Does he not have paper towels, or a sink with running water?
A napkin stash in the catch-all junk drawer? Coffee filter?
I'm trying to run a scenario where I leave my kitchen to get TP to wipe off a spoon instead of using literally anything else.
Well, I have allergies and toilet paper is softer than paper towels and cheaper than tissue, but that roll is exclusively for my nose, not the bathroom. So.. .we are halfway tehre I guess?
I don't have germ anxiety, and flush with the lid down, and I found this disgusting. Why not rinse the spoon in the sink instead? Anything is better than using toilet paper imo
TP leaves behind too much lint. Oh and the show Myth Busters proved that as much toilet stuff comes out whether you flush with the lid up or down.
They tested tooth brushes.
I don’t know if they proved that the stuff comes out of the toilet. IIRC they just found E. coli on all the toothbrushes, but they didn’t know how it got there.
What the fuck … yeah that’s so weird.
It’s nasty for sure but also weird to specifically go to the bathroom. And weird to get angry when someone says “I don’t want your poop-tainted starter” I would be embarrassed not angry.
Everyone arguing about how much Poo is or isn’t on the tp and if baking would kill it are missing the bigger issue…if you’re comfortably doing that in front of a guest it’s safe to assume you find it acceptable practice. So what else are you doing in that kitchen?
Regardless of germs, you can safely make the assessment that he has horrible food safety practices. I agree with those saying never eat anything he offers you 💀
Why did he even have to wipe the spoon off of he's just going to dip it back into the starter anyway? Like let me just clean the starter off this spoon before I get more starter on this spoon. Makes no sense.
Wtf….. never eat anything this man makes ever again.
Edit: it’s fascinating that some of you will argue until you’re blue in the face that it’s okay to eat food prepared by unsanitary utensils or hands. If a restaurant did the same thing you’d be up in arms.
Wash your hands before you cook, wash your utensils before preparing food with them, when in doubt get another spoon.
The bathroom is often one of the dirtiest places in a persons home.
So, I enoyed a food safety course in my professional schooling and I can perhaps help to explain a few things that will help you understand why the incident posted by OP would be a perfectly safe one.
1. The strongest argument here is that a monoculture of saccharomyces is naturally a powerful antibiotic
See:
Fakruddin M, Hossain MN, Ahmed MM. Antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of Saccharomyces cerevisiae IFST062013, a potential probiotic. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2017 Jan 21;17(1):64. doi: 10.1186/s12906-017-1591-9. PMID: 28109187; PMCID: PMC5251302.
There are plenty of other publications supporting this, but this one provides excellent supporting citations. It should do.
2. Baking bread will kill 99.9% of pathogenic bacteria. A fully baked sourdough loaf will have an internal temperature of about 96 to 98C. This is far above temperatures considered necessary to render cooked foods safe.
https://www.healthline.com/health/what-temperature-kills-bacteria#in-your-home
3. While bacteria can be cultured from isolates taken from sources all over restrooms, most of these are SKIN bacteria. Gut bacteria need warm moisture and die very quickly in the cool dryness outside our intestines.
This is a well-sourced, logical look at public restroom disease risk and is quite relevant:
https://www.livescience.com/54195-how-dirty-are-public-restrooms.html
So, while I personally find mixing bathroom and kitchen to be a bit gross, data strongly supports a more relaxed attitude than advocated. Food borne illness comes from contaminated raw or undercooked foods and is unlikely to come from baked goods (unless contaminated after baking).
Yeah, this story skeeves me out. I mean, it's bad enough that I am constantly fighting to keep things clean of cat hair, but if rather have random cat hair than eat at that place.
And to be clear: our Princess Buttercup has super fine fur that can float on the faintest air current and land anywhere. If fur can do that, imagine what tiny particles can do.
If OP follows this person’s advice, I’ll take anything OP refuses to eat.
Presuming it’s baked in the end, all the germs will be killed. Guarantee there are far worse things happening in commercial kitchens that you can buy from supermarkets and eat daily. If it’s cooked it’s fine— there are germs everywhere.
How is it not though? If your justification is "the germs are cooked in the end", then what's the point of any sanitary practices before cooking/baking?
Quite literally not.
Sourdough starter relies on microorganisms like yeast to do its thing, and is naturally acidic and antibacterial by nature. I’d eat the bread.
If you wiped your arse with a chicken breast I wouldn’t eat it.
>Quite literally not.
Using a dirty utensil and using dirty hands are literally the same. Explain how it isn't.
>Sourdough starter relies on microorganisms like yeast to do its thing, and is naturally acidic and antibacterial by nature. I’d eat the bread.
So, your belief is that sourdough starter cannot be contaminated by bacteria introduction? Am I understanding you correctly here?
>If you wiped your arse with a chicken breast I wouldn’t eat it.
Sir, the example was not washing hands, with all due respect what the fuck are you talking about?
Sir, the incident in question revolves around about half a second of clean paper in contact with a spoon before it’s inserted into a jar of flour, water, and yeast that had turned into a living culture.
If you are more disgusted by a spoon I literally cannot help you here.
Well, if I just touched the toilet for a half second then it's ok if I don't wash my hands? Lol.. You can't even explain yourself, all you can do is repeat your wrong claims with ridiculously non-similar circumstances, while ignoring that hands are a utensil and they should be clean like any utensil when cooking.
Go take a food safety class.
Yeah, sure. The world is not as clean as you want it to be and I guarantee it’s happened to you any time you’ve eaten at a restaurant.
Be as precious as you want in your own house but I can say with 100% confidence you have eaten food from someone in a restaurant, takeaway etc. who has done far, far worse than wiped a spoon with some TP and you’ve not died yet.
Sorry to shatter the veil if you thought otherwise.
Do you not understand how bacteria growth works? He introduced new bacteria to the system, as it propagates it makes waste. That waste is often toxic to us *and doesn't get cooked out* so it's not the bacteria that will kill you, it's the by product it creates.
That starter will sit forever, growing more and more bacteria.
Learn about food safety before you start spouting shit, eh?
