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There are all manner of greasy, nasty-feeling things in restaurants that we're all used to encountering. Sticky seats. Highchairs gummed with layers of food and spit. A ketchup bottle that sticks to your hand. But Erin Carr-Jordan had never seen anything like the Arizona fast-food play space she wandered into with her two sons.
"It was covered in filth and grime and old food," she says in the YouTube video she made about the incident. She yanked her kids out of there and complained to the management. So far, pretty much what you would do, right? But unlike you, Carr-Jordan has a good friend who's an immunologist.
"She swabbed it and showed me how to do it too," says Carr-Jordan. "The sample grew what's called a lawn in 24 hours. It outgrew the entire petri dish. My friend looked at me and said, 'You're going to want an actual lab to look at this.'"
Carr-Jordan found a diagnostic microbiologic analytical lab—that's the phrase she searched for on Google, anyway—that could identify the pathogens found on the swabs with great precision, "down to genus and species," says Carr-Jordan. While she was waiting for the results, Carr-Jordan started driving around Arizona and swabbing different places that catered to children, and asking how kids' spaces were cleaned. Most places—gyms, pools, and kids' museums—had sanitizing procedures in place and were happy to share them (she lists some of the best on her Facebook page). Fast-food places, not so much.
"McDonald's liked to redirect me. The franchises would direct me to corporate, then corporate would send me back to the franchises."
Meanwhile, she got back the lab results from her original sample: staph and coliforms, bacteria that reside in the intestines of mammals. Her immunologist friend was horrified. "She's been doing this for nine years. And she said she'd never seen anything like that," says Carr-Jordan.
Intent on proving it wasn't just a problem local to Arizona, Carr-Jordan took her swab kit on a family road trip, targeting fast-food restaurant play areas in each city she visited. "I try to pick one restaurant in an affluent area of town, and one in a poorer part," she says of her methodology. "I test one place where kids put their hands, and one place where kids put their feet." She keeps finding pathogens where kids are putting their hands. "It's an artificially salty environment in there, because there are nuggets and fries and pizza and kids are licking their fingers and putting them on the wall," says Carr-Jordan.
So, why are the play areas "allowed" to get so filthy? Turns out that areas like restaurant dining rooms and fast-food play spaces are considered "convenience areas" and don't have to conform to very high standards from the restaurant inspection squads at city health departments.
"Where we concentrate is in the food prep area and the bathrooms. General sanitation, making sure that a hand-washing area is in place with water over 100 degrees, soap, and some type of hand-drying system," says Richard Lee, director of the Food Safety Program for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. "Are there cockroaches in the kitchen, how does the restaurant thaw food? We don't really look at play spaces or at dining rooms if they appear generally clean."
Lee says San Francisco gets thousands of complaints yearly from citizens worried about the cleanliness of restaurants, but he can't remember ever getting a call about play spaces. Maybe he just hasn't encountered Carr-Jordan and her swabs yet.
"All I'm asking is for parents to be made aware," says Carr-Jordan, who advises that parents use extra caution and lots of hand-washing when their kids visit such spaces. "And for restaurants to get systems in place to clean these areas regularly. To get play spaces steam-cleaned is ridiculously cheap: a couple of hundred bucks a month. They call them convenience areas, but it wouldn't be very convenient if your kid got meningitis."
My mom takes my daughter to the McD's by our house occasionally and lets her play there. While I'm not a huge fan, my daughter gets to play in an area where grandma can watch since she's not able to run after her at 80 years old. My daughter has never gotten sick a days after visiting McD's. On the other hand, every time she goes to one of those kids indoor play places or the play places at the...+READ
My mom takes my daughter to the McD's by our house occasionally and lets her play there. While I'm not a huge fan, my daughter gets to play in an area where grandma can watch since she's not able to run after her at 80 years old. My daughter has never gotten sick a days after visiting McD's. On the other hand, every time she goes to one of those kids indoor play places or the play places at the mall, 48 hours later she's sick. Go figure! Oh, and I agree with the other posts - go swab the stuff in your house. Especially the underside of your purse. You'll never set it on your kitchen counter again!-COLLAPSE
The big scare they used to do when i was a kid was to make you take your eyeglass earpiece and swab it into a petri dish - then days later show you what you'd been chewing on. Off of your very own body : |
Where would this world be if it weren't for people like Carr-Jordan, I'm contacting the Vatican with a nomination for Sainthood.
