Serving different dishes

DIPPING one’s own chopsticks into different dishes has been a custom for Chinese when we dine out in a group, but a recent experiment proves that the practice indeed lends to the spread of bacteria.

Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday that a group of 11 experts in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, conducted an experiment at a local restaurant.

They ordered several courses and divided them equally into two sets. With one set, each of the 11 experts used their own chopsticks to “hop” from one dish to another, as is our time-honored custom.

With another, they used a designated pair of chopsticks to pick from the dishes, while refraining from using their own.

They collected leftovers from each set and later examined them in a laboratory.

The results were eye-popping: In one case, the amount of bacteria in a dish “visited” by everyone’s own chopsticks was 250 times that of a dish dipped only by a designated pair.

The reason was not hard to understand: Using one’s own chopsticks tends to transfer the bacteria from one’s mouth and nose to the dishes and thus spread bacteria across different dishes.

Citing the experiment, Xinhua issued a wakeup call for us to embrace the new habit of serving individual dishes when we are dining with others.

In fact, the experiment only corroborates a common sense. We don’t need an elaborate lab test to tell us that bacteria spread more easily when all the chopsticks are busy hopping between the many mouths and dishes.

What we need is a new societal consensus to put a end to our die-hard habit.

People have already learned the lesson the hard way while fighting the epidemic.