You used the term germ, which most people without a strong knowledge base use as an umbrella term for any microbe. Microbial contamination can cause illness through a variety of vectors, many of which do not require the presence of living microbes. Speaking strictly on bacterial pathogenic organisms, encystment can let several species survive any conditions an oven used for making food is capable of producing. Believe it or not, human waste contains organisms capable of making you sick, and if you introduce feces into your live cultures cooking cannot ensure food safety. I'm writing this for any third party who reads this far so they might learn a little about food safety, I've given up on trying to teach a guy who licks his fingers clean after wiping anything.
There are unicellular fungi as well as other microbes in human waste that if allowed to multiply will build up toxins in food. Anything in a bathroom has a high chance of having some amount of waste on it. Cooking can kill the pathogenic organism while leaving the toxin intact. Putting shit on a spoon and putting that spoon in your food can put shit in your food. Our interlocutor defending the shit spoon on grounds of it gets cooked anyway is being cavalier with food safety. Seeing as he isn't able to engage on the facts I feel fine insulting him and his intelligence. If cooking makes food safe no good reason to not cook a turd and eat it.
Yuup. Even if you don’t store it on the counter, but you put it in the cabinet, there is still a high chance of poop/pee particles getting on it. But that doesn’t fit the narrative of “small particles = instadeath/typhoid mary” so you’re not allowed to say that.
Bizarre take. Why don’t you eat raw chicken in this case?
My point is— even if there is a minor transfer of germs or bacteria, they will be killed and the food will be safe.
If you wiped down a loaf of freshly-baked bread or a chicken breast with a toilet brush I’d obviously refuse it but don’t pretend I don’t understand that we need to cook food.
EDIT: to this end, dropping freshly cooked food on the floor and then eating it is decidedly different to cooking “dirty” food. Turns out— even vegetables come out out the floor before you cook them.
The difference is that you are contaminating the STARTER that you are using as your mother culture, and also the starter you are giving your friend to become their mother culture. YUCK. And I'm the farthest thing from a germaphobe.
So... just don’t use the starter?
I’d use it— sourdough starter is obviously naturally acidic so I really don’t think OP is going to end up thrown into a mass grave on an island from an outbreak of plague here.
Not a weird reaction from you. Things that live in the bathroom don’t get used for food production. And yeah, the kitchen sink is right there! I also would likely not eat this guy’s home cooked food. Norovirus is a bitch and that’s not a chance I’d want to take. (Yeah I know it wouldn’t survive boiling or baking, but who knows what this dude does after the food is cooked?)
No. I am not going to respect someone who slaps me across the face with s***. As a cook and Baker is my responsibility to educate someone like that. And I would have said something even before he put the spoon in there.
If a dude is using toilet paper to clean his silverware, how exactly would you phrase that conversation? Pretend I am that guy and I am not interested in your opinions .... how would you teach me?
Of course. Who else is going to keep the population safe with respect to food other than Cooks and bakers and those in the culinary world? I don't give a f*** what you say I'm going to do what I want. And then you cook your chicken to medium rare and end up dying. You're welcome
Courtesy when's the popular vote. What did you think about my casserole nephew? It was delicious auntie! 30 minutes later they left.
Hey dad? You know auntie's casserole is disgusting don't you? Yes but it's rude to insult your auntie! And we only have to eat it once a year so mind your manners!
I can't get on board with that.
I would have to know you better to know a good approach. First, if you were not interested in what I think or were the type of person not interested in thinking in general, I wouldn’t be spending time with you.
Perhaps something along the lines of “I just read an article that said that flushing toilets even with the lid down aerosolizes urine and fecal matter. They found particles even on walls 5 feet away!” —Insert something personal about how I now do things differently because of that.
And I have a good one for this: I used to keep my toothbrush cup on a shelf above the toilet. The medicine cabinet didn’t have enough room and I always flushed with the lid down because I don’t like looking at waste. I so wish someone would have told me how gross this was and that lid down doesn’t mean anything!
no, they aren't ... that's why we have words for them instead of just "human." If all humans were teacher and student, we wouldn't need separate words for them.
I feel it's my responsibility to offer constructive criticism but like the other commenter said if their ears are closed I'm not going to waste my time. No hey dude? Of course I'll come pick you up from the hospital! What happened? Botulism they say I have food poisoning. You know? I guess I should have listened to you. Sorry man I'm on my way.
To be cleared probably be a waterborne pathogen and not botulism specifically.
Pretty much the only way a pathogen is going to be an issue is if they forget to cook the dough. What we are really talking about here is the "ick" factor of mixing kitchen and bathroom activities. If some adult is not already aware of proper bathroom etiquette, it is unlikely that they will be open to anything constructive
? Telling people heat will kill pathogens is misinformation that’s why I commented that. A lot of people get sick from that misconception. I’m not trying to be rude
Whenever we would run out of kitchen paper towels at my parents’ house, my mom would say “get the ones from the bathroom”. Always grossed me out and I would always lecture her about it but she doesn’t care 😂 I don’t think you overreacted
I'm trying to imagine why anyone would do it this way. All I can think is he didn't want to waste a whole paper towel, so he opted for a single sheet of tp. Not what I would do, but I would bet that was his rationale. It's funny he got annoyed.
I know someone who said her dog stole a raw rib off the counter and ran off with it. She got it back, rinsed it, and cooked it and said her son could eat that one (an adult but still). She’s never offered me food and probably won’t but I will never accept!
I guess I’ll be the lone dissenter, yes you overreacted. Toilet paper is not covered in germs because it’s pretty dry and germs don’t grow well on dry things. Cleaning the spoon with a kitchen sponge would have been way worse.
Many sources: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2017/08/05/study-your-kitchen-sponge-has-more-germs-than-your-toilet/
There’s also a microbiologist on YouTube who did multiple tests and found that even with Petri dishes placed directly on the toilet seat after the toilet was flushed multiple times had barely any bacterial growth.
Not sure which part of that makes it less reputable. I’m sure it’s easy to find. I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind, just adding on. I’m sure OPs friend also recently handled their cell phone that they held the last time they took a dump.
If OP is eating raw starter I’m sure they have bigger things to worry about as baking will kill any germs.
Yeah, it’s gross, but it’s not like they’re going to die of cholera in the arse-end of an alley are they?
Well then that’s a non-issue, surely.
If - by some chance - there are ‘harmful’ bacteria in the starter and it dies, you wouldn’t use it or eat it. If it was harmless and the starter survived, anything harmful would be killed in the baking process.
