8

In many pubs, bars and clubs peanuts are provided as a convenience.

The saying goes that throughout the night, grubby dudes who don't wash their hands after going to the bathroom come out and taint the peanuts. By the end of the night the peanuts are supposedly infected with several sources of urine.

From snopes:

On 13 July 2005, while a guest on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Johnny Depp stated that a study done on bar peanuts revealed the presence of 27 different types of urine.

(Snopes article does not address peanuts, only mints, and peanuts are still available in many Australian bars and clubs I have been to)

going
  • 18,069
  • 18
  • 86
  • 151
  • 1
    Sounds plausible. But what are we talking about here? According to [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine#Composition): "Urine is an aqueous solution of greater than 95% water, with the remaining constituents, in order of decreasing concentration urea 9.3 g/L, chloride 1.87 g/L, sodium 1.17 g/L, potassium 0.750 g/L, creatinine 0.670 g/L and other dissolved ions, inorganic and organic compounds." –  May 30 '11 at 23:40
  • @boehj: I am not sure what your question is here. Are you saying "Yes, there may be urine but a bit of urine never hurt anyone."? I hope any answers will also address faeces contamination. – Oddthinking May 31 '11 at 00:01
  • @Oddthinking: I mean 'How many μL of this solution does there have to be before we call the nuts (sorry) contaminated? Or are we only looking for some constituent part (e.g. creatinine)?' –  May 31 '11 at 00:07
  • @boehj - Enough for people to be able to say in their average bar up the road - "Don't touch the peanuts, they're covered in piss". The idea is to provide proof to either support or dismiss the claim. I think it's the perception that matters not the quantity. What is a reasonable amount to make this claim? Enough for people to go around saying that it's so. How much is that, I don't know. – going May 31 '11 at 00:34
  • 1
    @xiao - It's a bit like the one that goes, given what we know about atoms, you inhale a carbon atom that was part of the Buddha's vomit every 10th breath (or whatever the case may be). Setting the level will be a little arbitrary here but I think it's needed to proceed with some answers. –  May 31 '11 at 00:47
  • @boehj - Is that really necessary? Can't someone just answer: Yes, there has been study done and on average it was found the was 645μL in your average bowl of peanuts which is not a significant risk to health. I think the benchmark is enough to be a health risk. – going May 31 '11 at 01:09
  • @xiah - Sure, I guess so. It's worth noting that urine is sterile though. –  May 31 '11 at 01:21
  • @boehj, *fresh* urine is sterile... although I imagine the salt on the peanuts would help keep it that way. – Oddthinking May 31 '11 at 02:31
  • 2
    @odd@boehj urine is only sterile when fresh and _still in the bladder_ (and even that's a generalization, really)once it leaves it picks up anything that happens to be hanging out in the urinary tract. The urine that leaves your body is not sterile. Of course that doesn't mean it's guaranteed to spread anything. Especially in tiny amounts, but I'd be interested to know if this has been studied. – Monkey Tuesday May 31 '11 at 02:46
  • @Monkey: First stream urine will wash out nasties in the urethra too. Mid-stream urine is surprisingly clean. NIH discusses it [here](http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/utiadult/#diagnosis) a little. "To find out whether you have a UTI, your doctor will test a sample of urine for pus and bacteria. You will be asked to give a "clean catch" urine sample by washing the genital area and collecting a "midstream" sample of urine in a sterile container. This method of collecting urine helps prevent bacteria around the genital area from getting into the sample and confusing the test results." –  May 31 '11 at 03:06
  • 1
    @boehj Big difference there between sterile and "surprisingly clean". – Monkey Tuesday May 31 '11 at 03:27
  • @Monkey: I agree. And don't get me wrong, I don't want to eat piss covered peanuts if I can avoid it. All I'm trying to do here is work out how one would go about answering this question. We need to know what 'urine' is for a start. We need to know if we're talking about a health risk (as in the comments) or whether we're talking about mere presence of the stuff (as in the question). Are we talking about urine, the sterile solution? Are we talking about urine, the type with *Chlamydia* in it? I'm quite confused. Sorry. –  May 31 '11 at 03:49
  • 1
    @boehj - I think your reading too much into it. When someone asks 'Is carbonated water unhealthy' for example. We don't have to define carbonated in terms of mg/L or whatever, just enough for it to be understood that it is present in 'significant' levels. Defining that level doesn't help solve misconceptions. Only pointing out that a belief is unnecessary regardless of the level is all that is required. – going May 31 '11 at 03:52
  • @xiao: OK, no problems. I'm interested to see how this one pans out. –  May 31 '11 at 04:02
  • @boehj I think we were pretty much just quibbling over the use of the word "sterile". You raise good questions, and are correct that many answers may hinge on the interpretations of the word sterile, as our little exchange would illustrate. However, the sterility of the urine is a side issue, the real question just involves whether or not it is spread to common bar food by people who fail to wash hands. – Monkey Tuesday May 31 '11 at 04:13
  • 2
    @Monkey: I think we were quibbling over peanuts. Ba-doom-tish. –  May 31 '11 at 04:56
  • 2
    Why shall bar guests touch peanuts, without eating them? – user unknown May 31 '11 at 05:04
  • @boehj +1 nicely said – Monkey Tuesday May 31 '11 at 05:12
  • Isn't anyone going to mention the dangers of eating lots of salty, oily snacks, even if they are free of bacteria? – Oddthinking May 31 '11 at 09:09
  • 1
    I was just thinking of all the other nasty substances that could exist on the peanuts apart from urine. I imagine that some people even defecate without washing their hands and then proceed to eat the peanuts. Not to mention people who have some other germs on their hands, completely unrelated to the use of the lavatory. I'd be more worried about the guy who has rotavirus without any symptoms yet, than a little bit of urine. – Kibbee May 31 '11 at 14:20
  • Wasnt Depp a bar/club owner at that time (viper club or so?). Maybe that was his excuse of not serving peanuts (no idea if he did or not). – lalala Feb 09 '21 at 12:35

