すべりどめ塗り箸の使いやすさと衛生

抄録

Non-slippery chopsticks were invented to smoothly handle slippery food. They are said to hold food firmly, because their tips are painted so as to make a wavy concavo-convex shape on the surface. Non-slippery chopsticks are now on the market and used more widely than ordinary ones. However, few scientific studies have been made about their usability and hygiene.
In this experiment, we compared non-slippery chopsticks with ordinary chopsticks to find out how effective and sanitary the non-slippery chopsticks are. Our findings are as follows:
(1) In terms of appearance, the non-slippery chopsticks were inferior to the ordinary ones, since they looked dirtier because of the pigments on the tip.
(2) The refuse was more easily attached to the non-slippery chopsticks during and after the experiment.
(3) The non-slippery chopsticks made our subjects feel uncomfortable when touched their tounge, mouth, or teeth.
(4) The non-slippery chopsticks were more effective than the ordinary ones when used to pick up, carry (up and down and side by side), collect, and handle boiled eggs and beans. However, they were less effective when used to hold eggs while swinging and to cut them off.
In sum, the non-slippery chopsticks were effective to handle konnyaku, boiled eggs, and boiled beans, but not to deal with rice.
(5) After washing the used chopsticks, we kept their tips in the agar to observe the growth of bacteria.
After washing the chopsticks with detergent and then cleaning them with running water, we observed growing bacteria on the non-slippery chopsticks but not on the ordinary ones. It is necessary therefore to wash non-slippery chopsticks twice as carefully as we wash ordinary ones.