you take your kids to a fast food restaurant w play area. . . then you're surprised to find the play area is in fact used by kids who have not been taught to wash hands properly. then you cover your own parenting fail by becoming outraged and going nuts with the germ swabs. okaaaaaay.
how about this lady teaches her kids the basics of proper handwashing-- as this will protect the little...+READ
you take your kids to a fast food restaurant w play area. . . then you're surprised to find the play area is in fact used by kids who have not been taught to wash hands properly. then you cover your own parenting fail by becoming outraged and going nuts with the germ swabs. okaaaaaay.
how about this lady teaches her kids the basics of proper handwashing-- as this will protect the little angels' health far more than hysterical meltdowns at burger king-- the poor teenager at the counter is in fact not much older or less clueless than the kids who use the play area, and s/h is certainly not paid min wage to care about the current mommy crusade.
she could also bring her kids to an actual restaurant, y'know, where the "plate" isn't a foil wrapper. . . or she can go through the freaking drive-thru, pick up the food, and have the kids eat and play in her own (sterile, i'm so sure :)) home. oh yeah, as others have pointed out, that would require parenting. a lot like preparing a meal, containing actual nutrition, not in nugget shape, for one's children requires actual pa-ren-ting. her results aren't any different than would be found in any school, daycare, or church facility. i think that expecting a steam-cleaner to precede each one of us on our daily travels is pretty unrealistic.
anyone who thinks "a couple hundred bucks a month" is "ridiculously cheap," and has time to run around as a swabbing vigilante is obviously secure enough in their own privilege to eat at a real restaurant, or hire a personal cook for the little ones. use the money and energy to go to the farmer's market and cook some vegetables for your kids, or get your cheap factory protein nuggets with the dirty play area, but please, spare me the continuing entitlement and the coddling. personal responsibility comes into play no matter ho we try to run and hide. think of the poor starving kids in africa and how long its been since anyone sanitized the balls in their mcsmacky's play area, and all that. fook's sake.-COLLAPSE
Couple things: Kids don't get enough of a work-out in these "play spaces" to burn off a fraction of the excess calories they gobble up at FFRs. If you're going out to eat with your kids, eat with your kids.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm not the least bit surprised that the immunologist friend had "never seen anything like it." Immunologists typically work with cells from the human body, usually a variety of white blood cells. Rarely do they handle bacteria. As a microbiologist, I can tell you that the presence of "Staph and coliforms" is nothing new. Swab your purse, cell phone, car...+READ
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm not the least bit surprised that the immunologist friend had "never seen anything like it." Immunologists typically work with cells from the human body, usually a variety of white blood cells. Rarely do they handle bacteria. As a microbiologist, I can tell you that the presence of "Staph and coliforms" is nothing new. Swab your purse, cell phone, car seat, and dinner table. I guarantee that you'd find the same things, albeit at a different concentration.
I agree with your basic stance, which is that fast food eating areas are disgusting. I practice a "no second rule" when food drops onto the table tops. And if the store you originally took you kids to was covered in a sticky mess, then yes, the manager should be alerted so that they can rectify the situation. However, the presence of bacteria in our everyday living areas has and always will be a constant. As long as your kid isn't licking the tables, and they wash their hands before and after their meals, no lasting damage should happen.-COLLAPSE
Kiya is spot-on. These are not rare germs she's talking about, and I'm amazed that people seem to think that they've suddenly started landing on everything. In the absence of swabbing her own home and car (and yeah, car seats) she implies that these are the dirtiest places in the world. Not necessarily so.
Reminds me of the article where a magazine food writer spent two months cleaning his...+READ
Kiya is spot-on. These are not rare germs she's talking about, and I'm amazed that people seem to think that they've suddenly started landing on everything. In the absence of swabbing her own home and car (and yeah, car seats) she implies that these are the dirtiest places in the world. Not necessarily so.
Reminds me of the article where a magazine food writer spent two months cleaning his apartment kitchen preparing for a visit from the county health department's restaurant inspector, only to fail right off the bat because he had two cats living there.
