Super Bowl parties, double dipping, and strategies for emerging alive.

Via Greg Laden, I see that there is now some research to support our primal revulsion toward double-dippers:

Last year the food microbiologist's [Clemson University professor Paul L. Dawson] undergraduate students examined the effects of double dipping using volunteers, wheat crackers and several sample dips. They found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from an eater's mouth to the remaining dip sample.

"I was very surprised by the results," Dawson said in a telephone interview Thursday. "I thought there would be very minimal transfer. I didn't think we would be able to detect it."

The professor said the students' research didn't get into the risk behind such a bacteria transfer, but they got the idea.

"I like to say it's like kissing everybody at the party - if you're double dipping, you're putting some of your bacteria in that dip," Dawson said.

The annual ritual of the NFL Super Bowl (and the attendant Superbowl parties) entails mass quantities of chips and dips. Clearly, double-dipping renders these traditions fraught with danger. Your living room could be the epicenter of a disease outbreak!

Is it sufficient to brief your party guests on Dawson's findings and to forbid double-dipping on public health grounds?

I will confess that I'm one of those chip-eaters who tries to achieve an optimal dip-to-chip ratio, and that a single dunk in the dip bowl is sometimes insufficient to achieve that perfect balance. (I don't double-dip, though; you can still invite me over.) Some other options one might consider:

Dip, bite, turn, dip. Perhaps if one dips a chip, bites off the dip covered portion of the chip, and still has a significant hunk of chip left, it would be acceptable to rotate the chip and dip a portion that has not made contact with one's mouth. But, as Tara C. Smith pointed out to me, that new portion that your dipping has been nestled in your fingers, and who knows what kind of germs they've transferred to the chip. (This seems especially risky if you've just eaten a saucy rib or Buffalo wing and licked your fingers.)

Smaller chips to make single dipping sufficient. Maybe the problem is that the chips are too big to put enough dip on them with a single dip bowl excursion. Maybe the optimal balance of hygiene and good dip-coverage would involve breaking large chips into smaller pieces, or dipping smaller items (say, chips the size of goldfish crackers). However, because what you're dipping is smaller, it seems to me that there's a higher likelihood of your (grubby, germy) fingers going into the dip bowl.

Dip, bite, discard remaining chip. This seems like a good strategy for not contaminating a communal dip bowl. However, it's kind of wasteful. You might end up going through your host's chip supply twice as fast. Also, there's the small matter of what to do with those partial chips that have made contact with your mouth. Do you have a biohazard bag handy?

Antibacterial dip? Garlic, chili, and other salsa ingredients are sometimes described as having natural anti-microbial properties. But I'm not sure that the balance of ingredients most likely to kill chip-born germs would be the best-tasting. (Also, while alcohol kills germs, I'm pretty sure beer consumption isn't an effective precaution against food-borne illness.)

Individual dip bowls for everyone! Who cares if your dipping habits amount to putting your whole mouth right in the dip so long as no one else has to put her chip in that dip? But think about the difficulty folks have keeping track of their own Solo cups, beer bottles, and wine glasses at parties. Are they going to do any better with individual dip bowls? Also, you're creating more dirty dishes for your host to wash at the end of the party. (I have no idea whether this exposes your host to more germs, but if I were the one on dish duty, I'd preemptively raise this possibility.)

Actually, I was at a party once where each of us was served a hollowed out lemon filled with hummus. Not only was it delicious, but it struck me as an eco-friendly way to provide individual dip bowls -- the empty lemons could be composted at the end of the evening. But I reckon hollowing out those lemons required some work -- painful work, too, for the prep-cook with any cuts on her hands.

And this makes me realize that we're not even evaluating the likelihood that those dips and veggies and other snacks are already teeming with germs before the first Super Bowl party chip is dipped! My kitchen has not been inspected by the Department of Health, and I'm betting yours hasn't been, either. Unless the folks preparing the spread are wearing gloves, face-masks, and other protective gear, you might suspect that they've put a little bit of themselves into that spinach dip.

