Food from the Floor Addendum

Last Friday’s blog post on the 5-second rule (Food from the Floor) discussed only one eating-habit myth that’s been studied at Clemson University to raise awareness and help improve public health. Notably, the work has been conducted under Clemson’s Creative Inquiry undergraduate research program. Among other dining and pre-dining actions investigated are:

Drinking Milk from the Container

Why get the mug dirty? Drink directly from the container. Oops…the 10th day after someone drank directly from a milk carton, the milk had about 8 times more bacteria per milliliter than untainted milk.

Double Dipping into Sauce

Sauces into which partygoers dipped their chip only once had far less contamination than those into which partygoers dipped an already nibbled chip. Salsa had nearly 1000 bacteria per milliliter after double dipping; cheese and chocolate weren’t as bad.

Blowing out Candles

On average, blowing out candles increased a cake’s bacteria count by about 16-fold. No doubt, the count would have been much, much higher than that if the cake for my aunt’s recent 100th birthday had been fully loaded with candles. Don’t eat the frosting?

P.S.

Clemson article on eating-habit myth studies:
www.clemson.edu/academics/programs/creative-inquiry/projects/spotlight/food-myth.html