Video Story
Watch VideoRestaurant lemons covered with germs
Story By: Bea Karnes
Source: KOAA
Beware of lemons in restaurant beverages. A personal experience by a microbiologist led to a quest to find out just what is on those lemons.
"As the waitress was bringing it to me, she was putting a lemon wedge onto the rim of the glass," explained microbiologist Anne Loving. "And her fingers were in the soda. And I thought, 'Well that's really disgusting.'"
Loving says that's how her study of germs on lemons in drinks all started, with a test of her own nasty restaurant lemon slice.
"There were four organisms," says Loving, "and two of them were definitely fecal origin."
How surprised was she? "I was floored. I was really floored. The fecal origin could have been human," explained Loving, possibly from the dirty fingertips of her waitress.
Loving says the fecal organisms could have human or animal origins, such as from raw meat.
"Whether the cutting board had not been cleaned, or the knife," she said.
The test results on that one lemon wedge prompted Loving, who is a science professor at Passaic County Community College in New Jersey, to test lemons from drinks in dozens of other area restaurants.
Her study, "Microbial Flora on Restaurant Beverage Lemon Slices," was published in December in the Journal of Public Health.
Out of 76 samples, Loving found 53 lemons contaminated with all sorts of germs and bacteria. They all represent what Loving calls a risk for someone to get sick, if they consumed the drink. "Every single organism that we found has the potential to cause infection," said Loving, "and has caused infection."
