Double-Dipping and Other Food Peculiarities

[Music]

please join me in welcoming to the

distinctive voices podium dr. Paul

Dawson Thank You Jennifer I redo it if I

mess up I was reading the great honor to

be here

distinctive voices I appreciate all

support I read the members give a lot of

money and I appreciate being offered the

opportunity to speak but I was reading

the introduction or the background and

it says cutting into edge technology and

hot topics so you're probably wondering

the same thing I'm learning how what am

I was this joke we're doing here talking

about double dipping and the five-second

rule is that really a hot topic of

cutting edge technology so a little bit

of background how I got here we got to

this point giving a talk on this topic

you see on the screen we have a creative

inquiry program at Clemson and it's not

unlike other institutions that have

undergraduate research but it has a

little twist that we have teams of

undergraduate students and in our

curriculum in food science and human

nutrition each faculty member has a

topic they work on and teams of seven to

ten students each semester and we

require our students to do six semesters

their sophomore junior senior years

participate in these teams they rotate

through long story short my topic is is

survival and transfer of bacteria on

food services so we started this about

10 years ago and the neat thing is each

semester we meet and we come up with an

idea from scratch the students go

through me and the objective is to learn

how to do research the students and also

work in teams which really helps them

when they graduate and jobs

well we finished the first one it was on

the five-second rule and it was a

research project we did replication and

statistics I said well why not try to

publish this so I published it in the

Journal of food microbiology and I think

it's worth the table I'll show up later

and lo and behold anybody know the name

Harold McGee yes

curious cook he picked it up and he

writes for the New York Times put it up

read Arkell in there and all heck broke

loose getting calls from the media

did want to double-dipping he'd wear

another article kind of steamrolled one

thing led to another and and now running

a book about it and so this has gotten a

new so that's how it kind of got here so

let's get busy I had this this graphical

outline we're gonna go through I want to

say now the and acknowledge the who did

most of these drawings is a brown Brian

chal now ski you know recognize him at

the end bob lagrosse is book of the

five-second rule talk about a little

background a little history about it

then of course thereby knows beer pong

you don't want beer pong is we'll talk

about when we get there

college campuses right next door I'm

sure of on you know very well what that

what that is restaurant menus what when

you go to a restaurant what do you mean

you touch the menu kind of what's

happening blowing out birthday candles

and right behind that kind of airborne

bio aerosols we have hand dryers or

bacteria blowers and and then sharing

food I know I've got this idea when I

would had popcorn I was eating myself

popcorn you kind of digging in the bag

and you come back and you get this wet

piece of popcorn in your hand how did

that happen so and then and then the

infamous double dipping from George

Costanza on Seinfeld and we'll try to

bring it back a little sanity at the end

with a little CDC discussion food safe

little common sense and I just say that

this is either going to be germophobes

worst nightmare or their validation one

of the other five-second rule this this

is a cartoon obviously pure appeared on

the wiki world by Greg Williams kinda

gives you the background of what that is

I'm sure most people know popular rule

it says there that old wives tale

regarding eating food that's been

dropped on the floor and had a little

bacteria counting one two three

five-second rule so forth so raise the

hands how many people have eaten food

off the floor there you go okay actually

they're actually there was a study done

this University Illinois one of the

first ones that actually mentioned the

five-second rule back in 2003 actually

women there are more women that eaten

food off the floor than man and we

assumed that women are less wasteful

so speaking of surfaces there was a

study in ours that looked at a over a

thousand public places in Tucson Chicago

San Francisco and Tampa

they found that 21% of the movie

theaters and 51 said the refs references

restaurants had highly contaminated

surfaces and they just judged that by

number of bacteria now just because it's

contaminated with bacteria doesn't mean

it's unhealthy but we'll get to that

little later too

but one in five had a biochemical marker

which is categorized as blood urine

sweat or mucus so so where the word the

five-second rule originated there's one

thing called the Kahn rule Genghis Khan

believed in writings at and the Kahn

rule was that if food was prepared for

Genghis Khan it could seal the floor as

long as it wanted because you need it

because it was prepared for him and his

pair for him was good as long as he said

it was then of course those of you who

remember the French chef

Julia's child there was some stories

that she dropped turkey on the floor and

made a comment in the buzz in the

kitchen you can still pick it up in

reality what she dropped a pan capitate

a pancake on the stovetop instead of

nobody's in the if you're alone in the

kitchen it's okay to put it back in the

so we're not sure where that started but

that's that's kind of the story but

there's a real concern of course the

cross-contamination in this example here

cutting raw chicken on the surface turns

out we didn't document about other

people as well if you don't clean that

surface and it looks clean visually

Salmonella bacteria can survive up to 28

days on that surface so you do that or I

do that you come behind me and make a

sandwich and it could be some

cross-contamination 28 days here's a

quick summary won't go through all these

but I mentioned 2003 really was the

