www.bonappetit.com Open in urlscan Pro
151.101.0.239  Public Scan

Form analysis
2 forms found in the DOM

Name: search-form — GET /search

<form name="search-form" action="/search" method="GET" class="SearchForm-jQiHLx dwkAcG"><label class="SearchLabel-bjHtgZ kpghTX"><span class="TextFieldWrapper-Pzdqp dNBgpr text-field SearchInput-jCPwnN kBfasG" data-testid="TextFieldWrapper__q"><label
        class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TextFieldLabel-klrYvg iUEiRd fdELQU jAjTLS text-field__label text-field__label--single-line" for="search-form-text-field-q" data-testid="TextFieldLabel__q">
        <div class="TextFieldInputContainer-jcMPhb oFrOs"><input type="search" aria-describedby="" aria-invalid="false" id="search-form-text-field-q" name="q" placeholder="Search for &quot;stir-fry&quot;" aria-label="search"
            class="BaseInput-fAzTdK TextFieldControlInput-eFUxkf eGzzTT bqoymx text-field__control text-field__control--input" data-testid="TextFieldInput__q" value=""></div>
      </label></span><svg class="icon icon-search" focusable="false" viewBox="0 0 32 32" width="32" height="32" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" data-testid="iconSearch">
      <title>Search</title>
      <path d="M14.5 10a4.5 4.5 0 1 0 0 9 4.5 4.5 0 0 0 0-9zm5.249 8.335l4.458 4.458-1.414 1.414-4.458-4.458a6.5 6.5 0 1 1 1.414-1.414z" fill-rule="nonzero"></path>
    </svg></label></form>

Name: search-form — GET /search

<form name="search-form" action="/search" method="GET" class="SearchForm-jQiHLx dwkAcG"><label class="SearchLabel-bjHtgZ kpghTX"><span class="TextFieldWrapper-Pzdqp dNBgpr text-field SearchInput-jCPwnN kBfasG" data-testid="TextFieldWrapper__q"><label
        class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TextFieldLabel-klrYvg iUEiRd fdELQU jAjTLS text-field__label text-field__label--single-line" for="search-form-text-field-q" data-testid="TextFieldLabel__q">
        <div class="TextFieldInputContainer-jcMPhb oFrOs"><input type="search" aria-describedby="" aria-invalid="false" id="search-form-text-field-q" name="q" placeholder="Search for &quot;stir-fry&quot;" aria-label="search"
            class="BaseInput-fAzTdK TextFieldControlInput-eFUxkf eGzzTT bqoymx text-field__control text-field__control--input" data-testid="TextFieldInput__q" value=""></div>
      </label></span><svg class="icon icon-search" focusable="false" viewBox="0 0 32 32" width="32" height="32" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" data-testid="iconSearch">
      <title>Search</title>
      <path d="M14.5 10a4.5 4.5 0 1 0 0 9 4.5 4.5 0 0 0 0-9zm5.249 8.335l4.458 4.458-1.414 1.414-4.458-4.458a6.5 6.5 0 1 1 1.414-1.414z" fill-rule="nonzero"></path>
    </svg></label></form>

Text Content

Skip to main content

 * Newsletter

Story Saved

To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories

Close Alert

Sign In
SUBSCRIBE

Bon Appetit and Epicurious
Get one year of unlimited recipes for just $6 $3/month—cancel anytime.
GET DIGITAL ACCESS

 * RecipesChevron
 * IngredientsChevron
 * Cooking
 * Culture
 * Shopping
 * Restaurants
 * Videos
 * Podcast
 * Merch
 * Gift Guides

 * RecipesChevron
 * IngredientsChevron
 * Cooking
 * Culture
 * Shopping
 * MoreChevron


Search
Open Navigation Menu
Menu
Story Saved

Find anything you save across the site in your account

Close Alert


SUBSCRIBE


Search

Chevron
Kitchen's ClosingAccess 50,000+ recipes and the Epicurious app for just $6
$3/month for 1 year—cancel anytime.GET DIGITAL ACCESS
Already a member? Sign in

Want unlimited recipe access to Bon Appétit and Epicurious?GET DIGITAL ACCESS




cooking


DOES DOUBLE-DIPPING REALLY SPREAD GERMS?

Or is it just, um, rude?

By Ali Francis

January 12, 2024
 * Facebook
 * X
 * Email

Illustration by Hazel Zavala
 * Facebook
 * X
 * Email



In Too Afraid to Ask, we’re answering food-related questions that may or may not
give you goosebumps. Today: Does double-dipping spread germs?

