# Do you eat in the bathroom? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 18, 2003, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820 "2003-06-18T23:59:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![raz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@raz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raz)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2003, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/1 "2003-06-18T23:59:47Z")
Now this may seem like an odd question (and indeed it is), but… Do you eat in the bathroom? I myself do not eat in the bathroom. I find the thought of eating in the bathroom to be quite disgusting. I have on occasion brought a drink into the bathroom with me, but leave it by the sink until I’ve finished my business. Every once in a while, I’ll notice a plate in the bathroom, or maybe a bowl and a spoon. Sometimes I find empty pop cans in the shower. I’m pretty sure it’s my brother, because no one else in my house is that…\*different. \* Once there was a plate lying on the floor right there by the toilet. Ick. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/2 "2003-06-19T00:06:39Z")
When we had a big soaking tub, I occasionally brought a glass of wine while I soaked. But I don’t eat or drink on the throne. That’s just disgusting beyond words. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/3 "2003-06-19T00:15:30Z")
[Funny you should ask…](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=190370) ---
**Author:** ![Padmaraga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@Padmaraga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padmaraga)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/4 "2003-06-19T00:25:20Z")
Eat, no. Drink, yes - while in the tub soaking or in front of the mirror primping, etc. But not, as FairyChatMom, says, on the throne. Seems like too much possibility of cross-contamination. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/5 "2003-06-19T00:27:05Z")
I agree with **FCM** , but I misread your post and I do **read** there. As a matter of fact, if I have to read a trade journal or prepare for a test, some of my best comprehension/retention is while I am on the throne! Sorry for the mini-hijack (trying to quit), but I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this phenomenon and tgo what do you attribute it? Garbage out, knowledge in, or what? Now back to your regularly scheduled post: “I don’t shit where I eat!”, is very popular here in Georgia! I’m sure the opposite is true as well! 😃 Q ---
**Author:** ![TeaRoses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c37758/32.png) [@TeaRoses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeaRoses)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/6 "2003-06-19T00:53:36Z")
If I’m wandering around eating or drinking and I have to go into the bathroom for something that does not involve the toilet (like to get my book) I will eat or drink in there. Does make me feel funny though. ---
**Author:** ![porcupine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac91a4/32.png) [@porcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/porcupine)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/7 "2003-06-19T02:23:49Z")
What **FCM** said, except I generally will only have a glass of water while soaking in the tub. I agree completely that eating while sitting on the throne is disgusting beyond words. BTW, [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=190107)’s a link to a recent pit thread about eating in the bathroom. For anyone that eats on the throne, could you explain why? Are you really that pressed for time? ---
**Author:** ![Geobabe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/geobabe/32/3908_2.png) [@Geobabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geobabe)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/8 "2003-06-19T03:13:17Z")
Ugh, no. Especially not after reading [this column](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990416.html). ---
**Author:** ![LtningBug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/73ab20/32.png) [@LtningBug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LtningBug)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/9 "2003-06-19T04:21:40Z")
Nope. Too much irony. I just couldn’t stand consuming and excreting at the same time, it would just bring to mind how much time I could save if I did neither. That doesn’t really make sense, but I’m ok with that. ---
**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/10 "2003-06-19T05:14:46Z")
Not while going to the bathroom. If I’m getting ready for school ot getting dressed, I will bring a bottle of soda in there, or some cookies or something. Just as long as no actual toilet using is going on. ---
**Author:** ![porcupine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac91a4/32.png) [@porcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/porcupine)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/11 "2003-06-19T05:25:44Z")
But **Geo** , maybe some people like the toilet plume. If it were back-lit correctly, it might add some real ambience to the bathroom. All those pretty, earthy, colors depending on what you ate at your last meal. Better than the lava lamp, even. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/12 "2003-06-19T05:31:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Giraffe \* > \*\*[Funny you should ask…](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=190370) \*\* [Yes, it is a funny question to ask!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=190107) And not “funny ha-ha” either. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/13 "2003-06-19T05:54:16Z")
I have, on occasion. But not often, seems unsanitary. Some guys I knew in high school used to leave campus during their lunch period, get a lunch from Subway or whatever, and hang out eat at one of their homes. One of them always ate his sandwich in the bathroom, on the can. Finally, one of his pals snapped and asked “Why don’t you just throw the sandwich in the toilet and cut out the middleman?” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/14 "2003-06-19T06:12:40Z")
In my house, the toilet and the rest of the bathroom stuff are not in the same room, but even before living here, I don’t think of “the bathroom” and going to bathroom, if you know what I mean. As a girl, I’m in there doing my hair, my nails, looking for Allegra, taking long baths, gathering up the laundry… So the idea of food, and especially morning coffee and “the bathroom” don’t seem gross to me. Surely I’m not the only woman who eats her yogurt while putting on makeup. ---
**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/15 "2003-06-19T07:09:41Z")
This thread reminds me of a brief in the Weekly World News: “Singapore Bathrooms Cleaner Than Ever!”. The angle was that it was a long-standing tradition to eat bag lunches in public restrooms (And No-One [Knows] Why), and that it was safer due to stringent laws that were “recently” passed. [sub]This was right next to the item describing the puzzlement and worry of DX-ing scientists who stumbled upon a propaganda-spouting English-language radio station in China that took an hour-long break from its programming at 3 a.m. to broadcast a woman reciting six-digit numbers in Japanese. “There could be an important code behind the numbers, and that’s what worries us,” so they said.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Daerlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Daerlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daerlyn)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/16 "2003-06-19T10:07:55Z")
For reasons totally unknown to me, there is presently an empty beer bottle on my bathroom counter. I’m guessing my roomate for the question of ‘who?’, but ‘why?’ is completely unfathomable to me. ---
**Author:** ![Casey1505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/17 "2003-06-19T12:14:38Z")
The throne is for emptying the tank, not filling it. ---
**Author:** ![Velma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/85e7bf/32.png) [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/18 "2003-06-19T14:48:56Z")
My husband sometimes drinks a beer while he takes a shower. : shakes head : ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2003, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/19 "2003-06-20T03:53:10Z")
Velma, your husband and I were separated at birth. Especially if he does this after mowing the lawn. Nothing like a hot shower and a cold beer. Being in water and drinking is one of the best feelings there is - tubing with beer, hot tubbing with wine, long bubble bath with the bubbly, laying back in a tide pool drinking frosty orange soda… ---
**Author:** ![lovelyluka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f475e1/32.png) [@lovelyluka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lovelyluka)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2003, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820/20 "2003-06-20T04:10:58Z")
And apparently **j.c.** and I were separated at birth, because every morning I sit on my bathroom counter and do my makeup whilst eating my yogurt for breakfast. I also have a Diet Coke in hand nearly every waking second, and some of those waking seconds are in the bathroom, so… **FairyChatMom** and I have the same idea too; when I read in the bathtub (which might be strange enough in itself) often I’ll take something to drink and some crackers. But on the toilet? Ugh, no. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-eat-in-the-bathroom/182820.md?page=2)