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Is the lemon slice in your sparkling water safe? This is the question that a New Jersey microbiologist, Anne LaGrange Loving sought to answer after she noticed a waitress with dirty fingernails delivering a drink to the table.

"They put lemon in my Diet Coke, I didn't ask for it, and so I decided to do a study." She said.

Loving is an assistant science professor at Passaic County Community College. After seeing this she decided to conduct a study of lemons being served and the results are less than pleasant -- she found what can best be called nasty bacteria that on 2/3 of the lemons that were served in the 21 restaurants involved in her study.

The drinks were swabbed for bacteria as soon as the drinks hit the table.

"You would think they had dipped the lemons in raw meat," she said, referring to the high levels of bacteria that she found.

The results found everything from high counts of fecal bacteria to a couple of dozen other microorganisms, the majority of which can make you sick. The bacteria were found on the rind and on the flesh of the lemons.

Lemons are to be handled with gloves or tongs. But the healthinspections.com article said that it's common practice for waiters and waitresses to simply pop the little lemon wedge onto a drinking glass with their bare hands.

If this is the case, and an employee's hands aren't clean, then touching the lemons is likely to contaminate them with bacteria.

"People need to know that lemons have bacteria on them that can make them sick." Loving said.

It is also possible that the bacteria were on the lemons prior to arriving at the restaurants and that the lemons are not washed before using.