first mention of the five-second rule

undergraduate you

University Illinois dropped gummi bears

and fudge cookies on tiles that had been

inoculated and found cross-contamination

but there was no publication and I will

say there are a lot of publications on

bacterial transfer some really

sophisticated studies on how much

pressure and all but these are ones just

directly mentioned the five-second rule

now I wouldn't call myth busters really

a study but they they did Jamie Hyneman

having a savage back in 2005 did drop

pastrami and crackers on surfaces and so

there was transferred there just trying

to prove that it can't happen so they

did that we published our study back in

2006 and we'll go through that a little

late a little more detail 2007

interesting study in Connect Connick

Connecticut college to seniors dropped

food on the floor and said came up with

the idea the conclusion that skittles

were safe after 30 seconds in apple

slices after 60 seconds I'll say right

now though what they did was really kind

of a different questions they didn't

really they didn't knock you laid the

surface they walked around the college

campus just drop it randomly so they

weren't really measuring how transferred

is really probably the contamination of

that surface is it 2014 in the UK there

was a study again no publication and we

saw this in the Science Channel show

used to be called quickened the curious

a NASA engineer dropped cookies in a

park and asked people they eat the

cookie interesting study and then it was

a very good study in 2016 and on

Schaffner out of Rutgers University they

need kind of expanded all what we did

stainless-steel carpet and wood he

dropped used watermelon red and a gummy

bears and in that order

his watermelon had the most bread and

then gummy bears had the least he found

in that study so answer the question can

food to be dropped up to 5 secs that

bacteria get on the floor you read the

cartoon there the guy said what your

thumb doing my steak you think I want me

to drop it again

and here's our here's our studying again

we kind of looked again set up an

experiment set up treatments look at the

food we used Bologna and bread or our -

food - foods we tested the surface we

use carpet tiles it says in wood

surfaces and then time how long was on

there but also how long was the bacteria

on the surface before you drop the food

there are two time factors so really

strips really quick strict simple

methods we knock late the tile with

Salmonella let it bacteria remain there

between 5 minutes and 24 hours drop

Bologna or bread on the tile even there

different times and then cover the

bacteria from the Bologna or bread later

on and see how many we're transferred ok

a little busy slide here but very

quickly

this is Bologna after five minutes

towels been sitting there five minutes

with Salmonella on it we drop it five

seconds in black 30 seconds in green and

sixty seconds in and gray as you can see

Tom wouldn't carpet carpet it's

generally little lower

these are log values so they're into

that power 10 to the 6 that you had a

million cells on there and you could

technically say that in carpet time had

an effect but that's really where the

interpretation there is kind of

misleading I would conclude from a food

market bages that it's not safe

obviously when you've got 100,000

bacteria on that baloney piece of

Bologna so again and again you can see

that carpet had a little less in that

case this time Bologna but at this time

the we used is the Salmonella had been

on the tile for 24 hours before we drop

so you see the lower numbers so what

that tells us is again like we can

common sense would tell you it's not how

long the foods on the surface it's how

long the bacteria has been on the

surface that's the time factor but

nevertheless tile wood and carpet at the

24 hours there was less bacteria for the

Bologna to pick up but again we see some

statistical differences and wood and

carpet again we could say that

was a factor but again you still got

enough bacteria there in this case

probably to make someone certainly is

immunocompromised ill this case is white

bread and I kind of have a different

representation you're showing that time

effect zero hour is how long actually 5

minutes how long the salmon devil's on

the table before we put bread on it 2

hours is on 2 hours 4 hours 8 hours and

24 hours Salmonella was sitting on the

tile before we put bread on it you see

kind of a dropping off and that's either

the offs that Salmonella is kind of

decreasing in numbers it also might be

attaching more closely to the tile

forming a biofilm with that tile and

again really I would conclude that

there's really not much difference in

the 5 seconds versus 30 60 seconds and

you see I got the scale there were

already over almost four logs for 10,000

bacteria still after 24 hours being

picked up by piece of water dry white

bread so it led us to the next question

we've already answered it but we'll kind

of go through the data we found how long

does Salmonella survive on the tile well

while we're here this anybody recognized

that person is Barry Antoine yeah he

actually was the first person in the

1600s to visualize bacteria up to that

point really didn't people didn't know

general public didn't know what a

bacteria now he were after was not a

microbiologist he was he made glass or

magnifying instruments and so he

identified theirs back but back to your

were 1600s and then I mention about

biofilms kind of a graphic that you

really can't read what's on the bottom

but just show there's platonic bacteria

but kind of floating around in solution

then there's biofilm back tears attached

to a surface it really is really

dangerous it causes a lot of problems

with it with a colitis actually is one

of the compounding factors and cystic

fibrosis because the fiyo films and the

lungs can't reach the fluid so biofilms

are a real problem

so this graph we hit kept the bacteria

on there for not that I'll let it for

one week two weeks three weeks four

weeks recover them we actually were

curious because if you're cutting

