McHungry?
Looking at the picture of that scrumptious burger you may think so, but think again! The ice in fast food restaurants is apparently dirtier than the toilet water. And I am not talking about your everyday household toilet water. I am talking about fast food restaurant toilet water, which just makes the whole idea a million times nastier. Ok. Where am I getting this from? Some kid from Florida decided to compare the bacteria levels in toilet water of fast food restaurants to the levels in the ice machines in the same restaurants. Finding? The toilet water was cleaner!!! Read all the gorey details here.Granted, scientifically you cannot take such a small sample and generalize it to everywhere. Science schmience, I say. What has science ever done for us? I say it is time to panic! My beloved McDonald's, Dairy Queen, KFC even! Are all my favorite haunts tainted with bacteria-filled ice?!!
Also, if these places can't even keep their ice clean, what the heck is in the burgers? And I don't mean in a Doublemeat Palace kind of way. No longer is it merely a question of wondering if some teenage kid spit in your burger if you ordered the wrong way. Now you also have to worry about drinking the pop. And think of the possibilities of cross-contamination.
Oooh that cross-contamination. No good will ever come from it.
Let me just tell you a little story that one of my nutrition profs shared with our class in first year. This is a true story. It takes place on a plane flying from somewhere in the States to Japan. A flight that is mostly over ocean with nowhere solid to land. Now, what happened? Well, apparently the person who prepared the meals for the passengers on board had a cut on his hand and a Staphylococcus aureus infection of some sort. Cross-contamination occurs and suddenly the evil Staph. aureus is multiplying happily in the lunches of all of the passengers. Symptoms of staph. aureus? Rapid onset projectile vomiting and explosive (picture a proper little old woman professor saying this) diarrhea. NASTY. And, it can take 2 to 3 days to recover. Now, do you even want to imagine what happened to the passengers on this plane with only 1 or 2 bathrooms, everyone on the plane sick as dogs and nowhere to land. No, you do not. Don't even go there. It is too horrific. In the end, sadly enough, the person who prepared the food ended up killing himself because he felt he had disgraced his honour. A very sad ending to a very horrendous event.
Now, tell me we don't have anything to worry about with a) the bacteria in the ice itself and b) cross-contamination issues even if you avoid the ice machine.
When you think about it, you can't eat fast foods because of countless horrors. Fruit and vegetables are covered in pesticides. I have decided that it would be safest for us all to go on an all-cookie diet. I figure there isn't going to be any cross-contamination between my bucket of flour and my vacuum packed bag of choco chips. The all-cookie diet. Definitely the way to go. Oh and you can take this as official. I am a nutritionist you know. One word of caution: Do try to eat some pb cookies and maybe some oatmeal ones too just to make sure you are eating a balanced diet. Ok. I'm done here. For now.
Please note: A special thank you goes out to my dear friend Adrienne (aka Elmira) for bringing this disturbing news to my attention and making this rant possible. Wer I not so directionally challenged, we may never have met.
posted by Dish @ 9:07 PM
4 Comments:
Week long goal of having a blog entry dedicated to me - check.
I feel so special.
Oh dish, reading your blog today takes me back to your chantings of "Serve HOT FOOD HOT; COLD FOOD COLD!"
I have heard you mention s.aureus in a while- I thought you were finally over it!
fantastic!
yuk yuk yuk
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