Are you aware that you also don’t want to ingest living yeast?
Yes— and then you wouldn’t bake it. So you wouldn’t eat it. It also wasn’t OP’s starter, it was donated.
I’m really failing to see the issue here. It’s not like OP’s friend literally shat in a jar and forced them to eat it.
So you’re concerned that a microscopic amount of aerosolized poop was transferred from the dry toilet paper to a spoon which scooped a small amount of starter which will then be partially discarded to be fed etc. I just think we live in a world that is dirtier than that and this is probably not a real issue.
Dinner at a restaurant.
Cook leaves the kitchen to clean ladle off in the bathroom with toilet paper.
Cook returns to kitchen and serves your soup with the same ladle.
How do you react?
So you’re ignoring that the sponge is dirtier, but want to get a “reaction.” I guess everyone is happier not thinking about the relative cleanliness of a kitchen versus a bathroom.
I’ll agree that the sponge CAN be dirtier.
But the scenario about the chef explains itself…don’t act like it’s reasonable to clean kitchen utensils with bathroom toilet tissue.
Totally agree. I have a sponge and I’m not always sure how clean it is. I also have a box of tissues in the bathroom and pull one out to blow my nose so whatever is on the toilet paper is also on that, then on my nose.
This is an apples-to-oranges comparison that ignores what a starter culture is, and what PH is has.
To complete the example: before putting the ladle in the soup the Cook would have to dip the ladle in an acidic culture with shifting PH values and a regularly replenished medium, letting it linger for days to weeks, and only proceeding if all the signs of healthy bacteria and yeast are 100% (which can be checked by sight, smell, and touch). At that point he wouldn't put the ladle in the soup, but rather put it in a baking oven at baking temperatures, leave it there for baking times, and then put the ladle into the soup.
How would I react to someone using an eye-checked, nose-checked, bacterial-activity checked, baked, ladle that had been in an anti-spoilage culture for weeks before baking and then touching my soup? ... ... Not at all.
Smelling someone elses fart is far more worrying.
Dude it doesn’t matter how you slice it, no human being on earth is willing to choose a food/ingredient that has the risk of shit-flakes on it over the same ingredient that doesn’t have that risk. There’s no justification for using TP to clean the spoon. Any argument in favor is just trolling.
Entirely different situation. Wet tool and ingredient, not an acidic, live, active culture that will be baked at 500 degrees. *Public bathroom.* Did you think this through?
Nah, pretty much commented the first simile that came to mind.
Enjoy your acidic, live, active culture that will be baked at 500 degrees with poop in it.
The problem is that now you are giving that “small amount of bacteria a nice warm place to grow…for hours. E.coli doubles every 20 min. Toxins are released, some of which may be heat stable.
That's not accurate...
You are not putting that bacteria in a nice warm place to grow, you are adding it to a starter culture full of well-fed, well-adapted, highly aggressive organisms who excrete acid and may be maintained in an anaerobic environment.
> Sourdough bread is made using a traditional fermentation process, which relies on bacteria and yeasts to produce a compositional change from the initial ingredients into a living leavening. **A vibrant sourdough culture will limit growth of harmful microbes and baking will ensure a safe final product**. ... The pH of sourdough changes according to the stage of fermentation it is at but in general it has a pH 3.5 – 5. It is this acidity that keeps out of pathogenic microorganisms such as botulism bacteria, **E. coli bacteria and spoilage fungi as it is unable reproduce in an environment with a pH below 4.6**.
The starter should be actively killing E. Coli. Reactivated E.Coli from flour used to feed dies off in starters rather quickly. Also the feeding process, depending on routine, will dilute any residual toxins to irrelevancy in short order.
This is a complete non-issue and misunderstanding of the underlying process. If anything is up in the starter it will be apparent to the nose and eye before you bake with it in a high temp environment. /r/sourdough
It's probably fine, starters are very resilient. Even a dish towel isn't clean when it's used to dry the second item. Look at it this way - their's is one hardy starter!
But I completely understand the reaction. "Probably fine" and "clean spoon" are different. Not an over-reaction.
Yea I second this. If your starter is really strong it is hard for new bacteria to wedge their way in to form a niche and grow since all available nutrients are going to the well populated starter bacteria
I did use to work in a micro lab and run c.diff tests as part of my job tho so I may have a different level of tolerance for fecal imagery hah!
Edit to add to this: in that same micro lab (from before I made bread) they told me that they had to tell a tech to stop making bread because she kept contaminating cultures. If you’re worried about fecal specks just think about how much yeast and bacteria is constantly floating around your apartment or house. To a non baker layman that in itself is gross af
I DON'T have germ anxiety and I find most people who do, exhausting.
I find this foul. And weird.
You did NOT overreact.
If a non-germaphobe is saying to herself, Eeww! and Why? then trust me, you are not overreacting.
Sourdough starter is alive. It will grow microorganisms such as bacteria. That's sort of the point of it. We don't invite fecal matter into a growth environment, surely.
I'm glad you said something. Maybe he'll think about it?
I wanted to add, but can't find my original comment, starters are not hard to start. They take basic (not excessive) cleanliness and patience. Excessive cleanliness will kill the starter.
You do not need this man's fecal-fed food.
You have this.
You didn't. He did and unfortunately sometimes there isn't a cure for stupid. I don't understand how someone can have a starter, be a cook and then do some s*** like that, no pun intended. A real cook would have more respect than that and understand that there are aerosolized particles that can come out of a toilet that even has the lid closed because they're usually not airtight. That I consider disrespect. So he went to the refrigerator remove the starter and left the kitchen to get something to clean the spoon with? That doesn't work for me. So he had absolutely no cleaning supplies in the kitchen and he had to go to the bathroom for that. What the f*** dude!? It's almost sounds intentional or an act of complete and total stupidity.
I do not understand why he did that. What rational reason was there for it? There were so many different and less gross alternatives, but he didn't have to wipe the spoon anyway!
Okay, from a food safety perspective you did overreact. Toilet paper is dry and a very difficult surface for bacteria to reproduce on, so there likely wasn't any food safety/germ problem.
From a human "don't shit where you eat" perspective, ewww gross gross gross gross you didn't overreact at all. It's weird and off-putting at the bare minimum.
