This is an archived article and the information in the story may be outdated. Please check the time stamp on the story to see when it was updated last.
Sometimes you just need to have a glass of soda. This is usually the case when you're out to eat and ordered a big, savory meal, right? Well, restaurant employees say that you should pick another drink off the menu next time because of how unsanitary the soda guns and machines are. Seriously, they're a breeding ground for bacteria, mold and bugs! Here's why you'll never want to order soda at a restaurant again!
[Photos: Shutterstock]
When asked what customers should avoid when dining at chain restaurants, an employee said soda was the "big one."
"Not only is it incredibly unhealthy, [but] every single place I worked had mold in their soda gun or machine. I cleaned them, of course, but there’s only one of me and a few million restaurants," the employee said, according to Life Hacker.
That wasn't the only employee that could vouch for the dirty soda machines. Writer Rob Gunther shared his horrific soda experience from when he used to work as a waiter, recalling bugs living inside the soda machine.
"Right underneath the surface of what looked like such an inviting piece of machinery was one of the grossest things I’d ever seen: dozens upon dozens of cockroaches, little medium-sized ones, frightened by the sudden exposure to light, running around in ribbons of brown as they made a desperate attempt to slink back into the shadows," he said. Yikes!
Not to mention that the lemon wedges that you usually get with your soda are notorious for containing strains of bacteria, too! Researchers from the Journal of Health swabbed the rinds and flesh of 76 lemons from 21 restaurants collected during 43 visits and found that a whopping 70 percent of them produced microbial growth! This is largely due to the fact that the staff failed to properly clean the lemons before serving them.
You can bet that we're definitely not ordering soda the next time we go out to eat! In fact, we may not even order a drink at all!