It was a 1993 episode of Seinfeld that inspired Paul Dawson, PhD, to study
double-dipping. In “The Implant,” George double-dips a chip at a wake and is
razzed by Timmy, who tells him that it’s like “putting your whole mouth right in
the dip.” Dawson, a food scientist at South Carolina’s Clemson University,
wanted a real-world research example so that he could to teach his students how
to conduct studies, and Timmy’s line gave him “a hypothesis to test,” he tells
me.

Dunking a carrot into a bowl of hummus, taking a bite, then dunking again, seems
harmless enough when you’re by yourself. It’s your carrot; it’s your hummus.
(Who hasn’t double-dipped from the comfort of their own couch?) But in social
settings, double dipping has long-been the subject of debate.



Nobody cares what you do at home, says Nick Leighton, an etiquette expert and
host of the Were You Raised by Wolves podcast. “If you’re eating guacamole
alone, then have at it,” he says. “But once other people are involved, the rules
of etiquette apply.” The way we behave in public sends signals to those around
us, says Leighton, and double-dipping makes people nervous. “I don’t want your
mouth on the food I’m about to eat,” he says. To him, double-dipping creates
trust issues. “The mind wanders,” he says. “What else are you capable of doing?”



Scientifically, though, was Timmy right in scolding George for double-dipping at
the wake? “Absolutely,” says Dawson, who conducted various experiments with his
students to study the germ trail left behind by double-dippers, like measuring
the bacteria left behind after dipping bitten crackers in various dips. “There
were between 100- and 1,000-times the number of bacteria transferred to the dip
when a chip was bitten before dipping compared with when the chip was dipped
without biting first.”



Here’s what you need to know about double-dipping—and how you can politely
prevent Uncle Bill from contaminating the queso.


WHAT ARE THE HEALTH RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH DOUBLE-DIPPING?

The primary concern with double-dipping revolves around the potential transfer
of oral bacteria and saliva from an individual’s mouth back into the communal
dip, via some sort of dunking vessel.



“The mouth is home to a number of bacteria” that are perfectly normal, says
Harjot Singh, MD, an infectious disease specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine.
That said, not everything lurking between your molars is quite as benign.
Streptococcus, depending on the species, is common and can cause cavities. There
are also oral bacteria and viruses in the mouth that could spread via saliva,
says Dawson, citing meningitis, pneumonia, influenza, and more. Covid falls into
this category too.

In his 2009 research on the microbial consequences of double-dipping, which
remains the most widely referenced study on the practice, Dawson found that the
practice does transfer bacteria from mouth to dip. Initially, students assessed
the bacterial transfer from a cracker to a cup of plain water. They found that
the chomped cracker dipped into the water yielded approximately 1,000 more
bacteria per milliliter than an unbitten cracker.

WATCH



Carla Makes Instant Pot Ribs






Then, the researchers submerged crackers in water with pH levels mirroring those
typical of a dip at a party spread (which lean towards the acidic side of the pH
spectrum). They examined the bacterial content of the water immediately after
the crackers were dipped, then after a two-hour interval. There were fewer
bacteria during the second measurement: The acid in the water had worked “to
kill some of the bacteria that contaminated it,” says Donald Schaffner, PhD, a
food scientist at New Jersey’s Rutgers University who wasn’t involved in the
study.

Lastly, the focus shifted to various dips: salsa, chocolate syrup, and jarred
cheese dip, each differing in pH and viscosity. The researchers found that when
“clean” crackers were used, the dips harbored negligible additional bacteria.
However, after being exposed to a double-dipped cracker, the amount of germs
harbored in each dip also differed: Salsa accumulated approximately five times
more bacteria than the chocolate and cheese dips. And two hours later, the
bacterial counts in the salsa reduced to levels similar to the other dips.

This can be explained by a couple of factors: A thin dip like salsa is more
likely to drip from your bitten chip back into the communal dip, dragging your
lurgies along with it. “In a thicker food the bacteria are going to be more
immobilized, and not spread throughout the dip,” Schaffner says. But salsa is
also more acidic than the others, obliterating some of the bacteria over time.
At the end of the day, it’s the thickness of the dip and its acidity that really
determines how many germs end up partying in the hummus bowl. But that doesn’t
mean you should double-dip the salsa; the differences in risk are somewhat
marginal and it’s still feral behavior, okay?


WHAT OTHER FACTORS MIGHT INFLUENCE GERM SPREAD?

People with higher bacterial loads in their mouths are more likely to introduce
a larger number of germs if they double dip—and the dip’s temperature can also
impact their growth. Food safety experts refer to temperatures that fall between
40 °F and 140°F as “the danger zone,” which offers a more favorable environment
for bacteria to multiply; room temperature in the US is “often set somewhere in
the range of 68 to 74 degrees Fahrenheit,” per Epicurious. Storing a dip at
temperatures below or above this range “would mitigate the growth of the
bacteria but would not necessarily eliminate contamination by a double-dipper,”
says Dawson, nor would they “kill the bacteria quickly enough to prevent it from
being picked up by another dipper.”