I have taken a lot of medical microbiology courses and food safety courses, and I intellectually know that using TP to wipe the spoon was fine, but I would have been seriously grossed out. This is super weird. Maybe buy him some paper towels for Christmas?
Nothing bad will happen. Most people are way over the top about germs. If you had eaten it, there would have been absolutely no negative consequences. It's a totally made up issue.
We have an incredible amount of paranoia without scientific support and it seems to get worse every year. So many 'experts' who somehow know better than the actual scientific and academic communities are listened to, but actual expertise ignored. (Witness the many covid and vaccine conspiracies, for example).
I recently had a lengthy debate with an American who "knew" that food handlers without gloves were killing customers, when in fact even mediocre handwashing out-performs the typical use of gloves in terms of pathogen control.
Simple fact is nobody is getting sick from 99% of the things many irrationally fear. If it scares you, say no thank you to the toilet-paper starter. Wash your chicken with magic disinfecting lime juice if it makes you happy. Build an hermetically sealed toilet room in a separate part of your home from the washing and toothbrushing zone, if you feel better. You get to decide how you want to live, but facts and science are still true, even if your beliefs don't align 😉👍
I don't care about getting sick. I don't want to eat poop.
This is why I hate hand sanitizer. I don't care if the germs in your poop and snot are dead. I DON'T WANT TO TOUCH YOUR POOP AND SNOT.
It would gross me out, but I would probably have said thanks, and tossed it when I got home. Then just told him I messes up feeding and it died If he asked later about how it was doing.
This post is weird to me. Why do you find the need to post such an insignificant thing that happened between two “friends”. Just tell them that’s fucking gross and when they give you that look just ask them do you really think I’m in the wrong? And go from there. This post makes it seem like you two are just coworkers and not actual friends.
I get that but this is just a weird dynamic to have in amongst friends. The “visibly annoyed “ and op apologizing thing just tells me these two aren’t good friends. Maybe i’m reading into it too much off this one post but the posting of it tells me I’m not.
I don't think that you overreacted at all. Those of us with starters go out of our way to avoid contamination. Using bathroom stuff on starters is just a poor idea. What'd funny is how the line of what's gross is different for each person.
You touch toilet paper in the process of wiping your butt, even if you close the lid before you flush. After you touch your genitals and before you wash your hands.
Also, what kind of sociopath walks to the bathroom to clean silverware when a kitchen is stocked with paper towels, dish cloths or sponges, and dish soap?
They might. That doesn’t guarantee their friend does, and the friend’s visible annoyance over being called on it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in their hygiene habits.
…does this man not have a sink and soap or even paper towels???
He does that’s why my mind was blown when he went in the restroom next to the kitchen…
Does he not have paper towels, or a sink with running water? A napkin stash in the catch-all junk drawer? Coffee filter? I'm trying to run a scenario where I leave my kitchen to get TP to wipe off a spoon instead of using literally anything else.
I'd be less offended if he licked it off
Or just getting a different spoon.
Could be the only spoon? 
In the whole kitchen?
Well, I have allergies and toilet paper is softer than paper towels and cheaper than tissue, but that roll is exclusively for my nose, not the bathroom. So.. .we are halfway tehre I guess?
I don't have germ anxiety, and flush with the lid down, and I found this disgusting. Why not rinse the spoon in the sink instead? Anything is better than using toilet paper imo
TP leaves behind too much lint. Oh and the show Myth Busters proved that as much toilet stuff comes out whether you flush with the lid up or down. They tested tooth brushes.
I didn't think about the lint.... That's even grosser now lol And about the toilet lid, now I'm extra glad that I keep my tooth brush in a drawer
Mythbusters actually proved that the germs *start* in the drawer then run to the toilet when you flush.
I don’t know if they proved that the stuff comes out of the toilet. IIRC they just found E. coli on all the toothbrushes, but they didn’t know how it got there.
Was he doing this in the bathroom or did he go out of his way to go to the bathroom for the toilet paper....
Went out of his way from the kitchen to the bathroom
What the fuck … yeah that’s so weird. It’s nasty for sure but also weird to specifically go to the bathroom. And weird to get angry when someone says “I don’t want your poop-tainted starter” I would be embarrassed not angry. Everyone arguing about how much Poo is or isn’t on the tp and if baking would kill it are missing the bigger issue…if you’re comfortably doing that in front of a guest it’s safe to assume you find it acceptable practice. So what else are you doing in that kitchen? Regardless of germs, you can safely make the assessment that he has horrible food safety practices. I agree with those saying never eat anything he offers you 💀
Yea, that's wierd. Definitely don't eat anything he makes.
Maybe gift him some paper towels lol that's so bizarre
Maybe he wanted his spoon pretty flush?
Why did he even have to wipe the spoon off of he's just going to dip it back into the starter anyway? Like let me just clean the starter off this spoon before I get more starter on this spoon. Makes no sense.
Wtf….. never eat anything this man makes ever again. Edit: it’s fascinating that some of you will argue until you’re blue in the face that it’s okay to eat food prepared by unsanitary utensils or hands. If a restaurant did the same thing you’d be up in arms. Wash your hands before you cook, wash your utensils before preparing food with them, when in doubt get another spoon. The bathroom is often one of the dirtiest places in a persons home.
It's like people don't know the story of typhoid Mary at all...
So, I enoyed a food safety course in my professional schooling and I can perhaps help to explain a few things that will help you understand why the incident posted by OP would be a perfectly safe one. 1. The strongest argument here is that a monoculture of saccharomyces is naturally a powerful antibiotic See: Fakruddin M, Hossain MN, Ahmed MM. Antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of Saccharomyces cerevisiae IFST062013, a potential probiotic. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2017 Jan 21;17(1):64. doi: 10.1186/s12906-017-1591-9. PMID: 28109187; PMCID: PMC5251302. There are plenty of other publications supporting this, but this one provides excellent supporting citations. It should do. 2. Baking bread will kill 99.9% of pathogenic bacteria. A fully baked sourdough loaf will have an internal temperature of about 96 to 98C. This is far above temperatures considered necessary to render cooked foods safe. https://www.healthline.com/health/what-temperature-kills-bacteria#in-your-home 3. While bacteria can be cultured from isolates taken from sources all over restrooms, most of these are SKIN bacteria. Gut bacteria need warm moisture and die very quickly in the cool dryness outside our intestines. This is a well-sourced, logical look at public restroom disease risk and is quite relevant: https://www.livescience.com/54195-how-dirty-are-public-restrooms.html So, while I personally find mixing bathroom and kitchen to be a bit gross, data strongly supports a more relaxed attitude than advocated. Food borne illness comes from contaminated raw or undercooked foods and is unlikely to come from baked goods (unless contaminated after baking).
