This is the question!

Now we have the answer coming from researchers at Clemson University. Professor Paul L. Dawson, a food microbiologist at Clemson, was inspired to do the study after watching a repeat of a “Seinfeld” episode in which George Costanza double dips at a funeral and conflicts with his girlfriend’s brother, Timmy, who is aghast at his slovenly way. They end up wrestling over the dip.

Dawson’s students set up three separate dipping tests using volunteers who used wheat crackers and then dipped for three seconds into tablespoons of test dip. In the first test, they dipped the cracker after taking no bites; in the second test, they double dipped three times into the samples; in the third test, they made six double dips in each dip sample, situation often met at parties. The sample dips included sterile water with three different degrees of acidity: salsa, a cheese dip, and chocolate syrup.

Dr. Dawson expected to find “little or no microbial transfer” at the beginning of the study. Surprisingly, he discovered that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the remaining dip. Each cracker picked up between one and two grams of dip, meaning that sporadic double dipping in a cup of dip would transfer at least 100 bacteria from one mouth to another with every bite.

”The way I would put it is, before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don't know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you,” Professor Dawson told the New York Times.

Do you still enjoy double dipping? Guess not…

The study will be published later this year in the Journal of Food Safety.