49

Say I go to a restaurant and find a hair in my food. Are there any actual health risks?

Does it make a difference if I:

  • Find it in the dish, remove it, and keep eating
  • Take a bite, find it in my mouth, and remove it
  • Ingest it

This was inspired by a recent news story about a certain authoritarian butthole cosplaying as a food service worker. I did try to look it up (er, search it up?), but the top hits were lengthy meandering articles, or totally off-topic stuff like foods to prevent hair loss. So naturally I gave up and opted to consult the hive mind instead.

all 12 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 54 points 2 months ago

From a technical perspective, yes, there could be health risks from hair in your food. There may be chemicals in the hair from various hair products or there could be bacterial contamination, though that's a low risk unless you're consuming a lot of hair that hadn't been cooked.

In reality, it's unlikely a few hairs are going to cause any sort of issue other than texture/mouth feel.

That being said, Trump's hair could be made from asbestos for all we know. That shit doesn't look natural at all.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Fungal infections as well!

But yes, there is a risk, even if it’s not as bad as unwashed hands or using contaminated equipment (knife on raw chicken to veggies, etc,) or generally unsafe food handling (thawing peas and just letting them sit.)

[-] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 0 points 2 months ago

That'd be more of an issue if you're rubbing that hair onto your skin.

[-] rimu@piefed.social 35 points 2 months ago

It's not so much the hair itself as it being a symptom of god knows what else.

[-] KeepFlying@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago

A lot of food safety laws are built around the highest levels of safety because you never know how vulnerable one of your patrons might be. I have no idea about the actual health impacts but based on that I assume it's another minor vector for foodbourne illness that alone has a really small impact.

I'm more worried about what it means about the rest of the kitchen's cleanliness. Hairnets/hats are easy, so if they can't do that then what else are they forgetting?

[-] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 months ago

It's the "remove all brown m&m's" rider of food service

[-] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 month ago

honestly I think it is less about health or safety and more about the disgust people feel - it really might just be irrational and nothing more

[-] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

Yeah, the ick factor is high.

[-] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 months ago

Nah, it's just the ick factor. Dirty hands can definitely contaminate food but the occasional hair won't. Sure is gross, tho.

[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I doubt it, unless for some reason you eat a large quantity of it.

[-] FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 2 points 2 months ago

Oops all hairs: Sandwich edition.

this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
49 points (100.0% liked)

No Stupid Questions

36055 readers
431 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS