Did you experience drinking beverages from soda fountains in which later you found out that there is a cockroach egg or insect’s leg floating on it? Some of us may have experienced it but maybe others just neglect it and instead they just request for a new drink which come from the same dispenser.
Did you know that most soda fountains from fast food chains contain coliform bacteria which mostly can be found in feces? These fecal bacteria is said to be antibiotic resistant and it can cause gastrointestinal distress or other diseases.
According to a team of microbiologists from Hollins University, they have tested soda beverages from 30 fast food restaurants in a 22-mile area near Roanoke, in southern Virginia. They have acquired 90 beverages of three types and found out that nearly half (48%) of them contained coliform bacteria with 17 percent Chryseobacterium meningosepticum and 11 percent containing Escherichia coli.
The researchers were not sure how these bacteria got inside the soda fountains but they said that it may come from wet rags that is used to clean the dispenser or it may be employees’ dirty hands come into contact with ice that ends up in someone’s drink.
C. meningosepticum is a rod-shaped bacteria which mostly can be found in freshwater, soil, contaminated lipid stock bottles, and tap water which causes meningitis, soft tissue infection, and sepsis. E. coli is another rod-shaped bacterium which can be found in the lower instines of an organism (human or animals) which can cause gastrointestinal infection, urinary tract infection, and meningitis.
Topics: bacteria, beverages, diseases, drinks, fast food, fast food restaurants, food, health, soda fountains
