There ARE benefits to touching bare earth, be it barefoot walking or gardening.
Don't know if the ions or whatever would actually conduct through the copper.

ON the OTHER hand!!
In our wall of books, back in Mom & Dad's house, there was some novel about a Queen of the Jungle, with a newspaper clipping glued inside the front cover.
Hollywood made it into a movie, shot parts of it in AFRICA, for "authenticity".
And whichever actress it was got the Female Lead role, ran around barefoot, picked up a parasite, and died.

I'll see if I can find more info, online, and post a link.

When we were kids we used to shed our shoes at the end of May and didn't put them on till school started. Don't know if it was healthy but It felt good except when I stepped on a bumble bee.

When i was a young child..
I weighed less..
N ..me bare feet did not get such a pounding..... :0/

Well, around here you won't go barefoot for long. I have a dog and that's one reason to wear shoes. There are certain weeds I can't seem to get rid of and they definitely aren't nice to bare feet. Also, there are stones in the alley that can actually cut into your foot. In the summer in 100 plus weather, it's not a good idea to go barefoot. In the winter when it's below freezing, it's not a good idea, either.

Now, I do go barefoot in the house most of the time.

Ada & Eve never wore shoes. Furthermore, it is purported they lived a long time.

There is a series of interesting documentaries on the oldest known Australians.  Supposedly they walked from Africa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n6VJ5jq7zY&t=28s

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Originally posted by Texasbanjo

Well, around here you won't go barefoot for long. I have a dog and that's one reason to wear shoes. There are certain weeds I can't seem to get rid of and they definitely aren't nice to bare feet. Also, there are stones in the alley that can actually cut into your foot. In the summer in 100 plus weather, it's not a good idea to go barefoot. In the winter when it's below freezing, it's not a good idea, either.

Now, I do go barefoot in the house most of the time.

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How about the grass-burrs? I went barefoot a fair amount of my childhood in Grand Prairie....which 35-40 years ago was a much different place.....but in our yards we had the nastiest grass-burrs known to man...guaranteed to stick ya everytime, and they hurt big time! 
 

I've never heard of or seen them anywhere else I've ever been in life. 

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Originally posted by Texican65

quote:

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Originally posted by Texasbanjo

Well, around here you won't go barefoot for long. I have a dog and that's one reason to wear shoes. There are certain weeds I can't seem to get rid of and they definitely aren't nice to bare feet. Also, there are stones in the alley that can actually cut into your foot. In the summer in 100 plus weather, it's not a good idea to go barefoot. In the winter when it's below freezing, it's not a good idea, either.

Now, I do go barefoot in the house most of the time.

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How about the grass-burrs? I went barefoot a fair amount of my childhood in Grand Prairie....which 35-40 years ago was a much different place.....but in our yards we had the nastiest grass-burrs known to man...guaranteed to stick ya everytime, and they hurt big time! 
 

I've never heard of or seen them anywhere else I've ever been in life. 

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We have both stickers and goat head stickers.  Both feel lethal when stepped on (G).  So far, I've kept them out of my back yard but the front yard still has some of both since the neighbors don't take care of their yards and the seeds blow over here and germinate.   Constant fight.  Was watering this morning and found a sticker weed, had to go get the "sticker picker" and get rid of it. 

Such are the joys of home ownership.

I stepped in army ant nest barefoot in Florida - never walked shoeless again.

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Originally posted by Texasbanjo

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Originally posted by Texican65

quote:

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Originally posted by Texasbanjo

Well, around here you won't go barefoot for long. I have a dog and that's one reason to wear shoes. There are certain weeds I can't seem to get rid of and they definitely aren't nice to bare feet. Also, there are stones in the alley that can actually cut into your foot. In the summer in 100 plus weather, it's not a good idea to go barefoot. In the winter when it's below freezing, it's not a good idea, either.

Now, I do go barefoot in the house most of the time.

---

How about the grass-burrs? I went barefoot a fair amount of my childhood in Grand Prairie....which 35-40 years ago was a much different place.....but in our yards we had the nastiest grass-burrs known to man...guaranteed to stick ya everytime, and they hurt big time! 
 

I've never heard of or seen them anywhere else I've ever been in life. 

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We have both stickers and goat head stickers.  Both feel lethal when stepped on (G).  So far, I've kept them out of my back yard but the front yard still has some of both since the neighbors don't take care of their yards and the seeds blow over here and germinate.   Constant fight.  Was watering this morning and found a sticker weed, had to go get the "sticker picker" and get rid of it. 

Such are the joys of home ownership.