3 Answers3

8

I can't find any evidence of a study done on peanuts, however here are some other interesting articles that appear to have research to back them up:

So the answer to my question is likely that wherever peoples hands go so goes bacteria.

It also appears there is no study on nuts in bars, so hopefully people can stop saying "a study was done a few years ago on peanuts in bars and... blah".

going
  • 18,069
  • 18
  • 86
  • 151
  • Srry, didn't want to answer my own Q, but after discussion with @boehj above, just wanted to clarify what I was asking. – going May 31 '11 at 01:38
  • 2
    so nice to notice "studies" talking about things that occur naturally as a pollutant. E-Coli especially is everywhere, in thousands of varieties. That includes faecal matter. So anything having any strain of E-Coli in it can be said (and by such alarmist articles is said) to be "polluted by faecal bacteria". – jwenting May 31 '11 at 05:27
  • Read the fast food ice article. How are people's fudgey hands getting in those ice machines? Yuck! I'm thinking bottled water from now on... – Captain Claptrap May 31 '11 at 18:48
5

According to the man in the video there are no harmful 'poo' bacteria to be found on bar snacks.

The hypothesis is that the salt on the bar snaxxx are hostile to the bacteria.

http://health.discovery.com/videos/dr-know-bar-snacks-and-bacteria.html

ʍǝɥʇɐɯ
  • 741
  • 3
  • 8
2

According to Fines and Probation for Peanut Problems FDA Consumer, Volume 24, Number 7, September 1990, page 43:

A Suffolk, Va., warehouse company and its president were ordered in March to pay thousands of dollars in fines, serve probation, and hire a sanitation engineer after FDA investigators found peanuts held in a storage contaminated by human urine...The contamination by human urine is one of only two or three of such incidence documented in the past 14 years

Basically, employees were urinating on bulk bags of peanuts in the warehouses.

The urine "penetrated several burlap bags in three of the warehouses"

DavePhD
  • 103,432
  • 24
  • 436
  • 464