A study to be published later this year in the Journal of Food Safety proves that George Costanza’s cavalier method of double dipping his chip is, in fact, “like putting your whole mouth right in the dip.” For those who may have missed the Seinfeld episode or somehow not seen it reenacted at every party serving dip since it aired in 1993, we’ve posted the scene below. Suffice it to say that Costanza’s preferred dipping style involves dipping his chip in dip, taking a bite, and then going back for more dip with the half-eaten chip.
Food microbiologist Prof. Paul L. Dawson ran some double dip tests with his students and has some advice for the next soiree you attend: “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.” The Times parsed the study:
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.
Timmy wasn’t paranoid after all. And you’re safer with a thick dip than a watery salsa because less bacteria comes off a chip double dipped in thick dip. Of course, Dr. Dawson’s study didn’t determine whether any of the bacteria were harmful, but still, kissing Costanza?
Elsewhere in the world of dip, a Los Angeles woman filed a lawsuit against Kraft in November '06 because the company's Kraft Dips Guacamole contains a disproportionally small amount of avocado – just 2%. Her suit, still pending, prompted Kraft to change the product's label to Guacamole "Flavor".
