Seven filthy food habits and how dirty they really are (CNN)

**Seven filthy food habits and how dirty they really are** is a CNN news article posted on August 10, 2017, at 4:31 AM EDT.

A food scientist and professor named Paul Dawson from Clemson University for 30 years knows how frequently food habits may be spreading germs. The disease rate is not often very high, but passing food with germs can increase the rate.

## Double Dipping

In a Seinfeld episode, George Costanza eats a chip filled with a dip. When he goes for more, he is "double-dipping."

“That’s like putting your whole mouth right in the dip!” says another character.

People who go against double-dipping say this contaminates your mouth with shared food. After watching that Seinfeld rerun episode, Dawson test the physics. His team dips chips into salsa, chocolate syrup, and queso.

Germs were not found in these dips when used on one chip. Double-dipping contributes to more germs in the dip. Salsa has five times more germs than chocolate and cheese when double-dipped.

“Common sense tells you that if you bite it and dip it in the salsa and more of it falls back into the bowl and doesn’t stick to the chip, then there’s going to be more bacteria going back in the bowl with it,” he said.

## Five Second Rule

If you pick up food on the floor in five seconds, it's safe to eat, due to not enough bacteria. Dawson and his students spread bacteria on tile, carpet and wood. After five minutes, they put bologna and bread and left for 5, 30, and 60 seconds. They did the same after germs are on the surface for 2, 4, 8, and 24 hours.

“There was enough bacterial transfer in five seconds that from a practical standpoint, it’s not a really good idea to eat food from the floor,” Dawson said.

He said it doesn't matter how much time the food is on the floor, but it's the type and amount of germs.

“Really, it depends on what’s been on the surface. The odds are, there’s probably nothing there. But there’s always the chance something could be,” he said.

The food microbiologist at Rutgers University, named Donald Schaffner, examined the other five-second rule study His test, completed in 2016, identified Dawson's and showed that longer spread times on the floor leads to larger bacteria transfer.

“In one sense, the five-second rule is not true, because there was no safe amount of time (for food to be on the floor), but on the other hand, time really did seem to make a difference, especially with certain foods,” he said.

Schaffner found that the type of food, and the surface the food is on, also matter the amount of spread germs. Wet foods were more likely to transfer bacteria, and surfaces like carpets were less likely to pick up germs.

“If it’s my floor in my house and I know how clean my house is and it’s a relatively dry piece of food like a piece of cereal, yeah, I’ll eat that up off the floor,” Schaffner said.

“But if it’s a big sloppy wet piece of watermelon that drops in my kitchen, where I walk and my dogs walk, no, I’m definitely not going to eat that, because I know the risk is much higher.”

## The Worst Birthday Party Favor: Bacteria

Blowing out candles on a birthday cake is a tradition that originates from ancient Greece. However, because your mouth contains germs you can spread by blowing, the practice is pretty dirty.

Dawson discovered that when you blow the candles out of the cake, there was 15x more germsn on the cake than when not blown out.

To simulate a birthday party and spread the salivary glands, his research team first ate pizza. But they put frosting on foil and placed it on top of a Styrofoam disk, along with 17 candles. After the candles were all blown out, the amount and the type of germs were measured.

“The amount of bacteria varies a lot from person to person based on how sloppy someone is when blowing their candles out, but it does occur,” Dawson said. “I don’t know the chance of this occurring, but in fact if someone is sick, carrying a disease, and blows on the birthday cake, there is going to be bacterial transfer.”

## Beware the Beer Ping-Pong Ball

It's a simple tradition for college students nationwide. Throw a ping-pong ball across the table and hope inside a beer cup on the other side. If the ball goes in, the opponent has to drink the whole beer.

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1. ↑ https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/10/health/science-dirty-food-habits-study/index.html