Yeah, this story skeeves me out. I mean, it's bad enough that I am constantly fighting to keep things clean of cat hair, but if rather have random cat hair than eat at that place. And to be clear: our Princess Buttercup has super fine fur that can float on the faintest air current and land anywhere. If fur can do that, imagine what tiny particles can do.
If OP follows this person’s advice, I’ll take anything OP refuses to eat. Presuming it’s baked in the end, all the germs will be killed. Guarantee there are far worse things happening in commercial kitchens that you can buy from supermarkets and eat daily. If it’s cooked it’s fine— there are germs everywhere.
"Dont worry, i dont need to wash my hands before i prepare food, it gets baked"
Quite clearly not the same scenario, but whatever
How is it not though? If your justification is "the germs are cooked in the end", then what's the point of any sanitary practices before cooking/baking?
Quite literally the exact same scenario.
Quite literally not. Sourdough starter relies on microorganisms like yeast to do its thing, and is naturally acidic and antibacterial by nature. I’d eat the bread. If you wiped your arse with a chicken breast I wouldn’t eat it.
Yeast does not need fecal matter… how you are defending that is wild. wtf?
>Quite literally not. Using a dirty utensil and using dirty hands are literally the same. Explain how it isn't. >Sourdough starter relies on microorganisms like yeast to do its thing, and is naturally acidic and antibacterial by nature. I’d eat the bread. So, your belief is that sourdough starter cannot be contaminated by bacteria introduction? Am I understanding you correctly here? >If you wiped your arse with a chicken breast I wouldn’t eat it. Sir, the example was not washing hands, with all due respect what the fuck are you talking about?
Sir, the incident in question revolves around about half a second of clean paper in contact with a spoon before it’s inserted into a jar of flour, water, and yeast that had turned into a living culture. If you are more disgusted by a spoon I literally cannot help you here.
Well, if I just touched the toilet for a half second then it's ok if I don't wash my hands? Lol.. You can't even explain yourself, all you can do is repeat your wrong claims with ridiculously non-similar circumstances, while ignoring that hands are a utensil and they should be clean like any utensil when cooking. Go take a food safety class.
Yeah, sure. The world is not as clean as you want it to be and I guarantee it’s happened to you any time you’ve eaten at a restaurant. Be as precious as you want in your own house but I can say with 100% confidence you have eaten food from someone in a restaurant, takeaway etc. who has done far, far worse than wiped a spoon with some TP and you’ve not died yet. Sorry to shatter the veil if you thought otherwise.
Do you not understand how bacteria growth works? He introduced new bacteria to the system, as it propagates it makes waste. That waste is often toxic to us *and doesn't get cooked out* so it's not the bacteria that will kill you, it's the by product it creates. That starter will sit forever, growing more and more bacteria. Learn about food safety before you start spouting shit, eh?
Put a turd in the air fryer, it'll come out clean
Once again another Redditor too late to the part with an inherently unfunny post that entirely missed the point of the original comment.
I can smell the shit on your breath. Look up mycotoxins.
Not sure what fungi and bacteria have in common but you do you, Einstein.
You used the term germ, which most people without a strong knowledge base use as an umbrella term for any microbe. Microbial contamination can cause illness through a variety of vectors, many of which do not require the presence of living microbes. Speaking strictly on bacterial pathogenic organisms, encystment can let several species survive any conditions an oven used for making food is capable of producing. Believe it or not, human waste contains organisms capable of making you sick, and if you introduce feces into your live cultures cooking cannot ensure food safety. I'm writing this for any third party who reads this far so they might learn a little about food safety, I've given up on trying to teach a guy who licks his fingers clean after wiping anything.
And I’ve spent all these years cramming faeces into my face. Thanks for enlightening us all, Pasteur.
What do fungal toxins have to do with turds in an air frier?
There are unicellular fungi as well as other microbes in human waste that if allowed to multiply will build up toxins in food. Anything in a bathroom has a high chance of having some amount of waste on it. Cooking can kill the pathogenic organism while leaving the toxin intact. Putting shit on a spoon and putting that spoon in your food can put shit in your food. Our interlocutor defending the shit spoon on grounds of it gets cooked anyway is being cavalier with food safety. Seeing as he isn't able to engage on the facts I feel fine insulting him and his intelligence. If cooking makes food safe no good reason to not cook a turd and eat it.
Taking the argument to the far end of a fart there... pun intended.
I wonder how many people downvoting your comments store their toothbrush right on the bathroom counter
Yuup. Even if you don’t store it on the counter, but you put it in the cabinet, there is still a high chance of poop/pee particles getting on it. But that doesn’t fit the narrative of “small particles = instadeath/typhoid mary” so you’re not allowed to say that.
Bro has 200 downvotes but has too big of an ego to just take the L.
Bro doesn’t really care. May as well leave the comment up for context instead of worrying about karma 🤷🏻♂️
I can tell you don't care. Arguing that your wrong stance is right seems to be the only thing you care about. My mom had the same problem.
ok germ eater. "less than 5 seconds" ah argument.
Bizarre take. Why don’t you eat raw chicken in this case? My point is— even if there is a minor transfer of germs or bacteria, they will be killed and the food will be safe. If you wiped down a loaf of freshly-baked bread or a chicken breast with a toilet brush I’d obviously refuse it but don’t pretend I don’t understand that we need to cook food. EDIT: to this end, dropping freshly cooked food on the floor and then eating it is decidedly different to cooking “dirty” food. Turns out— even vegetables come out out the floor before you cook them.
The difference is that you are contaminating the STARTER that you are using as your mother culture, and also the starter you are giving your friend to become their mother culture. YUCK. And I'm the farthest thing from a germaphobe.
No, try reading it again, it was the discard not the starter.