chicken on the surface you actually some

chicken juices there and there actually

have some nutrients in that so we

took a standard media diluted it down to

10% 1% and point one percents a very

weak media there but I wanted to see if

that made a difference in it and it did

make a difference bad news was that eat

after four weeks even with the weakest

media there still were cells we were

covering of Salmonella viable cells off

that tile so that's per square

centimeter of tile and again lastly we

talked about carpet you know actually

carpet in this case for most of that 24

hours the Salmonella survived better on

carpet even though we had less transfer

it kind of makes sense if I spill a

chicken juice on this carpet

you drop bread on it there's gonna be a

sound was gonna be absorbed into the

carpet so it's not much surface area but

it likes living down there in the carpet

obviously here in 24 hours so that's

kind of a last story to tell if you're

gonna drop it on the floor I guess it's

carpet that's the option so ear Paul

beer pong originated in the 1950s

according to our studies and lead

Dartmouth Ivy League you will it

originally played with a ping-pong

paddle and then Lehi and Buck nail

modified that dbe's in your hand today's

being kind of used with throwing with

the hand if you don't know what it is

I'm who doesn't know what beer pong is

raise your hand oh we got a few okay

okay beer pong is a game that you see

the cup there and the goal is to throw

the ping pong ball in the cup standing

off the size of a table with cups got

beer in it if I throw the ping pong ball

in your cup you got to drink your beer

okay and most times oftentimes the ball

does not land in the cup so it's

bouncing around on the floor and so our

students are students this was a student

idea Marcie I think so you can imagine

I didn't come up with this and kind of

have Bob Uecker there because what

usually happens is the bulb if they're

trying to pick a ping-pong ball up

you're actually playing ping-pong you

got to wait for it to stop rolling to

pick it up that's where he got that so

what do we do actually it was actually

it was a Miami game I'm coming at

Clemson and students went around the

campus yeah there had ping-pong balls

that were being used in pink beer pong

games brought them back to the lab and

then we enumerated with the back the

bacteria on those ping-pong balls did

you see we have some possible pathogen

carriers and you can imagine playing

there playing beer pong and one of the

one of the worst things is a hand

they're handling it you know you've got

bacteria your hand and the more you play

beer pong and your drink if you lose

you're drinking beer and you got to go

to the bathroom right they go to the

bathroom they've been drinking so are

they likely to wash their hands and they

come back and play beer pong so you can

see the story here anyway so it students

gathered scattered out on campus

collected beer pong balls got that beer

pong ball spinning there with bacteria

on it we kept we had them keep track of

where the game was being played it was

being played on a carpeted floor inside

vinyl floor inside a wooden porch

hardwood outdoors and then we have an

average overall you can see here that

outdoors we were finding over 200,000

bacteria per ball down to 600 for carpet

and these are averages there's extreme

summer zero some are really high so

there's bacteria on these excellent also

being played now we don't know where

it's good or bad at the end I like we

did some presumptive identification but

there's bacteria on these ping-pong

balls but in fact you know are you

concerned about the average or the worst

case scenario well we actually found 303

million bacteria on one thing pond ball

we recovered from these games so some of

these are really highly can contaminated

so we our first experiment was concluded

be there is bacteria on ping-pong balls

they're used during beer pong game which

you might

the obvious the next step was okay if

there's if there's bacteria on the

ping-pong ball is it transmitted to back

to the beer so that was an easier study

we did that in the lab undergrads in lab

with beer so anyway we very simple

these are simple experiments they'll be

replicated them again students are

learning how to do research we had

loculated ping pong balls with actually

a fluorescent ecoli we have a little

have a little picture in the corner

there this is a fluorescent gene added

the bacteria and so we can this way we

know that the bacteria we're counting in

the beer is actually the ones we not

laid on the bow and not other ones so

you're want to know that transfer not

good to think long ball let dry for

about five minutes or less throw it in

the beer measure back tearing the beer

pretty simple and by the way over here

that one little graphics are little

words bacterias saying Oh beer I can

live in this no problem oh that is true

because there was actually a study that

a person did if you were going to a

country that had bad water so to speak a

third world country

what alcoholic drink would be best to

drink to prevent Montezuma's Revenge and

they found that it actually was almost

pure scotch or tequila it took about 180

proof before it really reduced the

bacterial count at much so beer is not

going to do it

not going to protect you okay so we

actually our control was we took a

nominal activated ball threw it in the

beer recovered that bacteria from the

beer measured the beer itself okay and

then do a knuckle a ball on the beer and

we started with about 10 to 6 on the

knuckle aided ping-pong balls and you

can see we recovered it was it was a

very high transfer of the bacteria from

the ping pong balls of beer again not

not surprising but and the reason we

found really no bacteria in the beer

again we were only measuring the

bacteria that we knocked Leon the ball

with that fluorescent you coli so that's

a very controlled study there so here

here in the corner I have our picture we

took we did identify from those some of

those presumptive identity recovered

from the random games recovered during

