The Conversation

What do y'all do when you lot are left with half a chip in your manus afterward dipping? Acknowledge it, y'all've wondered whether it'southward OK to double dip the fleck.

Perhaps y'all're the sort who dips their chip only once. Perchance you look around the room before loading your half-eaten chip with a scrap more dip, hoping that no one volition notice.

If you've seen that classic episode of Seinfeld, "The Implant," where George Costanza double-dips a chip at wake, possibly y'all've wondered if double-dipping is actually like "putting your whole mouth right in the dip!"

Simply is it, actually? Can the bacteria in your mouth make it onto the bit then into the dip? Is this habit simply bad manners, or are you actively contaminating communal snacks with your particular germs?

This question intrigued our undergraduate research squad at Clemson Academy, so we designed a series of experiments to find out just what happens when yous double-dip. Testing to see if there is bacterial transfer seems straightforward, only there are more subtle questions to exist answered. How does the acidity of the dip affect bacteria, and exercise different dips affect the consequence? Members of the no-double-dipping enforcement squad, prepare to have your worst, most repulsive suspicions confirmed.

Start with a cracker
Presumably some of your mouth's bacteria transfer to a nutrient when you take a bite. But the question of the day is whether that happens, and if and so, how much bacteria makes it from oral fissure to dip. Students started by comparison bitten versus unbitten crackers, measuring how much leaner could transfer from the cracker to a cup of water.

We plant nearly one,000 more bacteria per milliliter of water when crackers were bitten before dipping than solutions where unbitten crackers were dipped.

In a second experiment, students tested bitten and unbitten crackers in water solutions with pH levels typical of food dips (pH levels of 4, 5 and 6, which are all toward the more than acidic end of the pH calibration). They tested for bacteria right afterwards the bitten and unbitten crackers were dipped, then measured the solutions once again two hours afterward. More than acidic solutions tended to lower the bacterial numbers over time.

The time had come to turn our attention to existent food.

But what well-nigh the dip?
We compared iii kinds of dip: salsa, chocolate and cheese dips, which happen to differ in pH and thickness (viscosity). Once again, nosotros tested bacterial populations in the dips afterward already-bitten crackers were dipped, and after dipping with unbitten crackers. We besides tested the dips ii hours later dipping to see how bacterial populations were growing.

We tested All Natural Tostitos Chunky Hot Salsa (pH 4), Genuine Chocolate Flavor Hershey's Syrup (pH 5.3) and Fritos Mild Cheddar Flavour Cheese Dip (pH vi.0).

So, how dirty is your dip? We constitute that in the absence of double-dipping, our foods had no detectable bacteria nowadays. In one case subjected to double-dipping, the salsa took on about 5 times more bacteria (1,000 bacteria/ml of dip) from the bitten chip when compared to chocolate and cheese dips (150-200 bacteria/ml of dip). But two hours after double-dipping, the salsa bacterial numbers dropped to most the same levels equally the chocolate and cheese.

We tin explicate these phenomena using some basic nutrient science. Chocolate and cheese dips are both pretty thick. Salsa isn't as thick. The lower viscosity means that more of the dip touching the bitten cracker falls dorsum into the dipping bowl rather than sticking to the cracker. And as it drops back into the communal container, it brings with it bacteria from the mouth of the double-dipper.

Salsa is also more acidic. After two hours, the acidity of the salsa had killed some of the bacteria (nearly leaner don't like acid). And then it's a combination of viscosity and acidity that will determine how much bacteria gets into the dip from double-dipping. As a side note nearly party hosting: cheese dip will run out faster than salsa since more of the cheese sticks to the cracker or chip on each dip. That could reduce the chances of people double-dipping. And aye, this is something we discovered during the experiment.

Should I freak out almost double-dipping?
Double-dipping can transfer bacteria from oral cavity to dip, just is this something you demand to worry about?

Anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dissimilar bacterial types and viruses alive in the human oral fissure, about of which are harmless. Just some aren't so skilful. Pneumonic plague, tuberculosis, influenza virus, Legionnaires' disease and astringent acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) are known to spread through saliva, with cough and sneezing aerosolizing up to 1,000 and three,600 bacterial cells per minute. These tiny germ-containing droplets from a cough or a sneeze can settle on surfaces such as desks and doorknobs. Germs can be spread when a person touches a contaminated surface and then touches their eyes, olfactory organ or mouth.

That's why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly recommends covering the oral fissure and olfactory organ when cough and sneezing to forbid spreading "serious respiratory illnesses like influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), whooping cough, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)." With that in heed, at that place may be a concern over the spread of oral bacteria from person to person thanks to double-dipping. And a person doesn't accept to be ill to laissez passer on germs.

One of the about infamous examples of spreading disease while being asymptomatic is household melt Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary), who spread typhoid to numerous families in 19th-century New England during food preparation. Science has left unanswered whether she was tasting the nutrient as she went forth and, in effect, double-dipping. Typhoid Mary is obviously an farthermost example, merely your fellow dippers might very well be carrying cold or flu germs and passing them right into the basin y'all're about to dig into.

If y'all detect double-dippers in the midst of a festive gathering, you might want to steer clear of their favored snack. And if you yourself are sick, do the rest of us a favor and don't double-dip.

Paul Dawson does not work for, consult, ain shares in or receive funding from any company or arrangement that would benefit from this commodity, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.