Super Bowl Party Health Tip: The Communal Dip

Today is the Super Bowl and it is estimated that more than 100 million avocados will be consumed as throngs of football fans (and people who just like to party) munch away while watching commercials and maybe even a little bit of the game. The health issues of consuming too much alcohol, fatty foods, or simply too many calories are all well understood. But is there an issue with the ubiquitous communal bowl of dip? A recent NYT article decided to take a look.

A new study, to be published later this year in the Journal of Food Safety, and conducted by Clemson University, tackles the question of "double dipping" which was popularized in a 1993 episode of "Seinfeld." In that episode George Costanza, is confronted at a funeral reception by Timmy, his girlfriend’s brother, after dipping the same chip twice. The issue was how many germs are transferred by redipping a chip that someone has taken a bite out of. In the episode:

“Did, did you just double dip that chip?” Timmy asks incredulously, later objecting, “That’s like putting your whole mouth right in the dip!” Finally George retorts, “You dip the way you want to dip, I’ll dip the way I want to dip,” and aims another used chip at the bowl. Timmy tries to take it away, and the scene ends as they wrestle for it.

Prof. Paul L. Dawson, a food microbiologist at Clemson, saw the show and decided to see exactly how many germs are really transfered by such a process. He expected to find little or no microbial transfer from mouth to chip to dip, but the results surprised him.

On average, the students found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the remaining dip. Each cracker picked up between one and two grams of dip. That means that sporadic double dipping in a cup of dip would transfer at least 50 to 100 bacteria from one mouth to another with every bite.

So what is Prof. Dawson's suggestion for would-be Super Bowl party attenders when it comes to dip consumption? He says, "Before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don’t know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you."

Gross. The cheese and crackers look better anyway.

But if you are determined to go with the dip, here is the proper protocol from Taquitos.net (and they should know):

It's everybody's top priority to maximize the dip-to-chip ratio. When you're ready to take that second bite and the remainder of the chip is dry, it's very tempting to double-dip. Ideally, you should plan ahead to avoid this sort of dilemma. Make sure the first dip smothers the chip with enough for two bites. (Of course, this is not so easy. If you get too aggressive, the chip might break off into the dip, a snacking tragedy.)

Well now you know.