Dine out often? It might do you good to look closely at the soy sauce bottles on the tables.
According to Malaysian nutritionist Siin Lin, those unsuspecting bottles of sauces might be the reason some people have upset tummies after eating out.
He took to Facebook to share a photo of a soy sauce bottle with white spots on the inside. Sorry if you have trypophobia.
“The white spots you see on the bottle are colonies. As its name suggests, they are colonies of germs that contain bacteria or mould. Each white spot can contain countless bacteria, can you count how many white dots there are?”
He added that the sometimes when you get diarrhea when you eat out, it might be because the sauce provided by the eatery is contaminated and not the food.
He emphasised that the white spots, contrary to popular belief, are not crystallised salts.
Siin’s post worried netizens but he went on to explain that it was not his intention to make people fearful of having soy sauce when they are out.
Instead, he just wants to encourage people to examine the bottle closely before adding its contents to their food.
“Many restaurants still have good hygiene practices. For example, I went to a small restaurant a few days ago, and while their soy sauce bottles had tiny bumps on the top, when I looked closely, [I realised] they were just salt grains,” he wrote.
He also shared a picture of crystallised salt grains, allowing netizens to compare the difference between bacteria spots and salt. Bacteria spots are round in shape while salt grains have clearer edges, and are generally clear instead of white-tinted.
So the next time you dine out, it wouldn’t harm to spare an extra few seconds to examine the soy sauce bottle. If it appears sus, it’s best to avoid it to spare yourself some agony later on.