Hold The Lemon?
>> February 12, 2008
That lemon wedge they put on your drink at your favorite restaurant might just be harboring disease-causing bacteria. Anything from germs that cause staph to fecal bacteria.
Microbiologist Anne LaGrange Loving, M.S., M(ASCP), Assistant Professor of Science, Passaic County Community College, and her team took samples from a total of 76 lemons from 21 restaurants and found that 77% (2 out of 3) had bacteria on them.
Although the microbes found on the lemon samples all have the potential to cause infectious diseases at various body sites, the likelihood was not determined in this study and there is no evidence of reported outbreaks or illnesses attributed to lemon slices in beverages.
So though this is not necessarily cause for alarm, be aware that lemon slices may have the potential to make you sick.
Read Full Article: Microbial flora on restaurant beverage lemon slices
12 comments:
That is not good news, in the part of Texas I live in the water has a really bad taste. They report that it is from a high algae content. So we pretty much have to put lemon in it when we eat out just to be able to drink it. But now I may have to just start bringing my own plus lemon.
Thanks for this important information. :)
That is shocking!! Great article thanks.
Just great, another thing I can't eat at a restaurant and this time it's not even deep fried. Good to know.
My teen son always orders water with lemon when we go out to a restaurant. So while I was researching this I told him about it and his response was, "Thanks so much for telling me that! Now as soon as they bring me my drink I'm going to wonder if there's fecal bacteria on it!"
EWWWWW!!! That's almost as bad as the video about dirty glasses in your hotel room!
This is actually the same reaosn why I'd rather not have the fancy lemon on my drink.
Ewww!!! That's why I always tell my husband never to put that whole lemon wedge in his drink whenever we go out to eat.
I think this is the grossest restaurant news since researchers found that ice in soda machines had more bacteria than a toilet seat.
I used to work in a restaurant and we would grab the lemons by the hand and throw them in drinks. I know that my hands were usually really dirty (from handling money, dirty dishes, etc.), so those lemons got lots of germs on them. Yuck!
Ugh... usually if I don't order bottled water, I do get a lemon with my water... so it's good to get a heads up on this.
Again.. ugh... That's just icky.
Okay I didn't know that. Not pushing that lemon slice down my lemonade anymore.
Hi! Thanks for pointing out this article!
Erm.. the H&S officer who inspected our restaurant kitchen told us that most of the ice in the ice machine is contaminated by urine (human). Disgusting but true especially in fast food restaurants. In a single establishment, the officer found 5 different urine samples on the ice! Yucks!!!! :P
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