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How do you take your iced coffee ? For some people in the United Kingdom , an investigative report from the BBC has sparked concerns that the drink may come with an undesirable attention deficit disorder - in : a flair of fecal bacteria .
A smallBBC investigation foundthat iced coffees from several coffee chains , including Starbucks , were pollute with bacteria from a grouping with an icky - sounding name : faecal coliform .
In the investigation , surreptitious researcher ( posing as customers ) tested ice in iced coffee from 10 stores of each of three coffee chains : Starbucks , Caffe Nero and Costa Coffee . Three out of 10 ice samples from both Starbucks and Caffe Nero contained the bacteria , and seven out of 10 methamphetamine hydrochloride sample from Costa Coffee were pollute with fecal coliform , the BBC reported today ( June 28 ) . [ 9 Disgusting thing the FDA Allows in Your Food ]
The sample sizing was very little , and all three java chains tell the BBC that they are look into the trouble .
But do the findings of this probe think of there ’s actuallypoop in your iced coffee ?
Simply put , no — these findings do n’t mean there are feces in your iced coffee , said Ben Chapman , a food for thought safety specialist and an associate professor at North Carolina State University .
" faecal coliform " is a large group of bacteria that , yes , can be happen in feces . But these bacteria are also found in many other things in the environment , such as fruits and vegetables , Chapman told Live Science .
These bacterium are " indicator , " Chapman say , signify they point that something may be present that could make a person macabre . But an indicator ’s presence does n’t signify that someone definitely will get ghastly , he tally .
The test for fecal coliform was develop in 1904 , consort to a 2006 article fromMicrobe Magazine , a publishing from the American Society for Microbiology . But since the trial ’s inception , more specific test have been produce to look forfecal contaminationin foods .
Indeed , the fecal coliform tryout often result to false positive , intend it sometimes suggests that a food contains feces when it does n’t , according to Microbe Magazine . This is because many types of bacterium that light into the faecal coliform radical are n’t necessarily find in feces . However , fecal coliform test results have been repeatedly misread by MD , public wellness official and media wall plug , the article say .
A better question to ask is , are there specific germs in the drinking that cause illness ?
Finding bacterium does n’t think you ’ve found a pathogen : " bacterium is everywhere , and if you look for it , you ’re going to find it , " Chapman said . But many of those bacteria are harmless , he added . Further testing — for good example , looking specifically forbacteria such asE. coli — would provide more utilitarian information .
Chapman also noted that he ’d be more focused on what ’s going on in the coffee shops . For case , do employee wash their custody on a regular basis and after handling potentially pollute food and products ? Do they sanitize the equipment properly ? These behaviors could be more indicative of the overall wellness peril the beverages and food pose to consumer , he pronounce .
In addition , it ’s unclear what case of test the investigators used for the BBC report . Knowing these methods would bring home the bacon more useful information , Chapman said . If investigators looked only for bacterial DNA , for representative , you would n’t recognize if the bacterium were awake or drained .
" We eat on drained bacteria all the time , " he added , mention to the fact that numb bacterium are n’t going to make you sick .
earlier published onLive Science .
