It’s been 15 years since little brother Timmy critiqued George Costanza on the sanitary hazards of snack-chip double-dipping.

And now, finally, there’s scientific rigor from Clemson University to give backbone to that germophobic stance:

On average, the students found 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. That means that sporadic double dipping in a cup of dip would transfer at least 50 to 100 bacteria from one mouth to another with every bite…

Professor Dawson said that Timmy was essentially correct. “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.”

I’m almost sure that funding for this research round was provided by The Human Fund.