No one is going to admit it, but research suggests that only 67% of Americans wash their hands before they leave the bathroom. That means everything from the credit card readers in stores to the pump at the gas station is WAY dirtier than you might have imagined.

For those who want to stay healthy, washing your hands is crucial and non-negotiable. Hand sanitizer just won’t cut it (though it’s better than nothing).

While not all microbes cause illness, there are plenty that do – and some can even be deadly. Bacteria and viruses, for example, are completely invisible and can live on all sorts of surfaces that look perfectly clean.

Not convinced? Maybe this elementary school experiment will change your mind.

Jaralee Metcalf and Dayna Robertson performed an eye-opening experiment with students – one that they originally found on the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital website. It’s called “How Clean Are Your Hands?” and, spoiler alert, the answer is “not very.”

Gripe all you want about how valid a classroom experiment is (and plenty of people did), but you can’t escape the truth: your hands are gross. Luckily, plenty of microbiologists were happy to set people straight in the comments and praise the teachers’ lesson.

Here’s a sample of just how much misinformation people are willing to spread (which is even worse when it comes bound up with some bits of truth):

Teachers and students used 5 slices of white bread sealed in separate plastic bags to see just what would grow on them under different conditions.

The first slice was rubbed on a classroom Chromebook that hadn’t been sanitized; the second slice was untouched; the third was handled by all of the students; the fourth was touched by the kids after they washed their hands with soap and water first; the fifth was touched after they used hand sanitizer but not soap. They were all sealed in an air-tight plastic bag.

The results were revolting (but also very cool in an educational sense).

Metcalf told Bored Panda:

“The students were very involved, they usually are with hands-on experiments! Since the results were so shocking, the students and staff have taken a very serious turn toward better hygiene. Students from different classrooms in the entire school have come to our class to look at the moldy bread and learn about handwashing.”

The packaged white bread sold in grocery stores is full of preservatives that allow it to have a long shelf life. That’s part of the reason they had to wait 3-4 weeks to finish the project (although the mold started forming on some of the slices in just a couple of days!).

Here’s what the slice that was rubbed on the Chromebook looked like when all was said and done:

Gross, but not surprising. Items that sit out and are touched by numerous people are bound to be covered in a whole bunch of organisms.

Mold will grow on all bread eventually, but the untouched piece of white bread was mold-free throughout the experiment.

As for the bread touched by a bunch of dirty hands – multicolored fungus was the order of the day!

Who wants a sandwich?

When students washed with soap and water, the bread looked much like the untouched slice, indicating that soap and water were effective in killing off many mold-causing organisms.

Wash your hands!

While health officials have been telling people for years that sanitizer is less effective than soap and water, this really drove it home.

Washing your hands helps stop the spread of all sorts of illnesses, including colds and flus. It also keeps you from transmitting potentially dangerous microbes to other people. PUBLIC health is about all of us.

It doesn’t matter that this was a classroom experiment and the kids involved were 8. The experiment is valid if conducted according to the instructions and has been replicated hundreds of times in classrooms.

Even if you think you’re hearty, washing your hands is something you should do for the common good, regardless of what Internet trolls say in the comments section.

Now go wash your hands (and make sure you sanitize your phone as well!).

You can scroll down below for the original Facebook post outlining the experiment.

Please SHARE this with your friends and family.

Source: Bored Panda, Jaralee Annice Metcalf via Facebook