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Double dipping – the risk finally quantified
In case you missed it, the New York Times did a story on the phenomenon known as “double-dipping, “made famous by The Seinfeld Show This is when you dip a chip into a dip, and then dip into the dip again with the same end of the chip, thereby polluting the entire bowl of dip with your used chip. Of course, it was George who was guilty of this infraction and was set upon by another party-goer who denounced him to the crowd.
But how unhealthy is the practice? Is it just another over-reaction to the interaction with others? Not so, says Professor Paul Dawson , a microbiologist at Clemson University. In a study inspired by the Seinfeld episodes, tests showed that double-dipping did result in significant quantities of microbial activity, especially when more than one dip was done.
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.
Dawson is the scientist who last year disproved the famous “five second rule,” that says that food that drops on the floor stays clean for five seconds and can be eaten. The results here showed that quick retrieval resulted in 150-8000 bacteria. Left an entire minute, however, food collected ten times that amount. A quick pickup therefore is better than eating off the floor, but no guarantee of food safety.
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Reading Harry Potter
My seven year old turns eight in March. Many of her 2nd grade classmates, especially the boys, have already read most if not all the Harry Potters, and have even seen all the movies. Over the holiday break, I suggested to my daughter that we finally break into
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Book 1) and see what all the fuss was about. Lost as she usually is in books about princesses or American Girl dolls, she wasn’t too interested. By the second chapter though, she was hooked. At every occasion, she begs for me to read Harry Potter to her, and many of our conversations are reviews of the plot and mystery. She even reads to me as well, and some times will advance a chapter or two without me when the suspense gets too great.
As a dad, I’d say the books are marginally good. They are not “great” fiction, but are well-written and creative enough to hold an older person’s interest. The big draw, I now realize, though, is the wonder of watching your child have their first real immersive literary experience. My daughter can imagine this world, all through our reading it together.
We’ve now watched the movie together as well, and I’ve been happy that most of my character name pronunciations were correct. I also did a pretty good impersonation of Hagrid, a giant, who has the most distinctive accent so far.
I’ve been told that the tales get “darker” as they go along, with plenty of betrayal and violence. We’re proceeding cautiously at this point, which will increasingly become a challenge, as my daughter asks every afternoon when she gets home from school, “Can we read just a little bit?.” As dads of daughters can attest. it’s always hard to say, “no.”
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One top ten list you don’t want to be on
This month’s Men’s Health is on 2008 resolutions and one section featured screenwriter Justin Zachham’s ‘bucket list,’ his “top 10 things to do before I die.” There, at number 7, was the item you see over and over, but that you’d never want to see written by your own kids, “Be the father mine never was.”
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