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.
Ice Ice Baby
Marvin Zimmler: "Slime in the ice machine!"
One cup of toilet water, please.........and hold the ice.......
So if they don't get it out of the toilet, where are they getting it from?
Clinton: "You might want to put some ice on that..."
My guess is that the ice machine never gets cleaned....and the grubby little hands that work at these places are all over the ice.....
Hmmmmm...... |
My dog is glad to hear this... ;P
What a lunch time read.
Why is there brown stuff on that TP?
Is that you dog? Very cute.
Stampeding, ambulance chasing, lawyers who are thundering to get on this cash cow before it's too late bump for later.
" I always order bottled water...the bubbly kind."
That's her next study!
Comparing toilet water with bottled water.
Wonder which one would be cleaner?
Amount of bacteria is one thing. Type of bacteria is quite a different thing. Some bacteria will cause a problem when ingested by humans, while others won't. It would be useful to see a breakdown of amounts by type.
Don't go all "Sciencey" on me.....I report, you decide.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.