Homecoming weekend and I've kind of

highlighted these are just groups of

bacteria from birdies manual but some of

those groups include Listeria staff

ecoli arisha

and Salmonella so that the chances of it

being in the beer and in fact the world

beat there's Oh actually world beer pong

championship now you knew that or not

there's some European leagues and

actually those names Billy some and he's

kind of a CEO whatever the world being

beer pong championship and he said that

people who participate in that over the

weekends they've had started back in

2009 complained about they call it pong

flu

but he's not sure whether it's actually

the beer too much beer or something else

they're getting when they're playing

beer pong or a combination thereof and

actually back in late 2000s University

of engineer University of New York

actually stopped beer pong from being

played because they were having they

thought that there was a flu going

around it was being outbreak was getting

worse because of beer pong so there's

some anecdotal information that beer

pong may be an issue okay now if I go

into a restaurant you sit down and have

a menu and wondered who's touched that

menu before I have pretty much everybody

in the restaurant okay people have been

there before you the waitstaff okay so

question is well one question I ask is

can you get sick from eating out the

answer is yes

the CDC between 1998 and 2015 report

about twenty five lowest twenty thousand

reported foodborne outbreaks and

outbreaks different from sick an

outbreak requires multiple people so but

those are the ones the CDC can document

most easily 72 percent report reported

from a single replicate replication

preparation location and we'll get to

the next about 63 percent we're from

restaurants or delis good news is there

are public health inspections and you

may have gone in restaurants I know in

the East Coast you probably hear there's

a B and C ratings if you don't see a I'd

walk out in fact I don't know about

Orange County but LA County last I

checked online they check to spend about

ten million dollars in these inspections

so that's the good news

they're trying to keep the sanitation

good news the case but I don't know if

there's any protocol for cleaning menus

here's a breakdown again from these

outbreaks again not all illnesses but at

that's 63% from restaurants or delis 15%

from other we don't know 12% from

private home and 10% from catering so

again the answer is you can get sick

from eating out we went out

in round Clemson area and swab menus

again we had two parts of this study

again we went out and did random

sampling and then did some transfer

study in the lab this is the first part

and we just went around check the

reference but he categorized them best

we could as far as type of restaurant

and got a Mexican restaurant there hub

piece of joint Steakhouse you call them

upscale on a wooden kind of relative and

then other and we took a swab swab is

same pattern on each menu and then right

back to the lab and measured now you can

imagine students going into a restaurant

and this is not probably something the

restaurant want you to do you see

someone swabbing anything in the rest of

their gonna be suspicious so it's kind

of under the cover or whatever night I

did I did some myself but so that you

can imagine students kind of doing that

this is a busy slide here but actually

be categorized when they were there or

maybe trying to figure out there has

been slow in busy times and busy times

between 11:00 and 1:30 or 5:00 and 5:30

and seven during dinner time really

there was no pattern across the board

between slow and busy but these are

actually total bacteria so the pizza

joint bar Mexicans say this is no

condemnation of a type of restaurant

just our rent our our simple sample and

Clemson but there were a maximum one

case over 3,000 bacteria on menu and as

low as actually what is it fifteen

average average was fifteen the lowest

was it looks like thirty far as a

maximum but I kind of say in the bottom

there actually this is a samples exact

sample and the total surface area on the

menu is about forty to eighty times

greater dependent in menus are different

sizes so it could be 40 80 times as

large as higher than this if you take

the whole surface of mean you're not

likely to be the same but it's gonna be

higher anyway then we actually looked at

staff because staff is a common hand and

also can be a foodborne pathogen and

there were not as many but there were

Staphylococcus there again

and again slow and busy really didn't

have a pattern but bottom line is

there's still bacteria staph bacteria

being found on these random sample menus

so the in the lab decided again to take

inoculate menus see if it is transferred

to the hands and says how we did that

very simple we found that ela ecoli was

transferred to the menus at very high

rates on average 11% of the bacteria

were transferred that we're on the menu

to your hands if they were there now 11%

doesn't sound that bad but the problem

is if you've got a million cells you

could have over a hundred thousand cells

on your hand and again most menus

probably aren't that contaminated but

you could have you've probably seen this

in some restaurants child putting food

on the menu or coughing on a menu or

worse I don't know

so and a maximum of course at 32 percent

of the bacteria on that menu was

transferred to use of hands so there was

significant amount of bacteria

transferred in some cases so we are

curious now bet how it survived so we

inoculated menus and then left them for

24 hours and 48 hours and again we see a

big reduction in percent but still if a

highly contaminated menu is there and

it's not being sanitized over a day or

two there's going to be back to your

surviving and other studies have found

that staff can survive on plastic

laminated surfaces for up to 90 days so

there is a significant chance of that

actually again turns out that the

bacteria more likely to be transferred

in plastic and is paper kind of some of

the study we've done before so again

