Never Ever Ask for Lemon Wedge in Your Drink at Restaurants, Here’s Why It’s a Bad Idea

IG Michael Horowitz: ‘Text Messages’ Contained Evidence of ‘Political Bias’ at FBI

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Wednesday left the door open to the possibility that political bias played a role when FBI officials launched a probe—codenamed Crossfire Hurricane—into a Trump campaign aide in 2016. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the head of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, questioned Horowitz about his probe into the FBI’s FISA application to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page for as long as a year. Johnson noted that Horowitz’s report found that Bill Priestap, the former FBI assistant director of counterintelligence, didn’t show any political bias when he opened the investigation. He said Horowitz, however, found evidence of political bias during his yearslong investigation. “We found through the text messages evidence of people’s political bias, correct,” the inspector general told the panel. Earlier…

If you’re like me, one of your favorite things in summer is going to a restaurant and getting a big glass of ice water and getting it refilled as many times as you want.

To make these hydration sessions even better, I always ask for a slice of lemon to go with it. What could be better than the tangy, citrusy flavor and the huge shot of vitamin C you get with it?

Well apparently, you’re getting a lot of other things on that lemon wedge too, only they’re not the ones you want.

Illustration – Pixabay | summerdayll

We all know that lemons, along with their citrus cousins oranges and grapefruit, have incredible anti-bacterial and even anti-fungal properties. The citron, the genetic ancestor of our modern yellow lemon, has an official name that explains everything—citrus medica.

In fact, a recent study showed lemon juice can be used as a cleaning agent to kill some of the pathogens that cause diarrhea. So surely, given the wonder-working properties of citrus, I should want that lemon wedge in my drink more than ever, right? Not so fast!

Illustration – Pixabay | marijana1

The problem definitely has nothing to do with the lemon itself. As usual, human error is to blame, not nature! A study conducted several years ago called Microbial Flora on Restaurant Lemon Wedges took a very basic approach to the question “What’s on the lemon wedges that restaurants put in our beverages?”

Their method was simple. Use a swab to take any cultures off the lemon rind and flesh placed in diners’ glasses of water or soft drinks and test them in the lab. As the study’s authors wrote: “samples were collected surreptitiously, without the knowledge of the restaurant staff” as well as “before a sip was taken, and before the lemon slice was touched by the patron.”

They then observed which cultures grew and flourished from the samples. The results were nothing less than shocking!

Illustration – Shutterstock | Olena Yakobchuk

Off the 76 lemons tested at almost two dozen different restaurants, a whopping 70 percent “produced some microbial growth, either from the rind, the flesh, or both.” When the study revealed the list of bacteria that were present on the rind and flesh, it included several forms of e.coli, which can produce toxins that cause illness and even lead to fatalities.

Perhaps most disturbing was the presence of enterococcus faecalis (also known as streptoccocus faecalis). The name says it all. These bacteria can only be the result of fecal contamination from humans or other animals such as mice or rats. Think about that for a second as you contemplate the lemon wedge in your iced tea.

The researchers who authored the study wrote that these “could have come from the 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.”

Illustration – Shutterstock | Gemenacom

Meanwhile, the study also found extensive evidence of yeasts on the lemons. While restaurant kitchens can have lots of yeasts in the air from all the different ingredients and many lemons are sliced at the beginning of the day and then sit out for many hours, there’s another more unsettling possibility.

“The yeasts could have originated from oral, fecal, or vaginal secretions contaminating the fingertips of a restaurant employee or another food handler.” Well, that’s not really what you want to hear.

Illustration – Shutterstock | Shift Drive

While the study didn’t look at alcoholic beverages, which frequently feature sliced citrus as a garnish as well, the same processes are probably at work, namely restaurant staff not properly cleaning their work surfaces or kitchen tools or simply not washing their hands after using the bathroom.

As for me, I think I’ll be asking for my drinks without lemon in the future unless it’s at a restaurant that has a high standard of hygiene!

This article is from the Internet:Never Ever Ask for Lemon Wedge in Your Drink at Restaurants, Here’s Why It’s a Bad Idea

Trump Order Gives Federal Employees a Day Off for Christmas Eve

President Donald Trump issued an executive order this week giving federal employees a day off on Christmas Eve, or Dec. 24. “All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Tuesday, December 24, 2019, the day before Christmas Day,” Trump wrote. “The heads of executive departments and agencies may determine that certain offices and installations of their organizations, or parts thereof, must remain open and that certain employees must report for duty on December 24, 2019, for reasons of national security, defense, or other public need.” Christmas Eve is not a federal holiday so without the order, federal employees would have been expected to report for work. American presidents sometimes give federal employees half a day or a day off…