn't enormous for basic cleaners. Where it gets expensive is the specialty products — the organic oven cleaners, the plant-based drain openers. Those can be double or triple the conventional price, and the performance is often noticeably worse for heavy-duty tasks.
For everyday cleaning, the premium is modest and the performance is comparable. For heavy-duty stuff, you're paying more for less effectiveness.
That's been my experience and what the testing generally shows. A plant-based all-purpose cleaner handles daily kitchen mess fine. A plant-based oven cleaner struggles with baked-on carbonized grease in a way that the sodium hydroxide conventional products don't. Sometimes the chemistry just requires harshness.
For the asthmatic person who needs to clean an oven?
That's a tough one. The safest option is probably a baking soda paste — make it thick, spread it on, let it sit overnight, scrub it off the next day. It's labor-intensive and not as effective as the spray-on foam, but it produces zero fumes. Or — and this is where I get practical — hire someone who doesn't have asthma to do the oven. Sometimes the accommodation is not about finding a product, it's about removing yourself from the exposure.
What about air purifiers as part of the cleaning strategy? If you're reducing chemical use but still want to manage indoor air quality.
Air purifiers with activated carbon filters can help with VOCs, but they're not a substitute for source control. The most effective strategy is not emitting the VOCs in the first place. A HEPA filter will capture particulate matter, which is great for dust and allergens, but VOCs are gases — they pass right through a HEPA filter. You need the carbon stage, and even then, the carbon gets saturated and needs replacement. It's a supplement, not a solution.
The hierarchy is — eliminate the source, ventilate, then filter. In that order.
Open windows while cleaning. Run the exhaust fan. That alone reduces exposure more than any product swap. A study in the journal Indoor Air found that simply increasing ventilation during and after cleaning cut VOC peak concentrations by more than half.
What's the regulatory landscape like? I know the EU has stricter rules on cleaning product ingredients than the US.
The EU's REACH regulation requires manufacturers to register and evaluate the safety of chemical substances, and they've restricted or banned hundreds of ingredients that are still common in US products. The US approach under the Toxic Substances Control Act has historically been more permissive, though the twenty sixteen amendments gave the EPA more authority. The result is that you can buy a cleaning product in the US that can't be sold in Europe because of ingredients linked to respiratory sensitization or endocrine disruption.
The label "sold in Europe" is actually a meaningful filter.
It's not a guarantee of safety, but it's a meaningful signal. The EU's precautionary principle means they're more likely to restrict an ingredient when there's evidence of harm, even if the mechanism isn't fully understood. The US tends to wait for definitive proof, which can take decades.
Let's circle back to something you mentioned earlier — the EPA Safer Choice label. How many products actually carry that?
Over two thousand products across multiple categories. The EPA maintains a searchable database. You can look up everything from all-purpose cleaners to carpet shampoos. The program also has a "Fragrance-Free" sub-label, which is particularly useful for the asthma question Daniel raised.
That's different from the "Design for the Environment" label?
Same program, they rebranded it to Safer Choice. If you see the DfE logo on older stock, it's the same standard. They changed the name to make it more consumer-friendly.
What about making your own cleaners entirely? Is that actually safer, or is it just a different set of risks?
DIY cleaners give you complete control over ingredients, which is valuable. The risk is that people mix things they shouldn't — I already mentioned bleach and vinegar, but also bleach and ammonia, bleach and rubbing alcohol. All of those produce toxic gases. And homemade cleaners don't have preservatives, so they can grow bacteria if you keep them too long. A bottle of homemade cleaner that's been sitting under the sink for three months might have a thriving microbial community.
The shelf life is real.
Make small batches, use them within a week or two, and store them properly. And label them. An unlabeled spray bottle of clear liquid is a poisoning risk, especially in homes with children.
Let's talk about the commercial products that split the difference — the ones marketed specifically as "asthma-safe" or "allergy-friendly." Are those claims regulated?
"Asthma-safe" is not an FDA or EPA category. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America has a certification program — their "Asthma and Allergy Friendly" mark means the product has been tested and found to have low volatile emissions and minimal irritancy. That's probably the most credible certification for this specific concern. Products that carry it include certain vacuum cleaners, air purifiers, and cleaning products.
If you see that mark, it's been independently tested.
It's a meaningful filter. The testing protocol is developed by an independent scientific panel. It's not just a manufacturer's assertion.
One more practical question — what about dishwashing? Hand washing and machine. Any differences for someone with skin or respiratory issues?
For hand dishwashing, the main issue is usually skin contact rather than inhalation. Fragrance-free, dye-free dish soaps are widely available and cheap — the Free and Clear versions from major brands work fine. For the dishwasher, the concern is that the steam released when you open the door at the end of the cycle contains whatever was in the detergent. Some dishwasher detergents contain chlorine bleach, and the steam aerosolizes it. Switching to an oxygen-bleach-based detergent eliminates that. Seventh Generation and Ecover both make effective ones.
The dishes actually get clean?
In my testing, and in Consumer Reports testing, they perform comparably on normal loads. They can struggle a bit with baked-on starchy residues — think casserole dish that sat overnight. But for daily loads, they're fine. You might need to use a rinse aid to prevent spotting, since the plant-based surfactants can leave more mineral residue.
