Chances are, during Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, or for a barbecue, you’ve found use for a disposable aluminum cooking pan.
However, as a TikToker recently revealed, you might want to rethink using one—or at least give it a good washing before you start.
The video covering the state of those pans is from the @howdirtyis account, in which the creator swabs various items, places the swabbed sample in a Petri dish, and sees what grows.
The cooking pan swab video comes in response to a viewer’s request in the comments of a previous video, which reads, “Please do aluminum pans ( ex: lasagna pans) that sit out at the store with no cover just the little sticker.” The clip brought more than 103,000 views to the TikTok channel in just a day since going up Tuesday.
@howdirtyis Replying to @maryc0909 How dirty is an aluminum cooking pan? #cooking #cookinghacks #cookingtiktok #bbq #bbqtiktok #science #germ #sciencebiatch #gross #nasty #howdirtyis #dirty #interesting #bacteria #sciencetok #cool #fyp #clean #foryou #micro #curious #サイエンス #科学 #実験 #バクテリア #funfact #facts #fact #germs #interestingfact #interestingfacts #amazingfact #amazingfacts #amazing #randomfacts #randomfact #randomfactsforyou #factstime #dailyfact #funfacts #factoftheday #funfactoftheday #bio #biology #biomed #lab #labwork #laboratorio #biologia #microbiologia #scitok #ScienceTok #scienceismagic #scienceiscool #sciencefair #foreigngerms #germsquad #mygerms #viral #bacterial #bacterialcontamination #petriedish #バクテリア #サイエンス #科学 #実験 #面白い #面白い動画 #viral #viralvideo #viraltiktok #trending #trendingvideo #trendingtiktok #세균 #stem #stem #stemfeed #STEMfeed #cleantok #longervideos ♬ What Was I Made For? [From The Motion Picture “Barbie”] – Billie Eilish
In it, the creator gives an aluminum cooking pan displayed on a store shelf a good swabbing, runs it through the test, and it comes back with some serious growth. It’s soundtracked to “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish from the Barbie soundtrack; what it’s made for appears to be some roll-the-dice cooking.
As the creator observes via on-screen caption, “BBQ season beware!”
Commenters had varied reactions to the growth that resulted from the aluminum cooking pan swab.
“This is why I wash my pan before use,” said one, hopefully capturing the sentiments of many.
“Who doesn’t wash a foil pan or dish before use?” someone else wondered.
“Wait! People don’t wash those before use?” another asked.
Apparently not; one person confessed, “Omg my sister removes the sticker and put her chicken and or ribs right in the pan I’ve seen her.”
Another chimed in, “Same,” with a facepalm emoji.
Someone, even more suspicious about using aluminum pans altogether, inquired, “I still have yet to figure out why people use these pans for standard cooking anyways.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to the creator via TikTok comment.