Not to mention that even the chef in the haz-mat suit may end up with E. coli-tainted spinach.

Believe it or not, I'm not trying to scare you out of making contact with other human beings. Most people don't become violently ill after sharing chips and dip with friends. Go and have fun. Just wash your hands, sneeze into your elbow, and maybe save the optimal chip-to-dip ratio for solo enjoyment

More like this

I saw this on the wires but wanted to read the paper. The descriptions make it rather hard to determine what was done. I'm rather dubious about the quantitation. Some dips (like salsa) are quite acid and don't support pathogen growth. Under pH 4 most common human pathogens don't like it very much (which is why mayonnaise doesn't support pathogen growth; surprised? it supports pathogen growth when you neutralize the acid from the lemon juice or vinegar in the commercial varieties with all those proteins and starches in the potato salad and chicken; this is often mixed with bare hands, too, which introduces staph and other pathogens). Note also that for most pathogens you need a pretty hefty dose and these don't get a chance to incubate and grow to the necessary levels in the dip if you eat it within an hour or two.

If you want to think about this, when you go to a very fancy restaurant where the food comes out beautifully presented, someone in the kitchen arranged it with their hands. Just thought I'd mention it.

I think the smaller chip solution holds the most promise for this situation. Frito-Lay and some others have come out with small, round tortilla chips, but I haven't found any of the good organic chips in small sizes. Neither have I seen any other type of chip in a one bite size.

I think that Bugles were a good attempt at solving the problem, except for their completely ersatz composition.

One current one bite cracker that can sometimes fill the bill is Triscuit Thin Crisps, which go very well with hummus and the dairy-based dips, but not so well with salsa or guacamole. They also have the advantage of being somewhat sturdier and less likely to break off in the bowl when taking a generous amount of dip.

Pour the dip over the crisps (chips, to USAians and other aliens).

Or use a spoon.

Plates recommended. Use sturdy plastic/wooden/unbreakable ones you can wash and re-use; none of this disposable silliness.

I judged a junior high science fair a decade ago where a girl (using, IIRC, a mayonnaise-based dip) obtained almost identical results. I told her she should publish it but I guess she never did. And I voted for her, but she was beaten out by flashier presentations.

Double dipping, can you day "salad bar"? Yes, they are supposed to monitor the customers, watching to prevent use of used utensils and plates to scoop the food. I'm sure they do a peachy job on that count.

And kids' faces just happen to be below that glass plate which is between the adult faces and the food.

Think I'm being a tad too obsessive compulsive about the community salad trough? Try a Google search of "e coli salad bar".

Then there are the free samples at the grocery store that occasionally include dip. Doubles or not, customer fingers clearly contribute to the mix.

But the worst place of all the germ exchange venues involving food and beverage are public drinking fountains. Yes folks, public drinking fountains. It's been over a century since the good Dr Snow mapped out the concentric cholera case density that was inversely proportional to the distance from one infamous town water pump. And to this day, we still drink from the community tap.

Lest you think chlorine in the water takes care of things, I remind you it takes ~30 minutes for chemical disinfection of clean water. So whatever is on that fountain that washes into your mouth has not had 30 minutes of exposure to the chlorine in the water before reaching your lovely pharynx or stomach.

What's my advice then considering the above? It's all a trade off of risk and benefit. If you prefer an occasional extra viral infection to giving up any of the above (though I cannot imagine anyone who couldn't forgo the free grocery samples that include a dipping bowl) then do nothing except perhaps cut down during influenza season, because flu kills people, and avoid the sources with high traffic or obvious signs of likely unmonitored contamination.

I only share dip with a few intimate friends. I gave up drinking fountains years ago and salad bars more recently. My son brought enough infections home from school to fill all the openings on my dance card. Something had to go.

Cheers.

Skeptigirl (ARNP, infectious disease field)

By Skeptigirl (not verified) on 05 Feb 2008 #permalink