Are you sure you want that lemon in your drink???

Beware the lemon in your drink. It could make you sick.
When restaurant workers place a lemon wedge on your glass of water, tea, or soda, they are apparently spiking your drink with germs.
A new study by a New Jersey microbiologist found nasty bacteria on two-thirds of the lemons that were tested from 21 restaurants.
"It was gross," said Anne LaGrange Loving, assistant science professor at Passaic County Community College."
Loving decided to do the study after noticing a waitress with dirty fingernails delivering a drink to a table.
"They put lemon in my Diet Coke, I didn't ask for it, and so I decided to do a study."
Loving and her team swabbed for bacteria as soon as drinks hit the table at restaurants all around Paterson, New Jersey.
"You would think they had dipped the lemons in raw meat," she said, referring to the high levels of bacteria that she found.
The swabs of lemon wedges revealed everything from high counts of fecal bacteria to a couple of dozen other microorganisms -- most of which can make you sick. They found bacteria on the rind and on the flesh of the lemons.
Health laws require lemons to be handled with gloves or tongs. But its common practice for waiters and waitresses to simply pop the little lemon wedge onto a drinking glass with their bare hands.
If an employee's hands aren't clean, however, then touching the lemons is likely to contaminate them with bacteria according to Loving.
This is not the first time that Anne Loving has gone looking for bacteria in unusual places. She did a study several years ago and found bacteria on communion cups.
"You'd just have to know me," she laughed. "I'm a germ freak."
But, Loving says, the results of the study point to a significant problem.
"People need to know that the lemons have bacteria on them that can make them sick."