Posted on 02/14/2006 9:08:30 AM PST by Feiny
12-year-old Jasmine Roberts is a seventh-grade student at Benito Middle School in New Tampa.
When it came time for her to choose a science project, she wondered about the ice in fast food restaurants.
Jasmine Roberts, 7th-grade student: "My hypothesis was that the fast food restaurants’ ice would contain more bacteria that the fast food restaurants’ toilet water."
So Roberts set out to test her hypothesis, selecting five fast food restaurants, within a ten-mile radius of the University of South Florida.
Roberts says at each restaurant she flushed the toilet once, the used sterile gloves to gather samples.
Jasmine Roberts: "Using the sterile beaker I scooped up some water and closed the lid."
Roberts also collected ice from soda fountains inside the five fast food restaurants. She also asked for cups of ice at the same restaurant's drive thru windows.
She tested the samples at a lab at the Moffitt Cancer Center where she volunteers with a USF professor. Roberts says the results did not surprise her.
Jasmine Roberts: "I found that 70-percent of the time, the ice from the fast food restaurant's contain more bacteria than the fast food restaurant's toilet water."
Roberts' graph shows the toilet water, shown in red, had less bacteria in most cases than the ice inside shown in blue, and the ice from drive-through windows shown in green. Roberts' teacher says he wasn't surprised either.
Mark Danish, Honors Science Teacher: "It does concern me and I think with any restaurant you have to think twice about what you may get there."
Roberts says she'll think twice before getting ice at fast food restaurants again.
Her project won the science fair at Benito Middle School, and she hopes to win the top prize at the Hillsborough County Regional Science and Engineering Fair, which starts Tuesday at the USF Sun Dome.
Take a cup of ice that has been sitting and exposed to multiple opening and closing of the ice container lid, not to mention cups scooping out ice cubes, and there should be a difference.
However, if the ice is being made as most fast foods restaurants are wont to do with their current soda/ice making machines, there is something wrong with the water piping to the machine.
Once the water comes out of the faucet, it's exposed to air. Then it's crushed. Some may have dispensers, but they're still exposed to air. I remember them scooping ice out of some container.
I drink toliet water with my lips on the bowl. Would that effect the out come of the test?
The ice machine, which they don't clean often enough. The customers don't see the ice machine, they do see the toilet. Guess which one gets the management attention?
You have more bacteria under your finger nails than fresh water just dispensed into a toilet.
LMAO...
Too bad Dave Balut has no public email at the station. He needs to be freeped.
Yeah, agreed. Anyone that's worked in a restaurant knows how many hands go into ice makers when "no one's looking."
Also, what kind of bacteria is in each? There may be more in the ice, but if what's in the toilet water can cause disintery or the like, then wouldn't that mean that the TW is worse? IDK, I'm not a microbiologist.
Toilet water would have no time to pick up airborne bacteria if she collects it just after a flush brings in fresh water.
Ice cubes are generally manufactured on-site by running a thin film of water over an inclined cold plate. Once the layer of ice is thick enough, the cold plate heats up enough that the ice sheet slides down the incline onto a gird of wires which melt through the ice, cutting it into rectangles.
The "cubes" then sit in a bin until used. Due to the lag time in producing cubes, they have to store them ahead of time, so they are exposed to air for some number of hours.
Obviuosly they are going to have a chance to pick up more airborne bacteria just by length of time exposed to air.
Good post!
Human waste is another matter. It tends to be filled with harmful bacteria. That's why it's OK to fertilize the fields with cow or horse manure, which team with bacteria, but you want to be careful about using human waste.
In places like India and China they do traditionally use human waste to fertilize the fields. But you have to adapt to it, and foreigners are likely to get sick if they eat raw fruit or vegetables for that reason.
So, the question is, what KIND of bacteria? Numbers are less important.
Again, nice post. I should have read on before my initial blathering reply. LOL
And a cup of Yogurt has more bacteria than a cup of raw sewage.
It's not the amount, it's the TYPE.
No wonder science education stinks in this country.
Having said all these things, the human body is remarkable in terms of what it can filter out digestively. It's far worse to have a finger full of bacteria and stick it up your nose for example.
Ding-Ding-Ding!!!!!
We have a winner!!!
LOL!
"No wonder science education stinks in this country."
And ;your point is?
EEWWWW!!!!!! That is REALLY nasty!
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