A senior microbiologist has uncovered the unsettling truth about bacterial growth on leftover takeaway pizza, with findings that might change your dining habits forever.
The Pizza Bacteria Experiment
In a viral TikTok video that has amassed over 13,000 views, Nicholas Aicher, a Chicago-based senior quality control analyst, conducted a revealing experiment comparing bacterial presence on freshly purchased pizza versus day-old leftovers.
The researcher, who runs the popular TikTok account @howdirtyis with nearly 500,000 followers, began by sampling a large takeaway pizza divided into cheese and pepperoni sections immediately after purchase.
The following morning, he repeated the sampling process on the leftover slices before transferring all samples to labelled petri dishes placed in an incubator.
Surprising Bacterial Discoveries
After an unspecified incubation period, Aicher returned to examine the petri dishes and made several startling observations. The fresh cheese slice sample appeared 'spotless' with no visible bacterial growth.
However, the fresh pepperoni slice showed significant bacterial growth, challenging common assumptions about food freshness.
Even more surprisingly, when examining the day-old slices, the cheese portion now displayed 'a lil bit of yuck' with visible bacteria, while the older pepperoni slice actually contained less bacteria than its fresh counterpart - a result the microbiologist couldn't explain.
Public Reaction and Food Safety Implications
Despite these stomach-churning revelations, Aicher's followers remained undeterred in their pizza consumption habits. 'I thought it would be fun for people to know all the little nastiness that we don't think about every day,' the researcher commented.
In the video's comment section, one determined viewer wrote: 'I'm still eating it,' while another suggested that pepperoni's high salt content might explain the unusual bacterial behaviour, noting that 'bacteria don't like salt.'
A third commenter questioned: 'Sooo the grease from the pepperoni is what's making bacteria grow? Cause how? And I'm still eating day old pizza out of the box idc.'
This isn't the first time Aicher has tested common food safety myths. In a previous experiment that garnered over a million views, he debunked the five-second rule by demonstrating that food picks up bacteria instantly upon contact with the floor.
His verdict on that occasion was equally blunt: whether food spends five or sixty seconds on the floor, 'it'll be nasty' regardless of timing.