SO, SHOULD I BE WORRIED ABOUT DOUBLE DIPPING?

“There is no definitive science to prove that double-dipping is unsafe or
harmless,” says Singh, the infectious disease doctor. “But the magnitude [of
risk] is not enough to be a public health concern.”

Contextually speaking, the numbers of bacteria that end up in a communal dip are
low. We all have about 80 billion bacteria in our mouths, “and about 1 million
of them are transferred with a single kiss,” says Singh. Even if you’re at a
double-dippers convention, it’s unlikely the guac would be harboring anywhere
near the number of bacteria in our own mouths (or those of our crushes’).




The risk depends on if any double-dippers are carrying a potentially contagious
bacteria or virus and on the strength of the immune system of those that dip
afterwards, says Dawson. Assuming the bacteria transferred to a dip are benign,
it’s not a big deal. “If I have harmless bacteria in my mouth, does it really
matter if they end up in your mouth?” asks Shcaffner, the Rutgers professor.
“That is certainly gross but not risky.”



Still, to completely avoid the potential uninvited bacteria from double-dippers,
Singh says prevention is simple: Encourage “single-dipping.”


HOW CAN YOU STOP PEOPLE FROM DOUBLE-DIPPING?

“If you feel like your guest list is full of people that are capable of such a
monstrous act, then let’s not even tempt them to double dip,” says Leighton.
Providing serving spoons or small plates and ramekins can discourage direct
mouth-to-dip contact, by implying guests should, ahem, use the dishes and
utensils provided. “You get to set the rules and it doesn’t take much to guide
people in a direction that you would like them to go,” says etiquette expert
Elaine Swann.

Leighton’s on the same page, adding that guests should always transfer communal
foods onto their individual plates—rather than dunking directly from the shared
resource. “Ideally, there’s a spoon in the dip, and we’re going to scoop what we
want from the communal dish onto our personal dish,” he says, “and then harmony
is restored to the universe.”


YOU CAN’T DOUBLE DIP WITHOUT THE DIP

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

1 / 36
Chevron
Chevron
Classic Hummus
View Recipe

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------






MORE COOKING STORIES FROM BON APPÉTIT

 * Get Bon Appétit in your inbox with our daily newsletter.

 * Here’s what our editors are cooking and baking at home at home.

 * For a low-key dinner, try these simple “Tuesday night” meatballs or these
   cheesy roasted cabbage wedges.

 * Who makes the best boxed mac and cheese? Our editors find out in this taste
   test.

 * These food-filled children's books are perfect gifts for aspiring chefs and
   picky eaters alike.

 * The secret to the best mashed potatoes is a ricer.

 * Chris Morocco solves your kitchen emergencies on our podcast Dinner SOS.

 * Cook all the BA recipes you love in the new Epicurious App.

Explore Bon AppétitcookingToo Afraid to Ask
Read More
 * shopping
   The Best Protein Bars You’ll Actually Want to Eat
   
   By Elaheh Nozari

 * culture
   This Was the Year Ozempic Changed How People Saw Food
   
   By Samhita Mukhopadhyay

   
 * shopping
   The Best Meal Delivery Services, According to Bon Appétit Editors
   
   By Tiffany Hopkins

 * shopping
   The Best Nonstick Pans
   
   By Emily Farris




SUBSCRIBE
Get one year of unlimited recipes for just $6  $3/month—cancel anytime.
SUBSCRIBE
Recipes you want to make. Cooking advice that works. Restaurant recommendations
you trust.
 * Facebook
 * X
 * Pinterest
 * Instagram
 * YouTube

More from Bon Appétit

 * Masthead
 * Newsletter Signup
 * Bon Appétit Media Kit
 * Find Us on the Epicurious App
 * Stream Bon Appétit
 * Basically
 * Healthyish
 * Archive

Contact

 * Subscription FAQs
 * Careers

 * RSS Feeds
 * Accessibility Help
 * Condé Nast Store
 * 
   Manage Preferences

© 2024 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance
of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your
California Privacy Rights. Bon Appétit may earn a portion of sales from products
that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with
retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed,
transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission
of Condé Nast. Ad Choices

Food Innovation Group







WE CARE ABOUT YOUR PRIVACY

We and our 142 partners store and/or access information on a device, such as
unique IDs in cookies to process personal data. You may accept or manage your
choices by clicking below or at any time in the privacy policy page. These
choices will be signaled to our partners and will not affect browsing data.More
Information


WE AND OUR PARTNERS PROCESS DATA TO PROVIDE:

Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for
identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised
advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research
and services development. List of Partners (vendors)

I Accept
Show Purposes