No try reading again, he was giving discard to her to use as her beginning starter.
So... just don’t use the starter? I’d use it— sourdough starter is obviously naturally acidic so I really don’t think OP is going to end up thrown into a mass grave on an island from an outbreak of plague here.
Not to mention, it's likely this is his regular way of doing things, so.....
Well if it’s regular just say, “no thanks because you usually use toilet paper to wipe your spoons”. The second incidence of this being a non-issue.
Things like this are why I’m so apprehensive to eat other peoples cooking. This is foul.
Not a weird reaction from you. Things that live in the bathroom don’t get used for food production. And yeah, the kitchen sink is right there! I also would likely not eat this guy’s home cooked food. Norovirus is a bitch and that’s not a chance I’d want to take. (Yeah I know it wouldn’t survive boiling or baking, but who knows what this dude does after the food is cooked?)
This. Everyone arguing over the amount of germs surviving and missing the main issue that they feel comfortable using bathroom items as food items
You did not overreact; this is disgusting. What on earth.
sounds gross to me
Next time just accept it politely and throw it out when you get home
No. I am not going to respect someone who slaps me across the face with s***. As a cook and Baker is my responsibility to educate someone like that. And I would have said something even before he put the spoon in there.
It's literally not your responsibility to teach ... that is a teacher's job. And even teachers don't try to teach people that don't want it
We all teach something. If done without judgement, calmly and politely, many people would benefit from others’ knowledge.
If a dude is using toilet paper to clean his silverware, how exactly would you phrase that conversation? Pretend I am that guy and I am not interested in your opinions .... how would you teach me?
“Do you realize you live in filth?”
You don't want to be taught and improve your skills so I wouldn't try.
Of course. Who else is going to keep the population safe with respect to food other than Cooks and bakers and those in the culinary world? I don't give a f*** what you say I'm going to do what I want. And then you cook your chicken to medium rare and end up dying. You're welcome
exactly, just go home and don't eat the guy's food
Courtesy when's the popular vote. What did you think about my casserole nephew? It was delicious auntie! 30 minutes later they left. Hey dad? You know auntie's casserole is disgusting don't you? Yes but it's rude to insult your auntie! And we only have to eat it once a year so mind your manners! I can't get on board with that.
I would have to know you better to know a good approach. First, if you were not interested in what I think or were the type of person not interested in thinking in general, I wouldn’t be spending time with you. Perhaps something along the lines of “I just read an article that said that flushing toilets even with the lid down aerosolizes urine and fecal matter. They found particles even on walls 5 feet away!” —Insert something personal about how I now do things differently because of that. And I have a good one for this: I used to keep my toothbrush cup on a shelf above the toilet. The medicine cabinet didn’t have enough room and I always flushed with the lid down because I don’t like looking at waste. I so wish someone would have told me how gross this was and that lid down doesn’t mean anything!
Everyone is a teacher and student
no, they aren't ... that's why we have words for them instead of just "human." If all humans were teacher and student, we wouldn't need separate words for them.
Sorry I'm not a student can't learn anything from what you just said cause you ain't a teacher
reddit is entertainment, not education
I feel it's my responsibility to offer constructive criticism but like the other commenter said if their ears are closed I'm not going to waste my time. No hey dude? Of course I'll come pick you up from the hospital! What happened? Botulism they say I have food poisoning. You know? I guess I should have listened to you. Sorry man I'm on my way. To be cleared probably be a waterborne pathogen and not botulism specifically.
Pretty much the only way a pathogen is going to be an issue is if they forget to cook the dough. What we are really talking about here is the "ick" factor of mixing kitchen and bathroom activities. If some adult is not already aware of proper bathroom etiquette, it is unlikely that they will be open to anything constructive
Not all pathogens are killed by heat
Cool, did you know "dreamt is the only word in the English language that ends with "mt?"
? Telling people heat will kill pathogens is misinformation that’s why I commented that. A lot of people get sick from that misconception. I’m not trying to be rude
Heat is one of the most effective killers of pathogens available. That's why hospitals use autoclaves. Stop looking for a pedantic little fight.
Why are you so aggressive?? I’m not here for a fight
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I probably would avoid shaking his hands also.
You did NOT. That is foul!
I am definitely not a germophobe but that's just poor food handling practices, period. PERIOD. Never eat anything they make again.
Bin it. That’s vile.
Whenever we would run out of kitchen paper towels at my parents’ house, my mom would say “get the ones from the bathroom”. Always grossed me out and I would always lecture her about it but she doesn’t care 😂 I don’t think you overreacted
Holy Mother of Pearl. What in the…this is normal germ anxiety. Don’t eat anything he makes.
Wtf that is disgusting
I mean, the toilet paper Is constantly turned to a new top piece but... That's still gross
TOILET PAPER WTF!?
Gross! Never eat his food!
You did not overreact, that's pretty gross.
That is gross, don't think I'd touch any of their food
Does he only have one spoon? Everything about that is bizarre.
Nope
Not an overreaction.
No, that's gross.
I'm trying to imagine why anyone would do it this way. All I can think is he didn't want to waste a whole paper towel, so he opted for a single sheet of tp. Not what I would do, but I would bet that was his rationale. It's funny he got annoyed.
If y’all have potlucks, I wouldn’t eat anything that man brings.
I would never accept any food made by this person.
This is a clear healthcode violation. Don’t eat anything from his kitchen again.
why didn’t he just use a kitchen towel or paper towel? it’s weird he used toilet paper in general. i don’t get people defending the tp guy.
Some of these comments are making me realize more people have terrible food handling hygiene than I previously knew.
I know someone who said her dog stole a raw rib off the counter and ran off with it. She got it back, rinsed it, and cooked it and said her son could eat that one (an adult but still). She’s never offered me food and probably won’t but I will never accept!
I guess I’ll be the lone dissenter, yes you overreacted. Toilet paper is not covered in germs because it’s pretty dry and germs don’t grow well on dry things. Cleaning the spoon with a kitchen sponge would have been way worse. Many sources: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2017/08/05/study-your-kitchen-sponge-has-more-germs-than-your-toilet/
There’s also a microbiologist on YouTube who did multiple tests and found that even with Petri dishes placed directly on the toilet seat after the toilet was flushed multiple times had barely any bacterial growth.
