I Would Like to Know Who Has Been Using Soda Fountains as Toilets
Do yourself a favor, and go for the bottle.
In case you haven’t hear the latest scary food news, a small study in the Roanoke, VA area found e coli bacteria in half of the 30 soda machines tested. Worse yet, most of the bacteria was found to be resistant to the antibiotics used to treat it.
It doesn’t appear that the bacteria was in the water or soda filling the machines, so best guess is that it was growing in the plastic dispensing tubes.
Although there haven’t been any outbreaks of e coli driven illness in the area, this story makes a good case for springing for the extra expense of purchasing bottled drinks instead of fountain beverages.
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7 Responses to “I Would Like to Know Who Has Been Using Soda Fountains as Toilets”
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Those bacteria are persistent buggers aren’t they.
How do you know the bottling plants are any cleaner? Who knows what goes on behind closed doors. Your best bet is still good old water — filtered of course!
I suppose you’re right, but my guess is that bottling plants have periodic checks for bacteria. Also, I’m sure there’s a regular cleaning schedule, unlike the soda fountains.
I have to be a little suspicious about any packaging facility in light of what happened last year at a number of peanut packaging plants!
You’re right. But by that logic one would be suspect of any food other than that which has been grown in your own yard and processed in your own kitchen. We all need to take a few calculated risks, I suppose, unless we choose to return to the 1800′s!
When I was studying biology in college the adjective used to describe E. Coli was ubiquitous which means existing or being everywhere, esp. at the same time; omnipresent. Most people have E. Coli living within their intestines and E. Coli aids in their digestive process. Some strains of E. Coli can make people very sick but most strains do us no harm.
That being said I don’t think we should worry about this study. In fact I am more concerned with the prevalence of antibiotics in our food and water which allow resistent strains of bacteria to develop. Our immune systems get stronger with exposure to natural bacteria but if we kill most of the bacteria around us our immune systems will not develop as well. This means we would be more dependent on antibiotics for which bacteria are becoming resistent.
I share your concern. Similarly, as I understand it we walk around with staph bacteria, dangerous to many, but omnipresent and harmless to most.