 

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Ha. Yes...stickers. Little cluster of about 5-10 of them growing together on a shoot...little yellow/green spike balls. 
 

Is the goat head sticker bigger, and black, about the size of a Brazil nut? We had those too...but I couldn't remember what my grandad called them. 

Not much fun walking in the Maine woods,barefoot.

Poison ivy and sweet gum balls are only two of the reasons to wear shoes around here. Chinese chestnut balls are a third.

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Originally posted by Texican65   (SNIP)

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Ha. Yes...stickers. Little cluster of about 5-10 of them growing together on a shoot...little yellow/green spike balls. 
 

Is the goat head sticker bigger, and black, about the size of a Brazil nut? We had those too...but I couldn't remember what my grandad called them. 

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No, the goathead is a tiny little thing that has spikes like horns on a goat.  Actually the puncture is worse than a sticker.  If you're interested in seeing and reading about them, go here:  https://929thebull.com/goat-head-stickers-are-satans-spurs/

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Originally posted by Texican65

quote:

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Originally posted by Texasbanjo

Well, around here you won't go barefoot for long. I have a dog and that's one reason to wear shoes. There are certain weeds I can't seem to get rid of and they definitely aren't nice to bare feet. Also, there are stones in the alley that can actually cut into your foot. In the summer in 100 plus weather, it's not a good idea to go barefoot. In the winter when it's below freezing, it's not a good idea, either.

Now, I do go barefoot in the house most of the time.

---

How about the grass-burrs? I went barefoot a fair amount of my childhood in Grand Prairie....which 35-40 years ago was a much different place.....but in our yards we had the nastiest grass-burrs known to man...guaranteed to stick ya everytime, and they hurt big time! 
 

I've never heard of or seen them anywhere else I've ever been in life. 

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Along the coats of the Carolinas they are called "sand spurs" and you definitely do not want to step on them!

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Originally posted by South Jersey Mike

I stepped in army ant nest barefoot in Florida - never walked shoeless again.

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Probably fire ants!

A tick infection is nothing to invite.
I wash my socks and pants and inspect my body every time I come in from being around the blueberry and raspberry bushes.

I might enjoy a barefoot walk down a country club fairway, but, since that is not in the cards or the bank account, those days are behind me. Brad

Mike: "There ARE benefits to touching bare earth, be it barefoot walking or gardening."

If a person walked in a rooftop garden would the benefits be comparable to dirt that's part of, or physically joined to, our big ball of dirt? 

I wonder if even a teensy-weensy bit of that same benefit could be realized by limiting foot washing / bathing.  

Yep, they still use copper rods for electrical grounding.

And people still walk in bare feet. I go barefoot around the home and yard, but nowhere else unless I'm swimming.

We used to prime tobacco barefoot back in the day.
I have a wire attached to a hot water heating pipe which is grounded and hang on to it for a minute now and then to ground my system. I also read that it’s healthy as Dempsey was saying.

Healthy??  A friend of mine can grab, and hold onto, an electric fence .... i.e. the new(er) solid-state circuitry ... the old(er) DC battery-powered ones were enuff for me.    He says [jokes/boasts/??] that the jolts are "good for his heart."*

Geez, Chuck, I've heard an equally effective way to ground your system, at least in winter, is to touch your tongue to a chain-link fence.   [There's more than one way to kill a cat.... variety is the spice of life ... a change is as good as a rest ... yada, yada, yada.]

* = In case you're wondering, he's not a doc. 

Copper grounding lug is fine until you get struck by lightning.

My youngest kid always went barefoot, and he was rewarded with ringworm. Pass.

Never urinate on an electric fence…… (an electric bass is another matter….)

My feet have built in object detectors. If I walk around the bedroom in the dark my toes will easily detect those sharp metal legs hidden under the edge of the bed or the legs of the tall dresser. When I had younger kids I could find pieces of Lego in the dark.

A Tai Kwon Do friend used to go out for the evening wearing easily removed loafers with no socks in case he had to defend himself.

I had a book of Japanese folk medicine which recommended walking barefoot while the de.w was still on the grass to treat depression and emotional disturbances. I think that there is some validity to the "grounding" concept, without the copper nonsense.

I do have a fifty year old hippy friend who simply does not wear shoes (and yes he was too late to have been an actual hippy) He says the key to going barefoot is to go barefoot all of the time. He says that over time you will acquire the skills of how to step and where to step without thinking about it, along with developing the required tough soles. But he is homeless by choice, sleeps in his car, somehow survives doing odd jobs, so nothing about how he lives is actually doable by normal folks.