To summarize the practical recommendations — and Daniel, this is the list you asked for — for someone with asthma or chemical sensitivity, the safe and effective toolkit is: soap and water for daily cleaning, hydrogen peroxide for disinfecting, citric acid for bathroom mineral buildup, baking soda for scrubbing, fragrance-free detergent for laundry with an extra rinse cycle, and oxygen-bleach dishwasher detergent. For heavier jobs, steam cleaning or hypochlorous acid. And always ventilate.
That's the list. I'd add one more — microfiber cloths. They physically remove more microbes and particles than cotton cloths or paper towels, and they work with just water for light cleaning. The mechanical action does a lot of the work that chemicals would otherwise need to do.
None of this requires spending a fortune on boutique organic brands.
The most effective things on that list are also the cheapest. A gallon of white vinegar costs three dollars. A bottle of hydrogen peroxide costs a dollar. Baking soda is practically free. The expensive stuff isn't necessarily better — it's just more convenient or better marketed.
Which is probably the real takeaway here. The cleaning product industry has convinced people they need a different specialized product for every surface, when the chemistry of dirt and microbes is actually fairly straightforward.
They've convinced people that "clean" has a smell. Breaking that association is half the battle. A clean surface doesn't smell like anything. If your kitchen smells like a pine forest or a lemon grove after you clean, you're smelling fragrance, not cleanliness.
Alright, let me ask you a slightly different angle. We've talked about what works and what's safe. But is there anything the conventional products do better that someone with asthma might reluctantly still need?
Mold remediation in porous materials. If you have a serious mold problem in drywall or wood, the plant-based and gentle options aren't going to cut it. You need something that penetrates and kills spores throughout the material. That usually means bleach or a commercial fungicide. In that situation, the recommendation would be to have someone without respiratory issues do the work, or to wear a proper respirator — not a dust mask, a cartridge respirator rated for VOCs and particulates. And ventilate aggressively.
What about oven cleaner? You mentioned baking soda paste, but that's a lot of elbow grease.
Oven cleaner is one of the few categories where I'd say the conventional products are hard to replace. The active ingredient is usually sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide — strong bases that saponify grease. They're effective and fast. The fumes are intense and definitely not asthma-friendly. If you need to use one, do it when you can leave the house for a few hours afterward, run the exhaust fan, and consider wearing a respirator. Or use a self-cleaning oven cycle, which burns off the residue at high heat — but that produces its own particulate emissions, so ventilate for that too.
There are situations where the answer is "use the harsh stuff, but manage the exposure carefully.
That's the honest answer. The goal shouldn't be absolute purity. It should be harm reduction. Reduce exposure where you can, so that when you do need something stronger, the occasional use is less of a concern.
What's your personal setup? You're the one with the medical background and the cleaning opinions.
I use a fragrance-free all-purpose cleaner for daily surfaces. Hydrogen peroxide for cutting boards and bathroom disinfecting. Citric acid solution for the shower. Baking soda for scrubbing the sink. Vinegar in the laundry rinse. And I open the windows when I clean, even in winter. The only conventional product I keep is a bleach-based bathroom spray for the toilet bowl, and I use it sparingly with the fan on.
No steam cleaner?
I've been meaning to get one. The research is solid, I just haven't pulled the trigger.
The world's most enthusiastic researcher, undone by a purchase decision.
I over-research purchases. It's a known issue.
I've noticed. You spent three weeks comparing toaster ovens.
The Breville was clearly superior. But that's not the topic. The topic is that effective, safe cleaning is achievable with cheap, widely available products. The barrier isn't cost or availability — it's knowledge and breaking old habits.
Willingness to accept that "clean" doesn't announce itself with a scent.
That's the psychological hurdle. Once you get past it, you realize you've been paying extra to inhale irritants in exchange for a sensory experience that has nothing to do with actual cleanliness.
Which is a pretty good summary of a lot of modern consumer behavior, honestly.
Cleaning products, skincare, scented candles — half the stuff in the average home is optimized for sensory experience, not function. And the people who can't tolerate the sensory experience get left out of the market.
Alright, I think we've covered the ground. Daniel, hopefully that answers both layers — yes, organic cleaners can work for cleaning, no they're not disinfectants, and here's the actual toolkit for someone who needs safe, effective alternatives.
One last thing I want to add, because it's the kind of detail that matters in practice — if you're switching from conventional to fragrance-free products, don't expect to notice the difference right away. Your nose is calibrated to the old products. Give it a couple weeks. After that, you'll walk into a room cleaned with conventional products and wonder how you ever tolerated the smell.
The reset is real. I switched to unscented laundry detergent years ago and now scented detergent smells like a chemical spill to me.
Your olfactory receptors upregulate when they're not constantly bombarded. It's a real neurological adaptation.
Now: Hilbert's daily fun fact.
Oh, this should be good.
Hilbert: Yagli güreş, Turkish oil wrestling, has been held annually since the fourteen hundreds, making it the longest continuously running sanctioned sporting competition on record. Wrestlers coat themselves in olive oil before matches, which makes holds nearly impossible — a surviving single-source artifact of the sport is a rule book from seventeen eighty-four, hand-copied on birch bark, discovered in a Kamchatka trading post where it had apparently been carried by Ottoman merchants traveling the northern fur route.
Birch bark rule book in Kamchatka.
The logistics of getting olive oil to Kamchatka in the seventeen eighties alone is a whole episode.
This has been My Weird Prompts. Thanks to our producer Hilbert Flumingtop. If you want more episodes, you can find us at myweirdprompts dot com or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time.
