This Is The Reason Why You Should Never Order A Drink With A Lemon Wedge

Sep 05, 2018

The lemon wedges that are included in our nightly dinner drinks at our favorite restaurant are tasty and beautiful to look at. Though some prefer to order their drink without the garnish, others love the aesthetic it adds to their drink. Unfortunately, those who prefer to have the fruit added to their drinks may have to begin to live without the addition.

According to scientists, this may be doing more harm to you than good.

A study published in the Journal of Environmental Health 2007 revealed that almost 70 percent of fruit added to alcoholic beverages contain the growth of bacteria. This growth of bacteria is said to contaminate a good amount of the fruit before it actually reaches your drink.

These small garnishes are very nice for us to look at. As a result, we often fail to think about what objects are coming into contact with our fruit before it reaches our mouths. The alcohol contained in the drinks are not capable of killing the bacteria.

Unfortunately, there are many websites claiming that the juice of lemons is able to sterilize utensils. According to John Perz and Anne LaGrange Loving, this is not true. The two have authored a research paper detailing how citrus wedges become contaminated.

As a result of their research, Loving and Perz saw that when lemons come into contact with water the growth of bacteria is promoted. Are lemons really clean upon entering water and other liquids? This question surfaced as the two continued to do their research.

The two decided to visit 21 different restaurants and order drinks from them all. They took a swab from all of the lemon wedges that came in their drinks. What they found was terrifyingly disgusting.

On the wedges, they uncovered the presence of 25 microbial species. Over 50 percent of the wedges were contaminated with bacteria, yeast, and viruses that were growing. The wedges were full of bacteria and the lemons were doing nothing to stop the growth that was taking place. Out of all of the lemons, there was only 13 percent that had grown along the rind of the lemon.

Hoping to avoid any contamination by simply squeezing the juice into your beverage is impossible. The entire fruit is contaminated.

So, the standing question is, can you get sick from consuming the contents of the lemon wedge? The answer is, yes. According to the research done, the microbes located on the fruit can lead to the development of diseases throughout your body. How likely this is to happen was not revealed in the study.

The researchers are not sure what the probability is concerning getting sick from the wedges. However, they are absolutely certain that it can happen. These added elements to your drinks are similar to any other food you consume from restaurants.

Dr. Philip Tierno is a professor at New York University School of Medicine. He concluded that there are a lot of humans coming into contact with the fruit before it gets to your drink. Though we would like to think everyone washes their hands, this isn’t always true. In order for alcohol to protect you from the bacterial growth, it would need to 100 percent pure alcohol and not a beer that contains 5 percent alcohol.

Will you be ordering lemons with your next beverage or will you refrain from adding the contaminated fruit?