November 11, 2007

Don't Be Trippin' Over Double Dippin'

This is just a quick weekend post, because Cranky Fitness wanted to bring you an important News Flash hot off the wires freshly swiped from the Sunday newspaper!

Here goes, prepare yourselves:

"Double-Dipping" and even "triple-dipping" your tortilla chips will not contaminate the salsa or the guacamole!

The study was conducted by Nancy Zeller of American University. And if this weren't a weekend, Crabby would go Google you up a link, but it is so she won't. Feel free to report back, though, should any of you feel energetic and researchy yourselves.

Professor Zeller, inspired by a Seinfeld Episode (which seems as good a reason as any to conduct a study) tested the bacteria content of various dips after students dunked, dunked, and dunked. After an hour, even the dips with some dairy ingredients had surprisingly little bacteria in them. And the salsa and guacamole had virtually none!

Which is good news, at least inasmuch as "virtually none" is a reassuring quantity when it comes to something fast-breeding and invisible like bacteria.

Crabby, while not known for her impeccable food hygiene habits, would never dip the same chip more than once. Oh hell, that's a total lie, but she double dips only when sharing appetizers with the Lobster or relatives or friends at parties drunk enough not to be paying close attention. (Just kidding on that last one, she swears).

By the way, Cranky Fitness could have missed this important bit of research entirely had the Lobster not drawn her attention to it in Parade Magazine this morning. Crabby is pathologically afraid of Parade. (It's that wholesome family insert you get in your Sunday paper). It's those ads! Terrifying large-eyed figurines, alarming dishware, and "special issue" commemorative coins reeking strongly of scamminess... it makes her feel all depressed and dizzy!

It must be Parade and not the guacamole, right?

19 comments:

  1. Interesting, but I remain skeptical.

    Everyone should have their own salsa, IMO!

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  2. Parade magazine! (Shudder)

    It's the chipper ads about diabetes and bladder control that depress me. Some things you should not try to be chipper about.

    hvcekksm - a little-known religious group who regard Franklin Mint collections as icons to be worshiped.

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  3. Bunnygirl, what an excellent idea! No chip waste and no germs either!

    Mary--Oh god yes, the perky bladder control people! And love your hvcekksm definition. (Could also be a milder form of pessimism. Instead of saying 'oh f*ck' all the time it's a lot of 'oh heck!'

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  4. It's so good to see scientists finally getting down to this kind of important research.

    Reminds me of a paper I read years ago in the BMJ. Speculating about why James Bond seemed so healthy, despite constantly being in mortal danger, a group of researchers tested if it was because he had his martinis shaken and not stirred.

    Martini afficionados say this is all wrong, but it seems Mr Bond has the last laugh - his martini contains more antioxidants than the stirred version.

    Important knowledge.

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  5. The Bag Lady's salsa would't dare transmit gersm (okay, she's ahd a beer, or two, so her fine motor skills aren't great...either that, or she needs to cut her fingernails!)
    ozuzy (or, doozy...boozy, whatever...)

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  6. Double dipping freaks me out! Like Fondue. Nope, not me, not unless it's with the husband or MAYBE my parents (already shared germs afterall), but not even my sisters (I don't want the germs of those they have kissed - I've seen them).
    I always try to be the first to get a spoon and dish some on my plate so that I know it is only my germs. If I'm lucky others notice and do the same.
    I've been known to announce "NO DOUBLE DIPPING!" at a family function and then watch everyone (yes I go that far).
    I'm glad someone did teh research on it but it still grosses me out. It'd be like mouth kissing everyone or using the spoon that just came out of your mouth to serve some rice from the bowl on the table. It;s just not right IMO, especially with strangers.

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  7. Great information! However, I wouldn’t store the unused guacamole for another time. Those bacteria do grow fast.

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  8. Dips...yum. I think I'm going to make my special chicken dip for my father tomorrow in honor of Veteran's Day (you can read all about his WWII service on my blog).

    For those finicky eaters, a spoon is a good idea. Instead of dipping, you spoon onto your preferred chip of choice (ha!) and nobody gets sick. Of course, this only works with considerate people who are not drunk, so that narrows the field considerably (hee!) when it comes to parties.

    Darn, I hadn't thought about dips in a long time. Now I'm going to start longing for that tuna dip one of my friends used to make for her parties. It was AWESOME. She finally learned to make a huge vat for all the loyal followers who would park at the table to eat the dip before it was gone. Fun times.