this begs the question maybe there

should be I some I'm sure restaurants

clean their menus but there may be a

standard hasip plan to clean menus

what's next burning blowing birthday

candles at a calligraphic here

so you've probably been to a birthday

party and I want to get really young or

whatever do you see kids in there and

they're getting rid of the cake and

they're blowing then they're coughing

and they're blowing against whatever

trying to look because could be it could

be a problem now where did blowing

birthday candles that come start they're

always documented written part I found

was that back in the 1700s I believe it

was a man named anyway he yeah they lit

candles also candles being burnt on

cakes and smoke going up was believed to

engage in Greek to be Greece to be

wishing well to the gods but anyway that

first document he was back in the 1700s

now it's very common unless any birthday

child's birthday party has candles being

blown out so we decided to test this and

this is how we did it because really

where the bacteria is going to be is on

the top so we set up our mock cake here

made a Styrofoam base with a luminol and

Nathan and spread icing on the layer on

top didn't actually put candles through

that stick in the styrofoam so we can

simulate blowing candles out and so we

had our tests we had subjects blowing

candles out and then we'd also would do

the exact same thing without blowing

candles out have a control but candles

in there and took them out and actually

enumerated the bacteria on both those

cases to compare blowing candles out

versus everything except not blowing the

candles out pretty simple right so we

were surprised to find a lot of bacteria

being landing on the top of the cake a

maximum again I think maximums and

minimums are pretty important to

consider but our mean almost three

thousand we blew it when when they were

blown out again these are we didn't have

any missed cases someone's breath

blowing on their we didn't have any

labeled bacteria like we did before with

the e.coli so this is just some ones

there so there's going to be some

bacteria there we've had 183 bacteria

versus over 3,000 so clearly there's

bacteria transfer

the median still 600 and a maximum of

37,000 bacteria found on one of the

cakes being blown so low versus no blow

so what where's that leave us by our

arrow saws and we're talking ice a

little before with some with before with

my talk and average by oh error so like

I'm talking now unfortunately I better

back up because I'm generating by our

aerosols and they've been known to stay

in the air for 30 hours some studies the

particle size and by aerosols from

speaking is about 16 microns in size

coughing a little smaller because you're

forcing it out when bacteria are about

one-tenth the size of a bio saw droplet

and viruses about one hundredth so you

can see the size there so they can ride

on these and they do very comfortably

fact one study found that in a room of

people talking up that there were six

hundred ninety three to six thousand two

hundred ninety three bacteria per cubic

meter and in fact talking about blowing

you're actually blowing on a cake

they're probably generating more bio

aerosols than just talking and in fact

there are several infectious diseases

that are transferred specifically by the

saliva droplets between tuberculosis

pneumonia flu SARS and Legionnaires

disease so uh you know and there's a

story of typhoid mary my nose a story of

typhoid mary mary milan worked as a cook

irish immigrant and she would had no

symptoms so it doesn't necessary

coughing and be sick to be a carrier

she's quite a sad story for her because

during that time didn't know that she

had she had no symptoms she because she

was being unjustly accused but she was

found to be a carrier of typhoid and

eventually quarantined on an island so

you want to be sick be generating bio

aerosols

here we go hand dryers are bacteria

blowers

okay now you've ever been in a bathroom

and probably really the hide the high

velocity air dryer hand blowers I

believe worse if you want to say

categorize them than the regular ones so

to speak but you've been in there and

they're blowing towels around the

bathroom and so forth it's not that

energy we talk about by our aerosols it

goes right along with this is that it's

also buying blowing water droplets

around the room in fact you flush a

toilet

there's bio sauce coming out the toilet

the FDA has approved is that currently

as approved hand dryers and food in

occasions as a hand drying method you

notice you're in a hospital you don't

see air hand dryers in a hospital areas

because they're not approving medical

because obviously gonna blow things

around in the hospital in the room so

hand towels in that case are used there

so what do we do we went out again we

had two phases of this study went around

the Clemson area went to the University

bathrooms that had hand lowers grocery

stores and then gas stations combination

markets and went in there and again went

in there where nobody was in the

bathroom and put a petri dish under the

blower turn it on let it run this cycle

take him back to the lab had a swab in

there we swab the button as well and

also the intake have you ever seen those

intakes underneath what they're sucking

into the okay so we swab that as well

what are we fine we found in we found a

lot of bacteria the push button and air

inlets were quite high and again people

are touching them with their hands and

they're as they're sucking back they're

kind of concentrating bacteria as they

suck it in from the intake you're coming

out not as bad but still it's blowing

out bacteria in the room and in the

grocery stores highly enough where the

highest ones we found and say much for

Christmas tours in the Clemson area I

guess

cause campus and gas stations again over

2,000 bacteria on those outlets and

arranged there you see up to 8,000 both

cases and 37,000 in the grocery store

and again these are different we kept

track of velocity air velocity

temperature some are different

temperatures so keep track of all that

