BACTERIA CONTENT FOUND ON VARIOUS RESTAURANTS ICE
Bacteria Content Found On Various Restaurants Ice
Amber M. Carroll
Tamaqua Area High School
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BACTERIA CONTENT FOUND ON VARIOUS RESTAURANTS ICE
Bacteria Content Found On Various Restaurants Ice
Have you ever gone into a restaurant and deemed it as unsanitary. If so, was it the waiters, the food, or the looks that brought you to this conclusion? If you decided based upon any of these categories, you are not necessarily wrong. You just have to get a more thorough examination, and then you will find the real culprit behind these unsanitary conditions. Bacteria! This one word can cause chaos, but it can also save lives. This one word can ruin a business or make it the most successful business it has ever been. This one word can do almost anything.
Bacteria are small microscopic organisms, meaning they can only be seen with the help of a microscope. They are the oldest forms of life originating around 3.5 billion years ago
(Wassenaar, 2009). Bacteria come in all different types, shapes, and sizes. Some types of bacteria are completely harmless, while other types can be deadly. Harmless or nonpathogenic bacteria make up seventy percent (70%) of the bacteria population, while harmful or pathogenic bacteria make up only thirty percent (30%) of the bacteria population (Schwabe, 2006). There are seven main types of bacteria which include gram negative cocci, gram positive cocci, gram negative bacilla, gram positive bacilla, spirochaetes, rickettsia, and mycoplasma (How Many Types of
Bacteria Are There, 2000). All these types of bacteria have different characteristics and can be either helpful or harmful. Cocci are spherical in shape, while bacilli are rod-shaped (How Many
Types of Bacteria Are There, 2000). The only difference between positive and negative cocci and bacilli is that if it is positive then the cell wall is thick, while if it is negative the cell wall is thin
(How Many Types of Bacteria Are There, 2000). Two well known types of gram positive cocci include Staphylococcus and Streptococcus (How Many Types of Bacteria Are There, 2000). Both these types of bacteria fall into the “friendly bacteria” category. (How Many Types of Bacteria Are
There, 2000). They do many helpful things in the human body and in the environment (How
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BACTERIA CONTENT FOUND ON VARIOUS RESTAURANTS ICE
Many Types of Bacteria Are There, 2000). The final three types of bacteria are rather rare.
Spirochaetes bacteria have a cork-screw shape and can fall into three categories: Treponema bacteria, Leptospira bacteria, and Borrelia bacteria (How Many Types of Bacteria Are There,
2000). Each of the different species can cause a different disease (How Many Types of Bacteria
Are There, 2000). Rickettsia can only live inside other cells, and can cause typhus (How Many
Types of Bacteria Are There, 2000). Mycoplasma bacteria do not have a cell wall, and can give people pneumonia (How Many Types of Bacteria Are There, 2000). By categorizing bacteria into different categories, it makes them much easier to identify. As said before, some types of bacteria known as “friendly bacteria” even offer benefits. They help digest our food by degrading large biomolecules into smaller ones that can pass the intestinal surface (Wassenaar, n.d.).They also help keep the soil where are food is grown fertile by performing different chemical transformations, including degradation of organic matter, disease suppression, and nutrient transformations inside roots (The University of Western Australia, 2004). Though, there are harmful bacteria to. Some bacteria can even get into our food supply and cause life threatening illnesses. These diseases include e coli, salmonella, and listeria (Zellner, 2009). E coli is most commonly found in beef and vegetables, salmonella is most commonly found in poultry and eggs, and listeria can be found in soil which further contaminates vegetables and water (Zellner, 2009).
These diseases can occur by using unsanitary kitchen procedures and habits such as using the same plate for vegetables and raw meats or not washing vegetables and fruits (Zellner, 2009).
Bacteria are unicellular prokaryotes meaning they do not have a nucleus. Due to this, they reproduce by binary fission which is a form of a-sexual reproduction. As a result, the original bacterium splits into two halves that are identical to it. Bacteria are ubiquitous meaning they are everywhere. They can be found in areas of extreme hot or extreme cold. There are two main types
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BACTERIA CONTENT FOUND ON VARIOUS RESTAURANTS ICE of bacteria which include Archaebacteria and Eubacteria. Both these types of bacteria make up the
Kingdom Monera. Archaebacteria are known as the extremophiles of the bacteria world. Meaning they can live in the most extreme environments. They can be heterotrophic, meaning they get their food from another source, or they can be autotrophic, meaning they make their own food. To show just how extreme these organisms are, one of the first places that were found was in the hot springs at Yellowstone National Park (Brock et al.,1994). Eubacteria is the other organism that makes up kingdom Monera. These bacteria are the ones that people are most familiar with because they are found in things like yogurt. As Archaebacteria, Eubacteria can also be either heterotrophic or autotrophic. Bacteria are measured in micrometers which are the millionth part of a meter
(Different Types of Bacteria, 2000-2009). This shows how truly small bacteria really are. Bacteria live in colonies. The amount of bacterial colonies found when tested determines how much bacteria is present. You can count the number of bacterial colonies by using agar plates. You can find from thirty (30) to three hundred (300) colonies of bacteria on just one agar plate (Sutton,
2006).
Bacteria are one of the most important organisms on the face of the earth. When researching this idea, we found that when others tested restaurant ice it had higher levels of bacteria than a toilet seat. We found this conclusion to be very unlikely, so we decided to test it ourselves. When deciding which restaurant we thought had the most bacteria on its ice, we took into consideration every aspect of the restaurant. Some restaurants simply scooped the ice out of a box, while others had it in a machine. We reasoned that the ones that scooped it up were more unsanitary. Though, it also depended upon how often the ice machine was cleaned. Obviously if the machine was not cleaned frequently and thoroughly then more bacteria would be found.
Together we proposed the idea that if ice is tested for the amount of bacteria found, then the largest
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BACTERIA CONTENT FOUND ON VARIOUS RESTAURANTS ICE bacteria growth will be found on ice from IHOP. We came to this conclusion because they simply scooped the ice up with their hands and gave it to us. Also, we came to this conclusion because in videos in creative foods class roaches were found crawling around IHOP kitchens. Bacteria are important organisms in our everyday lives, and they need to be appreciated yet cautiously observed by the people of today's and future generations.
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BACTERIA CONTENT FOUND ON VARIOUS RESTAURANTS ICE
Works Cited
Wassenaar, T. (2009). Eubacteria and Archaebacteria: the oldest forms of life. The Virtual
Museum of Bacteria. Retrieved from http://www.bacteriamuseum.org/cms/Evolution/eubacteria-and-archaebacteria-the-oldestforms-of-life.html
Schwabe, D. (2006). Bacteria, Harmless and Harmful. Health and Wellness. Retrieved from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/51175/understanding_bacteria_harmless_and.h
t ml?cat =5
(2000). How Many Types of Bacteria Are There? Types of Bacteria. Retrieved from http://www.typesofbacteria.co.uk/how-many-types-bacteria-are-there.html
Wassenaar, T. (n.d.). Bacteria and Digestion. United States of America Department of Energy.
Retreived from http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole00129.htm
(2004). Soil Bacteria. The University of Western Australia. Retreived from http://www.soilhealth.see.uwa.edu.au/components/bacteria
M. Zellner, personal communication, 2009.
Brock er al. (1994). Introduction to the Archae, Life’s extremists.... Retreived from http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/archaea/archaea.html
(2000-2009). Different Types of Bacteria. Retreived from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/different-types-of- bacteria.html
Sutten, S. (2006). Counting Colonies. The Microbiology Network. Retreived from http://www.microbiol.org/white.papers/WP.count.colony.htm
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