Chinese fast-food ice 'dirtier than toilet water'
Beijing franchises of McDonald's, KFC and Shanghai-based fast-food restaurant Kungfu used ice that contain up to 19 times the amount of bacteria than the acceptable limit for drinking water, reported China Central Television.
The amount of
bacteria in ice cubes used in carbonated beverages
at one KFC location was reportedly found to be 13 times higher than in toilet water in a lab test.
According to The Wall Street Journal,
following the CCTV report, which aired Saturday. McDonald's and Kungfu announced investigations into the matter.
Experts told CCTV that dirty ice machines, poor awareness of food safety and sub-par sterilization routines contributed to the high amounts of bacteria in the ice.
Ding Ke, an associate professor of food science at Beijing University, said that these levels of bacteria
could lead to dangerous diseases such as dysentery
in people who consume contaminated ice, according to Shanghai Daily.
This is not the first time ice in fast-food chains has come under scrutiny for bacterial content. In 2006, a sixth-grade student tested
ice collected from south Florida fast-food restaurants
as part of a school science project. Shockingly, she found that "70 percent of the time, ice from ... [the] restaurants were dirtier than toilet water," Good Morning America reported at the time.