Mouldy bread experiment

I've wanted to do this for some time. Finally decided the time had come when one evening at the door, Yu told me he didn't need to wash his hands before dinner coz he didn't touch anything. BUT! He touched the railings in lifts, the floor at various parts of our journey home and his shoes, and I don't know what else!

So I told them to wait for me while I dashed into the kitchen to grab some ziplock, washed and dried my hands. We gathered at the dining table, and I took out the last three slices of bread in the pack - one to bua their unwashed hands (ok now go wash with soap and come back!), one to bua their washed hands and one went straight into the bag.

Dirty hands, clean hands, no hands

At the advice of some friends, I bua-ed water on the "dirty hands" slice to hasten mould development which is supposedly slower on factory sliced bread, and on a later day, threw in a new slice bua-ed with their phones. I did the latter right in front of Kai, who was the only one at home then.

You can see that some mould had already formed on "dirty hands" in three days!

The kids came to the desk to look at the bread periodically. Today, there was plenty of mould on "dirty hands", some on "phones" and still none on "clean hands"! So it was time. At dinner time today, I did a little debrief. Kai was largely expressionless but Yang and Yu's face said YUCKS! So glad to hear Yang say that we should wash hands before dinner!

Successful! 

Four became three? Well, I had to throw the "no hands" away earlier this pm coz it was mouldy!! Since "clean hands" was fine, my conclusion is that the bottom slice of the loaf must have been a bit damp in the first place. I'd always thought the bottom brown part looked a bit shiny... Perhaps that means we shouldn't eat that slice!

My control was no control!

Read about an experiment done by a teacher somewhere. They had a slice with hand sanitiser - it went mouldy too! I never like hand sanitiser.. I mean, eat with dead germs on my hands??! :p