"I'll have a glass of your toilet water. Hold the ice, please."

[Stinky The Clown]

I heard an interesting report on our local newzradio (DC's WTOP). They did a survey of some local restaurants and fast food joints. They took samples of water from the toilet bowl in the public restrooms and a sample of ice.

The toilet water was essentially pure and germ-free. The ice, when melted ..... not so much. Every ice sample had at least a trace of e coli. None of the ice was so bad as to cause illness in anyone, but the e coli was there.

Interesting, huh?

This doesn't surprise me at all. The toilets fill from fresh, pure municipal water and the flushers do a good job of ... well ... flushing. But icemakers and bins require human intervention to make them clean. The worst is the very bottom of the ice bin. Unless the bin is emptied, the ice down there has been around since the Mesosoic Era. Even though it is ice and cold, bugs can still grow. The water gives them the sustenance they need.

Ice, anyone?

[NMDemDist2]

1. Phx AAR carried the same report. I know how nasty the soda dispensers

get without regular maintenence and an ice tea dispenser can get too

:scared:

which is why I usually carry my own water from my home delivered bottles.

[Warpy]

2. Not surprising

since that ice scoop rarely gets washed and all it takes is one slob who didn't wash his/her hands as s/he exited the bathroom to contaminate the scoop and then the ice (the scoop being left inside). The toilet bowl is scrubbed with disinfectant at least once a day. The ice scoop? Not unless somebody drops it on the floor, and often not even then. It's just given a quick wipe, sometimes with a contaminated rag, and put back into the bin.

E. coli is a mesophilic bacterium, which means it grows best at body temperature, but that has a pretty wide range. It can grow v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y at a temperature just above freezing if it has anything to grow on, and the mist of cooking oil in any restaurant kitchen will provide that.

I've always specified "no ice" when I order a cool drink. You get more of what you want to drink and it doesn't get watered down when you're down to the bottom of the glass if you refuse the ice. Now there is another reason.

One of the reasons I learned to cook was a brief and abortive career in restaurant work in a "nice" restaurant. Knowing what goes on in a commercial kitchen is a great inducement to avoiding food prepared there.

[Dora]

3. good, now I feel justified in asking for water w/out ice

iced water is just too damn cold for me to drink and leaves too much sweat on the table.

/pickiness