1. Salt is your friend. 5 molar, 3 molar, 1 molar, there's plenty of options. And if you get bored of the good old NaCl, you could always try calcium or potassium chloride.

2. Bunsen burners are incredibly useful. When using the burner for warming of meals, make sure your plate is touching the blue part of the flame. This is the hottest part and will allow for optimal heating time. If cooking or oven time is needed, use the autoclave.

3. Petri dishes are great places for sides like corn or dressing. However, please make sure to wash once or twice if the dish was previously used for bacterial research.

4. Label all food items using lab tape with your name, type of food, date of creation, date of consumption, and your PI's name.

5. Know which items go in which freezer. Keep the 4 degree, -20 degree, and -86 degree straight. Food stored at -80 degrees or below is good for several years.

6. Keep meticulous notes in your lab notebook about the food you ate, what time you ate it, who you ate it with, method of eating, and calorie content.

7. Make use of electrophoresis. If you find some random food in one of the freezers yet you can't quite remember what it is, no problem! Just run a sample of it on a gel! Every food's got a characteristic band so you should have no problem identifying it. Simply melt the agar afterward and you've got safe, friendly food consumption.

8. Always wear gloves. Always.

9. Lab ice is totally fit for consumption. The people who put the labels on the ice machine have no idea what they're talking about. If you're looking for an especially cold drink, the dry ice adds a nice foggy touch to make things a little classier.

10. Lunch is the best time for making small talk. You know that recent immigrant in the next lab bench over? This is the best time for you to find out if he really can speak English. Plus, you can find out about all the latest lab gossip. Whose mice died last week? Which researchers have been "collaborating" lately? SHE got a paper published in Science?