|
Thursday
February 1, 2001
Fast
Food Trays
Fancy food courts and fast food chains serve-up the
quickest meals in town. Who hasn't dipped a fallen fry
in ketchup or nibbled a nugget directly from the tray?
But before you shovel it in, you should know: those
trays may be carrying more than just food: germs, bacteria,
even fecal organisms. We wanted to know why, so went
undercover to find out.
And the results of our in-depth investigation are well,
disgusting. We found things like dirt, grease, saliva,
skin, and those foul fecal organisms on some trays. Microbiologist
Dr. Margie Morgan examined 20 sterile swabs we used to
test food trays that were "supposed" to be clean. She
says, "There are multiple organisms on all of the plates.
Ninety percent of the food trays grew significant organisms."
We swabbed plastic platters at several shopping malls
and popular fast food chains. Dr. Morgan was so shocked,
she decided to conduct her own little experiment and swabbed
the floor of her own lab! She says, "And you can see there's
fewer organisms on the floor, so it'd be cleaner eating
off our floor than it would be on these food trays."
When we confronted the restaurants, one Jack In The Box
manager didn't want to come clean about the human skin
and filth on his trays. McDonalds was the worst. Trays
we tested at two different McDonalds had fecal material
on them. At Burger King we found lots of bacteria. And
at KFC we found one clean tray but another one had skin,
saliva, and dirt on it.
When we told customers about finding fecal material and
other nasty germs, they weren't too thrilled.
How do you stay safe? Make sure the tray appears clean,
if not demand a new one. If food drops onto the tray,
don't pick it back up and eat it.
Here's the EXTRA info. If you think those paper liners
protect your tray, think again. We found that dirty trays
stacked on clean paper make the paper dirty too.
|
Playground
Safety 