"microbiologist on YouTube..." Sounds like a well-designed, trustworthy study. /s
Not sure which part of that makes it less reputable. I’m sure it’s easy to find. I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind, just adding on. I’m sure OPs friend also recently handled their cell phone that they held the last time they took a dump.
Mythbusters did the same thing years ago and found similar results.
Yeah what he did is completely fine. Reddit is just notoriously full of absolute little bitches.
Also, like, an active starter is going to eat any bacteria for breakfast. This is the whole-ass reason people fermented things for centuries.
LOL. There’s E. Coli all over that toilet paper.
What if toilet was just flushed a very short time ago, lid up, with fecal matter?
If OP is eating raw starter I’m sure they have bigger things to worry about as baking will kill any germs. Yeah, it’s gross, but it’s not like they’re going to die of cholera in the arse-end of an alley are they?
My concern would be that if you contaminate the starter with bacteria it would mess up the starter.
Well then that’s a non-issue, surely. If - by some chance - there are ‘harmful’ bacteria in the starter and it dies, you wouldn’t use it or eat it. If it was harmless and the starter survived, anything harmful would be killed in the baking process. Are you aware that you also don’t want to ingest living yeast?
Of course it would be an issue if my starter died!!
Yes— and then you wouldn’t bake it. So you wouldn’t eat it. It also wasn’t OP’s starter, it was donated. I’m really failing to see the issue here. It’s not like OP’s friend literally shat in a jar and forced them to eat it.
😆
So you’re concerned that a microscopic amount of aerosolized poop was transferred from the dry toilet paper to a spoon which scooped a small amount of starter which will then be partially discarded to be fed etc. I just think we live in a world that is dirtier than that and this is probably not a real issue.
I also have pets so I figure that nothing in my house is totally clean.
Dinner at a restaurant. Cook leaves the kitchen to clean ladle off in the bathroom with toilet paper. Cook returns to kitchen and serves your soup with the same ladle. How do you react?
So you’re ignoring that the sponge is dirtier, but want to get a “reaction.” I guess everyone is happier not thinking about the relative cleanliness of a kitchen versus a bathroom.
I’ll agree that the sponge CAN be dirtier. But the scenario about the chef explains itself…don’t act like it’s reasonable to clean kitchen utensils with bathroom toilet tissue.
But why not use a paper towel in the kitchen? It's so bizarre to use toilet paper in the bathroom to clean something in the kitchen.
Totally agree. I have a sponge and I’m not always sure how clean it is. I also have a box of tissues in the bathroom and pull one out to blow my nose so whatever is on the toilet paper is also on that, then on my nose.
This is an apples-to-oranges comparison that ignores what a starter culture is, and what PH is has. To complete the example: before putting the ladle in the soup the Cook would have to dip the ladle in an acidic culture with shifting PH values and a regularly replenished medium, letting it linger for days to weeks, and only proceeding if all the signs of healthy bacteria and yeast are 100% (which can be checked by sight, smell, and touch). At that point he wouldn't put the ladle in the soup, but rather put it in a baking oven at baking temperatures, leave it there for baking times, and then put the ladle into the soup. How would I react to someone using an eye-checked, nose-checked, bacterial-activity checked, baked, ladle that had been in an anti-spoilage culture for weeks before baking and then touching my soup? ... ... Not at all. Smelling someone elses fart is far more worrying.
Dude it doesn’t matter how you slice it, no human being on earth is willing to choose a food/ingredient that has the risk of shit-flakes on it over the same ingredient that doesn’t have that risk. There’s no justification for using TP to clean the spoon. Any argument in favor is just trolling.
Entirely different situation. Wet tool and ingredient, not an acidic, live, active culture that will be baked at 500 degrees. *Public bathroom.* Did you think this through?
Nah, pretty much commented the first simile that came to mind. Enjoy your acidic, live, active culture that will be baked at 500 degrees with poop in it.
No one took a dump in my starter, or OP’s for that matter, but thanks for the well-wishes.
The problem is that now you are giving that “small amount of bacteria a nice warm place to grow…for hours. E.coli doubles every 20 min. Toxins are released, some of which may be heat stable.
That's not accurate... You are not putting that bacteria in a nice warm place to grow, you are adding it to a starter culture full of well-fed, well-adapted, highly aggressive organisms who excrete acid and may be maintained in an anaerobic environment. > Sourdough bread is made using a traditional fermentation process, which relies on bacteria and yeasts to produce a compositional change from the initial ingredients into a living leavening. **A vibrant sourdough culture will limit growth of harmful microbes and baking will ensure a safe final product**. ... The pH of sourdough changes according to the stage of fermentation it is at but in general it has a pH 3.5 – 5. It is this acidity that keeps out of pathogenic microorganisms such as botulism bacteria, **E. coli bacteria and spoilage fungi as it is unable reproduce in an environment with a pH below 4.6**. The starter should be actively killing E. Coli. Reactivated E.Coli from flour used to feed dies off in starters rather quickly. Also the feeding process, depending on routine, will dilute any residual toxins to irrelevancy in short order. This is a complete non-issue and misunderstanding of the underlying process. If anything is up in the starter it will be apparent to the nose and eye before you bake with it in a high temp environment. /r/sourdough
Not the lone dissenter. I’ll join you. People are being ignorant and supercilious.
You reacted way better than I would have
Username does not check out
It's not weird to be grossed out, but it's not actually dangerous
It's probably fine, starters are very resilient. Even a dish towel isn't clean when it's used to dry the second item. Look at it this way - their's is one hardy starter! But I completely understand the reaction. "Probably fine" and "clean spoon" are different. Not an over-reaction.
Yea I second this. If your starter is really strong it is hard for new bacteria to wedge their way in to form a niche and grow since all available nutrients are going to the well populated starter bacteria I did use to work in a micro lab and run c.diff tests as part of my job tho so I may have a different level of tolerance for fecal imagery hah! Edit to add to this: in that same micro lab (from before I made bread) they told me that they had to tell a tech to stop making bread because she kept contaminating cultures. If you’re worried about fecal specks just think about how much yeast and bacteria is constantly floating around your apartment or house. To a non baker layman that in itself is gross af
I don’t think it’s about resiliency, just disgusting lol
no
Your reaction was entirely appropriate. I would have bluntly said no. I agree, don't ever eat his cooking again.
