When life hands you lemons, think twice about putting them in your drink.
A frightening 70 precent of lemons used to sweeten up restaurant beverages showed signs of microbial growth, according to a study published in the Journal of Envrionmental Health. The researchers tested 76 lemons at 21 different restaurants to find the tart truth.
Among the bacteria found was E. Coli and Entrococcus Spp., which usually inhabits the lower intestine. So take that as you will.
What is exactly causing your drink to come with several thousand tiny unwanted guests? The report could not verify exactly but its theories are, to put it lightly, vomit-worthy.
According to the report, some of the germs “could have come fingertips of a restaurant employee via human fecal or raw-meat or poultry contamination, they might have contaminated the lemons before they even arrived at the restaurant.”
Okay, so we don’t know where the germs are coming from. Fantastic. But will these recent revelations get us sick or lead to the inevitable zombie apocalypse?
No it will not, according to Philip Tierno, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and pathology at NYU’s Langone Medical Center. Dr. Tierno is responsible for a whole group of experiments testing the germ-iness of our favorite eateries, even this one that reveals lemon wedges are only the third grossest.
“The usual course will probably result in no infection, but there is a possibility,” Mr. Tierno told Huffington Post Healthy Living. “You can’t live in a bubble. Your immune system is usually pretty good.”
Good news for people who are not ready to give up the lemon wedge quite yet. Still, sickness or not, we might file this one under “too much information.”