yeah man

man we got worse than women the men's

bathrooms are a lot worse than women's

even though the food off the floor

we got the dirty bathrooms so we

categorize agate-stone on gender now

here's a second study and that extra

study on the left is someone else's and

along the right of the screen is the one

we did so we inoculated on the right

side to ours first a nozzle with

bacteria that there's bacteria on that

nozzle then we put these plates petri

dishes certain distances from that lower

turned it on

30 seconds let it run its cycle and you

see the bacteria collected up to a yard

away 76 and 37 and different angle and

we were collecting bacteria significant

difference away a distance away from

that blower based on its one cycle now

that study on the left is very

interesting wish I thought of this

someone had a air dryer they put black

paint on it and I have green there but

he put a black paint on the nozzle had

someone standing in front of it like

they were drawing their hands and they

turned it on with their wearing a white

tie bat suit this shows you where the

spots ended up so one spot up by the

mouth 144 spots in the chest and so four

so clearly it's blowing whatever's there

onto you or on in the room there's other

studies that show that it knock you

lated the the hand dryer and several

yards away in the bathroom they're

collecting that bacteria so clearly as

we know a bio aerosols they're going to

be blown around the room and a hand

dryer is doing that in bathrooms that's

why they're not in hospitals one reason

okay we talked about passing we have a

have a we didn't study on sharing food

but I'm focused on passing popcorn again

I've mentioned before I got this idea

because I was a teen popcorn and I got

him one that was wet and how did I get

wet so that's where we got this idea a

little history about popcorn if you will

back in 4,000 years they found a 1948 in

New Mexico they found that ear of corn

in a cave and it was the one I'm talking

there on the left side of the screen it

was about 4000 years old nothing do with

popcorn but 1519 the eight Aztecs used

popcorn for eating and decoration really

popcorn came for the US I believe in the

1800s when sailors actually sailing up

from South America 1930s popcorn during

the Depression was a very popular snack

because it's very expensive you'll go to

movies and have a snack and it was very

expensive to get very popular and then

you remember I remember Jiffy Pop that

was a big breakthrough stove and it

popped by itself and then microwave

packages introduced in the 70s that's

kind of quick up corn so eat popcorn

with your hands there was a study this

is the UK though so you're right unless

you from UK anybody from the UK they did

a study in the UK of five cities 28% of

the UK commuters had fecal matter on

their hands they were worse for people

who ride buses apparently so that's fun

and if you're been on the bus but

holding those handles and whatnot always

worries me these anyway these are all

things that you can have on your hand

then you go to a movie theater or some

what not you someone else it was a movie

theater and touches a seat and so forth

you can imagine that so what do we a

simple method again we did this all in

the lab we inoculated hands picked up

popcorn and then we named you late

enumerate the bacteria on the hint that

we picked up and also what was left in

the mole and we did a little pre study

to see how much is in a handful try to

standardize the amount that our students

do it multiple times and weigh it and we

found about two and a half grams

was a handful for most people try to

standardize that amount this surprised

me that this is the percent of samples

that were contaminated I would expect

the 85% to be contaminate you picked up

and I was really surprised that 79% of

what was nothing the bowl was also

contaminated that doesn't bode well for

sharing popcorn with someone else and

again we used a labeled e.coli so we

knew we were only counting the bacteria

that was on the hand that we hadn't had

inoculated and here's the you know the

number of bacteria and we had a mean 185

but a high number of hundred ages not

thousand 80 120 and then renamed

remaining in the bowl again very low

numbers as far as the mean but I think

for fifteen or handful was would be a

problem interesting on the Left I had on

the right side there I have how many

handfuls are in a bucket of popcorn

typical size it's gonna be 24 to 48

handfuls if you go to the movies and get

a standard size doesn't master ones but

just a regula it's gonna be 24 to 48

handfuls so you imagine you're going

multiple times we need just one scoop so

that could magnify that number

significantly so what's on the popcorn

I'm sorry

la New York

this wasn't a research 20/20 did a study

a few years ago and found fecal matter

on the movie theater seats in LA in New

York

not to mention probably again back to

the hands and human transfer probably

the person sitting if you don't know

them real well or they're sick they're

putting their hand in her mouth and put

it back in the bowl so that could be

problem there so last one before we get

to some common sense double dipping do

you remember that Seinfeld

that's where he got the idea was from

Seinfeld this is several years ago

George Costanza goes to the weight of

the wedding or the wake the wake funeral

and Timmy's there and he's there double

dipping and they get in a struggle and

George says I don't dip that way and

Timmy says it's like putting your whole

mouth in the dip so I actually found

this newspaper Otto I took a picture of

it because I couldn't resist that city

cop was indicted for double dipping but

it obviously it's a double dipping

different kind of double dipping

so we had three sets of experiments

because first of all I didn't think

initially that we were going to get much

transfer you think you bite chip or a

cracker and there's not much surface

area there you stick it in you know

check it out it's not going to be much

transferred so we did the first one with

sterile water just to see if there's any