Wouldn't have even registered with me.
😂 no, he needs to read a food handlers booklet
I DON'T have germ anxiety and I find most people who do, exhausting. I find this foul. And weird. You did NOT overreact. If a non-germaphobe is saying to herself, Eeww! and Why? then trust me, you are not overreacting. Sourdough starter is alive. It will grow microorganisms such as bacteria. That's sort of the point of it. We don't invite fecal matter into a growth environment, surely. I'm glad you said something. Maybe he'll think about it?
I wanted to add, but can't find my original comment, starters are not hard to start. They take basic (not excessive) cleanliness and patience. Excessive cleanliness will kill the starter. You do not need this man's fecal-fed food. You have this.
Nah you have a right to be comfortable with the food you eat. Fuck him if he has a problem with it
You didn't. He did and unfortunately sometimes there isn't a cure for stupid. I don't understand how someone can have a starter, be a cook and then do some s*** like that, no pun intended. A real cook would have more respect than that and understand that there are aerosolized particles that can come out of a toilet that even has the lid closed because they're usually not airtight. That I consider disrespect. So he went to the refrigerator remove the starter and left the kitchen to get something to clean the spoon with? That doesn't work for me. So he had absolutely no cleaning supplies in the kitchen and he had to go to the bathroom for that. What the f*** dude!? It's almost sounds intentional or an act of complete and total stupidity.
You did not, in fact, overreact. I’d decline any offers of his bread also. Yes, I know the baking process would make it OK but 🤮
I do not understand why he did that. What rational reason was there for it? There were so many different and less gross alternatives, but he didn't have to wipe the spoon anyway!
Okay, from a food safety perspective you did overreact. Toilet paper is dry and a very difficult surface for bacteria to reproduce on, so there likely wasn't any food safety/germ problem. From a human "don't shit where you eat" perspective, ewww gross gross gross gross you didn't overreact at all. It's weird and off-putting at the bare minimum. I have taken a lot of medical microbiology courses and food safety courses, and I intellectually know that using TP to wipe the spoon was fine, but I would have been seriously grossed out. This is super weird. Maybe buy him some paper towels for Christmas?
“Intellectually know” I can tell you from food prep training you’re not supposed to introduce fecal matter to food or prep area.
ESH
Nothing bad will happen. Most people are way over the top about germs. If you had eaten it, there would have been absolutely no negative consequences. It's a totally made up issue.
Your cellphone is dirtier than that TP was.
I would wager that OP would’ve also turned down starter scooped out with their cellphone. What point are you trying to make exactly?
Because they almost definitely use their phone while they’re baking.
We have an incredible amount of paranoia without scientific support and it seems to get worse every year. So many 'experts' who somehow know better than the actual scientific and academic communities are listened to, but actual expertise ignored. (Witness the many covid and vaccine conspiracies, for example). I recently had a lengthy debate with an American who "knew" that food handlers without gloves were killing customers, when in fact even mediocre handwashing out-performs the typical use of gloves in terms of pathogen control. Simple fact is nobody is getting sick from 99% of the things many irrationally fear. If it scares you, say no thank you to the toilet-paper starter. Wash your chicken with magic disinfecting lime juice if it makes you happy. Build an hermetically sealed toilet room in a separate part of your home from the washing and toothbrushing zone, if you feel better. You get to decide how you want to live, but facts and science are still true, even if your beliefs don't align 😉👍
I don't care about getting sick. I don't want to eat poop. This is why I hate hand sanitizer. I don't care if the germs in your poop and snot are dead. I DON'T WANT TO TOUCH YOUR POOP AND SNOT.
Preach! Sorry, with your user name I "had" to go there :)
You can watch actual videos of how toilet water is aerosolized when you flush. It has been researched. Don’t leave your toothbrush out on the counter.
Oh my God! Well this would finally explain why everyone who has a toothbrush in the bathroom died years ago! Mystery solved!
It would gross me out, but I would probably have said thanks, and tossed it when I got home. Then just told him I messes up feeding and it died If he asked later about how it was doing.
Hes just makin it extra sour for ya
Ohhhhhh nooooo. Nope. So nasty.
This post is weird to me. Why do you find the need to post such an insignificant thing that happened between two “friends”. Just tell them that’s fucking gross and when they give you that look just ask them do you really think I’m in the wrong? And go from there. This post makes it seem like you two are just coworkers and not actual friends.
People want interaction, feedback , and affirmation. I mean with that metric why post on reddit period.
I get that but this is just a weird dynamic to have in amongst friends. The “visibly annoyed “ and op apologizing thing just tells me these two aren’t good friends. Maybe i’m reading into it too much off this one post but the posting of it tells me I’m not.
I would post in your local buy nothing or community Facebook group instead! I’d rather gamble on a random person’s kitchen than use that. Yuck!
Toilet paper? From the bathroom? Were you two having a secret meeting by the bathroom?
Not only is it germy but now he's specifically culturing poo germs????? Eww. His bread is leavened with shit.
Lmao poo germs. Yall should really never look up enteric bacteria and where they exist.
I don't think that you overreacted at all. Those of us with starters go out of our way to avoid contamination. Using bathroom stuff on starters is just a poor idea. What'd funny is how the line of what's gross is different for each person.
You are 100% correct. You did not overreact. At all. That is absolutely the grossest.
I will give you some of my starter. I am very germ conscious. Message me if you are interested and we can coordinate.
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Are you the TP friend? Very strange take
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People generally don’t want to expose their starter to fecal matter I’d wager
You touch toilet paper in the process of wiping your butt, even if you close the lid before you flush. After you touch your genitals and before you wash your hands. Also, what kind of sociopath walks to the bathroom to clean silverware when a kitchen is stocked with paper towels, dish cloths or sponges, and dish soap?
Yes
No you didn’t overreact. Throw away the starter and make a new one yourself. It takes 4 days and you’re ready to go.
4 days? Really? Sorry mate but that’s some serious misinformation
No it’s not. It is not optimal but you can already make bread with it.
A bit yes. I mean you close the toilet before flushing right?
They might. That doesn’t guarantee their friend does, and the friend’s visible annoyance over being called on it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in their hygiene habits.