Eating in a car will come back to haunt you

Unless you're the type of person who obsessively cleans the steering wheel, gear shift, door handles and other surfaces inside your car with antibacterial wipes, eating in a car can place your health at risk. London's Daily Mail reports that numerous germs associated with food poisoning, skin infection and even vomiting were found in a study by Halfords, a British car accessories retailer. Such bacteria as staphylococcus, bacillus cereus and others can be responsible for officially ruining your day.

Source for this article: Eating in a car is a sure ticket to food poisoning

Eating in a car is a prescription for staph infection

The Mail indicates that staphylococcal infections jump from person to person with ease and lead to the skin condition impetigo, not to mention intestinal illness. Bacillus cereus hide in heating vents and on the floor, waiting for warmth to help their spores propagate. It doesn't take long before a car is infested. And such bacteria tend to thrive on food particles left behind after drivers are eating in a car.

Keep all the contact surfaces of the car interior clean

If auto interior surfaces where drivers and passengers touch aren't cleaned, diarrhea, reverse peristalsis and nausea from food poisoning can be the result. Staph like to congregate where hands go (steering wheel, gear shift, door handles, radio and A/C knobs), while the bacillus cereus sits with the dust and dirt in seats, mats, carpets and vents. Of the infected cars in the Halfords study, 70 percent admitted to eating or drinking in a car, and leaving containers in the vehicle overnight. Fifty percent of the Halfords study subjects only cleaned less than once per month on average, reports the Daily Mail. Halfords recommends car owners clear out their vehicles at least once per week.

Eating in a car is bad, but cooking on an engine is A-OK

How to Do Things reports that cooking such foods as hot dogs on an engine is safer than you think. Simply use a tight double- or triple-wrap of aluminum foil to protect both food and engine. Pop the hood and place the wrapped hot dog on the part of your engine that generates one of the most warmth, but is safely from any wires and lines. This will vary from car to car, so do a hand test sometime and see if you are able to feel where probably the most heat is escaping. Obviously, do not touch the engine with your hand, as doing so will cause a nasty burn.

Find the spot, then secure the food using something like the foil that won't melt away. Make it snug, but not so much the engine overheats. Lower the car hood and hit the road. How long will depend upon car, food and engine. For more info on how to cook hot dogs or a wide variety of other foods, look into the brilliant book "Manifold Destiny".

Additional details at these websites

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1284632/Eating-wheel-puts-risk-food-poisoning.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

http://www.howtodothings.com/automotive/how-to-cook-food-on-your-car-engine

http://books.google.com/books?id=tZIFAAAACAAJ&dq=cooking on your car engine&ei=CwYMR7nrDI--ogLO_oTdDg