Science Ruins Everything*

It's bad enough that they've given me reason to doubt Bishop Ussher, modern geocentrism, and the efficacy of my grandmother's mustard poultice.  Now those white-coated so-and-sos explode two more of my most fondly held beliefs.  From a story in today's NY Times reporting on studies performed by Prof. Paul Dawson, a food microbiologist at Clemson, with his students:

• [A] scientific report has some new findings that may cause football fans to take a second look at that communal bowl of dip.  The study, to be published later this year in the Journal of Food Safety, is the only one I’ve ever seen to proclaim that it was inspired by an episode of “Seinfeld.” . . . [Prof. Dawson] proposed it after he saw a rerun of a 1993 “Seinfeld” show in which George Costanza is confronted at a funeral reception by Timmy, his girlfriend’s brother, after dipping the same chip twice. . . . Professor Dawson told me that he had expected to find little or no microbial transfer from mouth to chip to dip, which would support George’s nonchalance. The results surprised him. . . . On average, the students found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the remaining dip.  Each cracker picked up between one and two grams of dip. That means that sporadic double dipping in a cup of dip would transfer at least 50 to 100 bacteria from one mouth to another with every bite. . . . Professor Dawson said that Timmy was essentially correct. “The way I would put it is, before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don’t know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you.”

• Professor Dawson encourages his undergraduate teams to test popular conceptions about food safety in the laboratory. Last year he published a paper on the five-second rule, which states that food dropped on the floor can be safely eaten if you pick it up before you can count to five. The rule turned out to be false.

Well, I gave up on geocentrism -- grudgingly.  (Eppur si non muove!)  But there's not a chance in hell I'm giving up on double-dipping -- especially if, as I do, one takes pains to reverse the chip fragment before the second dip, thus dramatically decreasing the cootie-giving nature of the second dip.  As for the five second rule, no sensible parent or glutton, and I am both, would let some mere "food microbiologist" stand in his way.

* In deference to my surgeon, the title should read "(Almost) Everything," but it read better the other way.  No offense, Dr. Cordover!