It's the Ice That Will Kill You!

The Chicago Sun Times has just published an article on the health safety of ice and it's not pretty. More specifically, representatives from the paper obtained samples from 49 establishments (from fast food to five star) and had them analyzed for harmful bacteria at a government lab. The results are a little frightening especially when compared to water from a toilet bowl which was cleaner. (They used a sample of toilet bowl water from the men's room at the Sun Times and found the toilet bowl water had less bacteria than 29 of the ice samples.)

From the Sun Times:

Ice from 11 restaurants or bars had high levels of "total coliform bacteria" -- more than 200 bacteria colonies per milliliter tested. These included:

Applebee's at 7519 S. Cicero

Chipotle Mexican Grill at 10 S. LaSalle
Starbucks at 444 N. Michigan

Asiago Express at 176 N. Wells

Outback Steakhouse at 216 E. Golf Rd. in Schaumburg

Burger King at 6950 S. Pulaski

Caribou Coffee at 3025 N. Clark

Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery at 1 W. Grand

The bar at the Drake Hotel at 140 E. Walton

The bar at the Hyatt Regency Chicago at 151 E. Wacker

The bar at the Sheraton Chicago at 301 E. North Water

To be fair, not all the findings were bad:

*Ten establishments had lower levels of total coliform bacteria -- fewer than 200 colonies per milliliter.
*Nearly all of the ice tested that came from self-serve ice machines had low levels of bacteria or none at all.
*Hotel lobby bars, where ice is often transported by and handled by multiple people, didn't test as well: Three of four bars tested had ice with high levels of bacteria.
* Twenty-eight of the 49 samples showed no bacteria at all.