More than ever, people seem to think that their own stuff is clean and everybody else's is dirty.-COLLAPSE
How about taking responsibility for you progeny and expect the rest of us to watch over your children for you. When I was raised I was told not to put my fingers in my mouth and to wash my hands before eating, and after if I was a mess. Looks like the only thing missing here is a bit of parental responsibility for your own kids.
I just want to know if the charmingly hyphenated swabber is going to pay both HER share and MY share for the increased cost of my Big Super King Princess Burger. It may only be a couple hundred dollars a month (which on my planet is legally never allowed to be referred to as "ridiculously cheap"), but it's still enough money that the Fast-Food-e-Teria is STILL not going to absorb the cost. And...+READ
I just want to know if the charmingly hyphenated swabber is going to pay both HER share and MY share for the increased cost of my Big Super King Princess Burger. It may only be a couple hundred dollars a month (which on my planet is legally never allowed to be referred to as "ridiculously cheap"), but it's still enough money that the Fast-Food-e-Teria is STILL not going to absorb the cost. And why should they? It's not like they every "rise above" for anything else. . .do you think they care about germs? If they weren't forced to by inspections and fines, most restaurants of any type would probably let anything at all happen and not put any kind of system in place.
Having said ALL of the above, I agree that being TOO clean prevents kids immune systems from developing as strongly as they otherwise could. I'm told I practically ROLLED in dirt when I was a kid (now, I wouldn't be caught dead with it underneath my fingernails), and it probably didn't hurt me all that much. On the other hand, if it did, how would I know?-COLLAPSE
Humm... have to disagree with the tone of this article. By saying the "convenience space" is contaminated and that, by extension, the restaurant isn't fit to eat at (I know this wasn't explicitly written, but the implication is clear) is a very great leap.
By her own admission, Carr-Jordan tested places "where kids put their hands, and one place where kids put their feet." Speaking as a father...+READ
Humm... have to disagree with the tone of this article. By saying the "convenience space" is contaminated and that, by extension, the restaurant isn't fit to eat at (I know this wasn't explicitly written, but the implication is clear) is a very great leap.
By her own admission, Carr-Jordan tested places "where kids put their hands, and one place where kids put their feet." Speaking as a father of three kids under the age of 6 and observing which utensils are used by children (mine and other people's) most frequently (I'll five you a hint... it's attached to the end of their arm) I am not surprised that there are staph bacteria all over. Staph are a COMMON skin bacteria found EVERYWHERE. Coliforms on children's hands? SHOCKER! Maybe instead of complaining that the restaurant isn't steam cleaning the playground parents should wash their kids hands after taking them to the restroom and before eating. Wait, that would entail WAY too much parenting. We should instead check for bacteria on the school playground before sending our kids there. Better yet, check the dirt for C. Botulinum before letting them go outside.
The kitchens are a very different environment than the kids playground. I certainly don't want your kids, or mine for that matter, hanging out where my food is prepared and I make certain that they wash their hands before eating and with soap after using the bathroom. Didn't your mom teach you to do the same? Oh, wait... that was PARENTING. So much easier to expect someone else to do it for you...-COLLAPSE
Not to defend fast food play areas, I'm sure that a good percentage of them could stand a good cleaning, but I wonder if Carr-Jordan swabbed her own home, or her kids' car seats? From a microbiological standpoint her results are not shocking. Swabbing and culturing just about any surface where people live will result in bacterial growth, it doesn't take much to get a lawn of growth as she...+READ
Not to defend fast food play areas, I'm sure that a good percentage of them could stand a good cleaning, but I wonder if Carr-Jordan swabbed her own home, or her kids' car seats? From a microbiological standpoint her results are not shocking. Swabbing and culturing just about any surface where people live will result in bacterial growth, it doesn't take much to get a lawn of growth as she describes. If she can get the fast food industry with its underpaid employees to clean up the play spaces, more power to her. I imagine if she swabbed other places where her children play, she would find similar results. It's difficult to keep any place germ free for long when people are active there.-COLLAPSE
Yep. Coat them with antibacterial gel and then wonder why they don't have good immune systems when they grow up.
I licked a fire hydrant when I was a baby. Didn't kill me. Didn't even give me the sniffles.
OMG EWWWWWWWW... Thank gawd for hand sanitizer, although that can only do so much