    Thanks for the info, Crabby. What would we do if you didn't tell us about all the life-altering research being done by our finest scientific minds? I'm sure people with terminal illnesses and their loved ones are very grateful to those who use their skills to investigate such important things!

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  9. Martini study? Dang it, Cranky Fitness completely missed the Martini study!

    What with beer and morphine and red wine and party dip research all coming within the same week, Cranky Fitness is looking, well, a little like a frivolous party blog these days.

    ("These days?" Who are we kidding? This has always been the most frivolous health blog on the web. And we won't even mention those animal exercise videos.)

    However, if researchers start curing cancer this coming week instead of studying party dip, Crabby promises she'll be right on it. Unless, of course, there's a good margarita study or something about the curative effect of cupcakes...)

    (And bag lady--we're cuttin' you off any minute now!)

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  10. But... but.. "That's like putting your whole mouth right in the dip!"

    I miss Seinfeld.. sigh!

    And I'll have what Bag Lady's having..

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  11. Parade Magazine seems so old to me. I don't know why but since I have childhood memories of reading the column where people ask impossible questions to the smartest lady in the world and she answers them, that makes it seem like it's from another era.

    So glad you found my blog which enabled me to find your blog :) I'll definitely be back from a daily dose of Crabby!

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  12. I despise double dipping in others but I do it thusly on occasion, and only when the chips are huge, triangular tortilla chips, and no spoons are set out to convey dip to plate, and chips aren't stong enough to be used as a spoon substitute, and then only with family, many of whom have appalling manners, (none of them on my side): pick up chip by one corner, dip one bottom corner with restraint, nibble daintily, rotate precisely, dip other corner, getting NOWHERE NEAR teeth marks or ever changing finger position!!@!! If chips break easily, then only one dip, ever. unless you made the guacamole and yell "Dibs on the bowl" for purpose of scraping up the last bits when it's heading for the kitchen and the dishwasher, then anything goes. :D

    Oh, and Parade, I picked up the habit as a kid, but it has become pretty insipid, huh?

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  13. I double dip and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

    For me, it's all about the dip. If it's a good guacamole or salsa, I want to maximize the amount of dip I get per every chip. The only way is to double dip!

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  14. Hilary, I miss it too. Being a crude crab, the episode that always comes to mind is the "Master of your domain one," but they were all great!

    Mamacita--oh lord, the "I'm a genius ask me a question" column was always so hilarious. For someone who was supposedly so smart, she wrote like crap and had no sense of humor. At least from what I remember--I really don't tend to read the Parade thing anymore.

    And TK and Monica, it's great to not only have some self-confessed occasional double dippers, but to get instructions as well! When I cheat at home that's pretty much the way I do it too.

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  15. The Bag Lady has sobered up now and would like to put her 2 cents worth in here. She finds when she entertains that putting a spoon in the dip helps a great deal with the double-dipping issue. She, as you may have already suspected, has an aversion to germs (check out her blog if you don't believe it!) so really doesn't like it when people double-dip.
    And the Cowboy is addicted to the Seinfeld re-runs we get on the satellite TV!!

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  16. Pssst.. break the chip in half first..

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  17. Excellent idea, Hilary!

    And can I just mention that reviewing these comments generated gmail ads in my mailbox for "Festivus T-shirts" and "Does your baby have acid reflux?"

    And bag lady, FYI: I was just over at your blog, wrote a long (boring) comment on dutch ovens (great post!) but blogger wouldn't let me leave it. I kept getting errors and had to give up. Don't know if this is a general blogger problem or some weird glitch with my computer!

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  18. Well, it's sort of poetic :-)

    Dr. J’s rules for healthy eating:

    If it tastes good, it’s bad for you!
    If your mother told you to eat it, it’s good for you.
    If you didn’t want to listen to your mother…it’s VERY good for you!
    If you listened to your mother, GOOD for YOU!
    If it comes in a box or wrapper, it’s bad for you.
    If you can’t pronounce its ingredients, it’s bad for you.
    If it only has one ingredient, it’s good for you.
    If it floats in water, and it’s an apple, it’s good for you.
    If it floats in water, and it’s an egg, it’s bad for you.
    If you have any water left, drink it. It used to be good for you!

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  19. Crabby - it wasn't your computer, or Blogger, it was the Bag Lady. Must have been half asleep, had to edit the post, then pushed save as draft instead of publish!! Then got distracted with Real Life stuff and didn't check to see if it published!!
    Please, please come back and leave your comment - yours are never boring!!
    jehkeeii - war cry issued by the little-known Jerky tribe...

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