transfer at all found transfer so he

decided to go well you know usually dips

are different or low pH and so we did

three different ph levels pH four five

and six

and we found transfer again so we

decided to go with the real dip and we

did three different store-bought dips

and if you work at food science work in

the lab food microbiology the reason we

really didn't go to dip drop the bat

because isolating bacteria from food

samples is a little more work so we

that's why we did this way okay I think

I have a little movement here yeah so

that kind of scribes the whole thing by

the way Alton Brown you know Brown is he

defined a dip is defined by sabili to

maintain contact with its transport

mechanism over three feet of white

carpet I'm not sure salsa will pass that

test

so our first experiment again I did

wasn't sure we to get much transfer so

outside we do three but we did took a

cracker bit it dipped it put it aside

took another cracker hit it did but it's

a debt three times or did the same thing

and dipped it and didn't bite it we also

did six replicates repetitions of that

with a cracker so we're comparing three

bites and dip versus three no bites and

dip and the same thing with six then we

measure bacteria than the water after

that well we found some bacteria in

there really a lot I think considering

so we were surprised at that and again

we found it over 1800 with three bites

and 2600 with six bites so there was

more but not linearly increased with

more bites okay so now acid was acid in

food a lot of dips a little graphic here

so we did for pH for this is again just

there's water with sterile water with pH

adjusted we did five pH 5 and a pH 6 and

since we found transfer with three

crackers we didn't see any sense in

doing 6 again so we did three crackers

you being bit once before dipping versus

not being bit before dipping in a

measure the pH just a quick graphic on

pH and what kind of some points that

show foods and different things that

show you what pH their pH is lemon juice

about pH to Cola pH three and vinegar

Tomatoes depending on the very range

black coffee

human saliva blood sleet water baking

soda and milk of magnesia ammonia icy

corns one of the few foods that are a

higher pH the neutral most foods are

neutral or below and then finally on

oven cleaner and drain opener very high

pH very basic you don't want to eat that

yeah

so pH for lower number than pH 5 yeah

but a higher and pH 6 we saw a little

increase in the number of bacteria in

these

dudes and actually we did simulating a

party would you measure the amount of

bacteria right away after we dipped and

then held it two hours if you were

having a party and came back two hours

later still and the dip was there and we

saw a decrease as you see you're

interesting on the ph for really a big

decrease in peace with it all right it's

also you know those peat there's low pH

dips are gonna be okay

pH five you don't see that decreased pH

six there's not surprising

microbiologists or micro boxes in real

would understand if I understands that a

pH will kill bacteria so now we still

found bacteria though so we got a font

we got to try the real dip so here we go

we're doing salsa chocolate and cheese

so we did the same thing again three

three crackers bit and dipped versus not

bitten dipped he's one of those here we

have a partially eaten cracker I'll show

that again real quick again just like it

was a party not a Superbowl party would

be like what for six hours long so it

could be longer but we just did two

hours

keep standard some interesting things

here we didn't think about if you notice

that the salsa is higher than the

chocolate and the cheese anybody guess

why

Liza salsa higher than the chocolate in

the cheese close yes

actually one thing we didn't think about

because before we're using we're using

sterile water it has the same viscosity

salsa is very thin compared to chocolate

and cheese so when you dip it in the dip

bob falls back in versus the chocolate

and cheese it sticks to the cracker so

if you can event develop a dip that

doesn't drip you got to make there's no

problem the other thing you see here is

of course the decrease in two hours

relative to the initial count was

greater in the salsa which we respect

with the pH so anyway even with the real

dip there's there's transfer and of

course we did viscometer scholar

readings of the

so different this is this is my graphic

of a Brookfield viscometer for those of

you to put this number you stick the

unit in there and it gives you a reading

for viscosity we also actually measured

the weight of the change in weight we

dipped it a bunch of times so how much

is being left versus salsa versus

chocolate so as I said it says there the

thick of the sauce the less saliva falls

back in the bowl so that's a really

selling point I guess if you're you're

selling cheese or chocolate dip okay so

our conclusions there are of course the

oral cavity is a source of source of

pathogens the CDC again where you say

there's five infectious diseases that

can be spread by saliva and you don't

have to be any overt signs of illness to

be a carrier there's been count saying

there's twenty billion bacteria in your

mouth of course that's they're mostly

good but who knows if anybody or how

many people have gotten sick from double

dipping no knowing but I bet it's at

least one so you wrapping up now with a

few I think interesting facts probably

many of you know this from CDC one in

six Americans seventeen seventeen

percent

I usually have a foodborne illness each

year or this year estimated three

thousand Americans die from a foodborne

illness or agent and the cost from

hospitalization and loss of life was

estimated by the CDC to be seventy seven

billion dollars or 2012 I've kind of

pulled up some this summer examples

there was a recall of Ritz crackers and

goldfish I'd probably you probably

remember this due to possible salmonella

Colly if you dig down the details a

little bit it actually if it was from a

way proud power that was used in the

