I'll take a slice of lemon with fecal bacteria please.

Paul Michael — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:14:19 +0000

I’ve never thought twice about the humble lemon slice. I’m sure most of you haven’t either. And as I’m partial to a slice of lemon in my water or iced tea, for added flavor, I usually request it at restaurants. After seeing this video, I think I’d be safer asking for slice of raw chicken in my drink.

A study brought to light by healthinspections.com reveals that those innocent lemon slices you get in restaurants are loaded with bacteria, fecal matter and all sorts of other nasties.

"It was like they had dipped it in raw meat or something; it was gross!” exclaimed Anne LaGrange, a microbiologist who tested several lemons from various restaurants and was shocked at the results. "The very first sample that we took was loaded with fecal bacteria."

Here's the full video :

In fact, from the 21 restaurant samples they tested, a staggering 77% of the wedges, 3 out of 4 (not 2 out of 3 as pointed out by an eagle-eyed reader), contained disease-causing bacteria. Yuck.

Why is this happening? In simple terms, a mix of poor hygiene and cross-contamination. Restaurant workers should use tongs or gloves when they slice and serve the wedges, but they usually don’t. And often, the only explanation for the amount of bacteria found is that the lemons are being sliced using a knife and/or cutting board that was used for preparing raw meat.

So, by all means add a slice of lemon at home. But now, when you’re out and about you may want to skip the lemons. This is definitely one of those cases where you can’t quite make lemonade out of the lemons life serves you.

Thanks go to Skip Koebbeman for bringing this one to my attention.

Written by Paul Michael and published on Wise Bread. Read more articles from Wise Bread.