Student finds toilet water cleaner than ice at fast food restaurants

College Confidential Community
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<p>I apologize in advance if this has been posted before, but I did a quick search and did not find anything.</p>

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New Tampa, Florida - 12-year-old Jasmine Roberts is a seventh-grade student at Benito Middle School in New Tampa.</p>

<p>When it came time for her to choose a science project, she wondered about the ice in fast food restaurants.</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>So Roberts set out to test her hypothesis, selecting five fast food restaurants, within a ten-mile radius of the University of South Florida.</p>

<p>Roberts says at each restaurant she flushed the toilet once, the used sterile gloves to gather samples.</p>

<p>Jasmine Roberts:
"Using the sterile beaker I scooped up some water and closed the lid."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>Roberts says she'll think twice before getting ice at fast food restaurants again.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>UPDATE:
New Tampa 7th grader Jasmine Roberts received first place in a regional science fair for her project. 12-year-old Jasmine compared ice, to toilet water at fast food restaurants, and in most cases, the toilet water was cleaner. Jasmine won 800 hundred dollars for her project.

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<p><a href="http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=25442%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=25442&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Just something to think about the next time you're drinking water at a resataurant.. :P</p>

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<p>Wow, those are extremely interesting results. A little creepy might I add...since I just ate McDonald's today for the first time in a couple months. Yuck..I used ice too.</p>

<p>But still, I think the bacteria in the ice is less harmful than the bacteria from the water in the toilet.</p>

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<p>Ew. that is pretty nasty.</p>

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<p>I never get ice when I get a fountain drink because when you have no ice, you get more to drink. Not only is it economical to stay away from it, I guess it's also healthier.</p>

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<p>Free Refills...</p>

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<p>I do get free refills when I'm at a sitdown restaurant. Then, when I leave, I get one big fat last refill.</p>

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<p>Heh incidentally there are more bacteria in your hands and face than in your butt. I love unusual information.</p>

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<p>I'm not surprised.</p>

<p>There are so many many many many more bacteria on my lips than between my toes (I've actually grown my bacteria on agar plates before, multiples times!)... even after a few hours of sweating.</p>

<p>Wow, it's kinda strange how it's more sanitary to lick my toes than it would be to kiss me on the lips.</p>

<p>But yea, even toilet water uses the cleaned and filtered water that comes from the treatment plant, so unless people leave some nasty streaks or residue when they do the serious bathroom business, you shouldn't have too many bacteria after each flush.</p>

<p>I wouldn't worry too much about the bacteria in the ice. At such a temperature, they lie dormant and can't multiply. Conditions in your stomach aren't ideal for growth either for most bacteria</p>

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<p>I survive entirely on fast food. I don't care what some 12 year old thinks.</p>

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<p>Amen to that! Actually since im veg, just the fries and drinks and salads/yogurts etc but w/e.</p>

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<p>runningncircles1 i do the same thing
cause whenever they put ice in, then its like 75% of the volume of the cup . and then after 5 minutes the drink is so watery</p>

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<p>Eww...and I always order ice water. :( </p>

<p>There was a similar study done a while back about the "5 second rule" that won the IgNobel prize.</p>

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<p>That's one reason why I rarely order drinks at fast food restaurants.</p>

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<p>Lifes too short to worry about stuff like this, eh.</p>

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<p>^ I agree.....and besides toilet water doesnt have that much bacteria</p>

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<p>my drinks always come without ice.</p>

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<p>Somehow this didn't surprise me.</p>

<p>I haven't eaten at a fast food restaurant for awhile. Not that I don't get cravings. I even saw Super Size Me and read Fast Food Nation. SSM was good, furthering the obvious. FFN had some interesting yet disturbing truths. It's just, if the ice is that bad, what about the food?</p>

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<p>I heard somewhere and consequently believed that putting a lemon in your water sucks up a lot of impurities.. am I wrong?</p>

<p>Haha, and some of my waitress friends always made fun of "brown people" (Southest Asian ppl) for always asking to hold off on the ice in their drinks! And then I told them this. And that shut them up. haha</p>

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<p>SSM was about retarded as movies get. If that moron had stuffed himself on Go-Lean or Slim-fast or hydroponically grown tomatoes (given he consumes 5K calories of each like he did in the movie), he would be fat. It doesn't matter that he ate McDonalds orIhop or Outback Steakhouse or whereever. Fact: Eating in excess of 5000 calories/day, and getting no excercise will cause you to gain weight. Duh! People who think that hack did something groundbreaking lack common sense.</p>

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<p>
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I heard somewhere and consequently believed that putting a lemon in your water sucks up a lot of impurities.. am I wrong?

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<p>I'm not sure what a lemon does in water, but I know it does something. A lot of the detox books I've read all say to drink water with lemon in it, so it may have some detoxification props.</p>