creation of these products it wasn't

from the really the company itself they

bought the whey powder but I guess it

Eltham utley is their responsibility

you probably member the big McDonald's

salad from Cyclospora outbreak and it's

funny because not funny but how this

gets in the media and who gets blamed

this salad was not made

by McDonald's they'll make their own

salad almaty made the salad and they

were sold at McDonald's

so that was in Illinois there were

Salmonella enroll in 26 states and raw

turkey back in July 11th and then

Salmonella and cut melons not getting

from April to July this is not my

headline like I put it on there but this

is from a from this link because it

doesn't make sense yeah you read it

after what foodborne illness on the rise

it's not a that's a bad thing

but they kind of make a point fact

statistics are according whu-oh about 10

percent the population gets food

poisoning annually about 760 million

people in the world rezoning about 420

thousand deaths worldwide and their

point is more outbreaks may be due to

better technology does it make sense in

the sentence but as I said before

outbreaks is only ones that are caught

by the CDC or the governing body we have

very rapid detection so the sooner you

cats the outbreak you can prevent more

illnesses and we have more very

sophisticated databases now the linked

outbreaks to food to catch them much

earlier ok so I have my wrapping up my

what where and which slides so what is

making a sick it's a CDC again NIH in

total illnesses we only know about 20%

the source of the organism so 80% of

what's making people sick we don't it's

not been identified more than half of

hospitalizations they again unknown

source can identify it and even deaths

same thing so the known is less than the

unknown but the ones we do know 250

disease agents top for causing illness

or norovirus Salmonella closer and

Prevention's and Staphylococcus many

people probably don't hear you don't

hear about Clostridium perfringens in

the news very much but it's there and I

have norovirus of Salmonella highlighted

because they appear in all three

categories

not for causing hospitalizations they

switch places salmonella norovirus but

now we have Campylobacter and Toxoplasma

gondii a parasite

obviously you know house cat cats carry

tax Oh mom Ghandi case you've got a cat

at home they can't hear you

they're known carriers and then this

Salmonella Toxoplasma gondii mysterion

or of are still there and then Osteria

comes out of nowhere it wasn't on the

number us is hospitalization but there

it is number three a number of deaths

which makes why Listeria is on the list

of concern because very low incidence

level very high mortality rate about

twenty percent mortality rate mostly

with the unborn fetuses so that's kind

of the look this before which so that

was our what organism now is that which

foods

I think telling that telling the general

public what organisms causing illnesses

really doesn't help you much okay but

what foods and where are these foods

coming from I think helps more so which

foods you can see it's kind of a variety

all over the place no real big segment

there in fact when you break these down

into categories meat poultry plant food

seafood dairy and eggs you can't really

dodge it unless you're I don't know you

know energy drinks out the can I guess I

don't know okay

in highly processed and where are you

getting sick we already had this slide

get outbreaks restaurant deli home these

are outbreaks again I would eventually

say the any CDC person would tell you

that probably a lot of it's caused by

whom mistakes made it at home I got one

more a couple cycles I get this we get

this comment a lot that actually or two

or two sanitary now people are getting

sick because of a year washing her hands

too much or too many too sterile I guess

so is this hygiene hypothesis for asthma

that an exposure to germs teases a

child's body to differentially harmless

substances and

and harmless ones that trigger asthma

however it's not that simple because

there are some microbes that actually

may cause asthma rather than prevent it

in addition there are all some of these

infections that also can be worse than

actually asthma so it's probably truth

on both sides of that fence but there is

compelling evidence exposed their germs

doesn't obviously increase your immune

system but there is a theory that

exposure to non pathogen is just as good

or better than an exposure to the

pathogens in some cases and kind of

taking you back there by nose of Louis

Pasteur he's probably saved millions of

lives by his germ theory and actually

developing immunizations but there was a

you don't hear much about Antoine

Beauchamp

he had the conflicting at the same time

as Louie Pasteur had the host theory he

believed that germs existed in everyone

and that they are opportunistically you

got weak they took over so again we're

coming around to that because there's

epidemic of evidence now or truth that

we see a decrease in infectious diseases

in a developing world but an increase in

autoimmune and allergic diseases

so again balancing that out is the

problem and the last kind of last thing

I want to bring up is there's the we're

learning more than the human microbiome

project actually you can send your feces

off and get it analyzed you want for $89

there's a company does that what's your

biome is in releasing your intestines

but essentially they're ten to a hundred

thousand times more bacteria in your

cells in your body than human cells

probably knew that human micro includes

bacteria fungi viruses and archaea

you're liable archaea but actually

living organisms are divided into three

categories now archaea bacteria and

eukaryotes of which we are so kind of

take an equal stance there and this

microbiome is implicated in diabetes

cancer allergies asthma MS and autism so

there's a lot of work being done there

and I kind of have broken down into the

project so again I like to acknowledge

Brian shall now ski for some of the

graphics and if I have any questions

I'll be glad to take them

[Applause]