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.
It’s not so much the hair itself as it being a symptom of god knows what else.
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?
It’s the “remove all brown m&m’s” rider of food service
I doubt it, unless for some reason you eat a large quantity of it.
Nah, it’s just the ick factor. Dirty hands can definitely contaminate food but the occasional hair won’t. Sure is gross, tho.
