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The dirty truth about those lemon wedges
A radio station employee named wrote this
....and damn, I love lots of lemon in my "sweet-tea"
The Dirty Truth
During college, I worked in a variety of restaurants. Therefore, when I
found out the contents of a study on restaurant contamination, I
completely understood why the results were both empirical and factual.
The Health Department routinely visits and scores restaurants, and if
you look at the scores, you will find that most of our area restaurants
are sanitary and concerned about food safety.
There, however, is no restaurant that is 100% germ free. One little
problem has long gone overlooked and that is the colorful little drink
garnish. As it turns out that garnish can be almost as dangerous to you
as under heated food.
Based on my own experience, the following is what happens during a
typical restaurant shift. A server first cuts the garnish lemons and
places them in a container. They then juggle three or four tables for
six hours at a stretch. The server is at a near constant jog throughout
the entire shift. Your table needs a drink refill? Well, guess what? All
three other tables need something too. Drinks, bread, appetizers,
salads, entrees, and desserts must come out of the kitchen to four
separate tables with choreographed precision. Of course, there is always
at least one table with some troglodyte (or troglodytes) that can’t seem
to send the server on one trip to get everything they need. Here’s a sample:
Table trip one: “I need some more tea.”
Server: “Does anyone else need anything?”
Silence.
Upon the return of the server, “Oh, I’m sorry, I need some more honey
mustard.”
Server: “Okay, does anyone else need anything?”
Silence.
Upon the return of the server: “Excuse me, could you bring more rolls?”
Meanwhile, the food in the kitchen for the other three tables is wilting
under a heat lamp.
The point is, restaurant servers do not have time to stop and wash their
hands 50 times in 6 hours. During the course of a shift, their hands
come in contact with the handles of refill pitchers, door knobs, table
rags, dirty dishes and utensils, used condiment bottles, computer
keypads, and germy money. Those same dirty fingers also put the lemon
wedges into your drink and make your salads.
A research professor of microbiology recently conducted a very
interesting study on those little lemon wedges. Anne Lagrange Loving of
Passaic County Community College in New Jersey worked with researcher
John Perz to determine if restaurant lemon wedges contained any form of
contamination. They collected samples from 76 lemon slices served to
them at 21 separate restaurants. Nearly 70% of those slices contained 25
different microbes, some contained fecal matter.
An interesting point brought out by the study is that lemon is a known
anti-bacterial fruit. For these 25 microbes (all of which are poison to
humans) to show up alive on the fruit leaves one wondering, were all 70%
of those fruit contaminated simply not washed properly, or did the
filthy hands of a server cause the contamination? One particular microbe
that is present several times in the tables of Loving and Perz’s peer
reviewed journal article is E.Coli.
If an acidic lemon peel and flesh can contain traces of E. Coli, what
might be in the salad that is prepared by the same hands that touched
that lemon? By pointing this out, I am certainly not trying to scare you
into cooking at home tonight. However, you should read the Health
Department score of any restaurant you patronize. It is also my
suggestion you go without the lemon wedge in your drink and politely ask
your server if the restaurant has a salad maker. If not, go for the soup.
<clipped remainder of article?
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Re: The dirty truth about those lemon wedges
Goomba38 <Goomba38 <[email protected]>> wrote:
> The point is, restaurant servers do not have time to stop and wash their
> hands 50 times in 6 hours. During the course of a shift, their hands
> come in contact with the handles of refill pitchers, door knobs, table
> rags, dirty dishes and utensils, used condiment bottles, computer
> keypads, and germy money. Those same dirty fingers also put the lemon
> wedges into your drink and make your salads.
Most of the lemons I get are in the cup rather than wedged on the
rim. I have no qualms about digging it out with a spoon and
squeezing it.
If I were to worry about the lemon, I'd have to worry about every
other thing she brings, especially the plates. His/her thumb was
probably overlapping the edge of the plate when they set it down,
for example.
I don't want to end up like Sheldon, a sour hermit afraid to eat
out, so I order, I eat, and I enjoy it.
-sw
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Re: The dirty truth about those lemon wedges
On 2008-03-10, Goomba38 <[email protected]> wrote:
> suggestion you go without the lemon wedge in your drink and politely ask
> your server if the restaurant has a salad maker. If not, go for the soup.
.....or go off and rule the universe from beyond the grave...
Indeed
.....or check into a psycho ward, which ever comes first huh.
This is why you should live in filth and squalor instead of a boringly
sterile Martha Stewart lifestyle. Builds up the immune system. If you
can't tolerate the posibility of catching a bug off a lemon wedge, you
should only consume one immersed in hard liquor or stay home and play Chutes
and Ladders.
nb
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Re: The dirty truth about those lemon wedges
"Goomba38" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected] ..
If you have enough vodka in your drink, bacteria on your lemons doesn't
really matter much.
Hasta,
Curt Nelson
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Re: The dirty truth about those lemon wedges
Curt Nelson wrote:
> "Goomba38" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected] ..
>
>
>
> If you have enough vodka in your drink, bacteria on your lemons doesn't
> really matter much.
>
> Hasta,
> Curt Nelson
LOL,there ya go! The solution to all of life's woes 
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Re: The dirty truth about those lemon wedges
On 12-Mar-2008, Goomba38 <[email protected]> wrote:
> > If you have enough vodka in your drink, bacteria on your lemons doesn't
> > really matter much.
> >
> > Hasta,
> > Curt Nelson
>
> LOL,there ya go! The solution to all of life's woes
with enough vodka in a drink, there'd be no room for lemon
--
Change Cujo to Juno in email address.
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Re: The dirty truth about those lemon wedges
l, not -l wrote:
> On 12-Mar-2008, Goomba38 <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> If you have enough vodka in your drink, bacteria on your lemons
>>> doesn't really matter much.
>>>
>>> Hasta,
>>> Curt Nelson
>>
>> LOL,there ya go! The solution to all of life's woes
>
> with enough vodka in a drink, there'd be no room for lemon
>
Just wave it over the top like martini purists say they do with Vermouth 
Jill
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Re: The dirty truth about those lemon wedges
Sqwertz <Sqwertz <[email protected]>> wrote:
> Most of the lemons I get are in the cup rather than wedged on the
> rim. I have no qualms about digging it out with a spoon and
> squeezing it.
It was bound to happen really soon: Today I ate at Souper Salad and
the waitdroid went and got my iced just after I saw him counting a
big wad of 1's. There was a lemon wedged onto the side of the cup
when it arrived a few seconds later.
-sw
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Re: The dirty truth about those lemon wedges
On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:39:04 -0700, "Curt Nelson" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
>"Goomba38" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected] ...
>
>
>
>If you have enough vodka in your drink, bacteria on your lemons doesn't
>really matter much.
>
or you could eliminate the middleman and keep enough vodka in your
bloodstream.
your pal,
blake
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Re: The dirty truth about those lemon wedges
blake murphy <blake murphy <[email protected]>> wrote:
> or you could eliminate the middleman and keep enough vodka in your
> bloodstream.
When I was a really heavy drinker, I was never sick from flus and
colds. I never got hangovers either. It was all going pretty good
until I started having pancreatis a few times. Still - I want sick!
Stopped drinking every day and I had cold, flus all the time, and
pneumonia every other year.
"Alcohol- It Does A Body Good" (in moderation). Now I've taken to
the motto "Drink Less, Drink Better", a Belgian slogan.
-sw
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Re: The dirty truth about those lemon wedges
Sqwertz <Sqwertz <[email protected]>> wrote:
> until I started having pancreatis a few times. Still - I want sick!
WASN'T sick <sigh>. I have a new mousepad and can't type correctly.
-sw
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