Soft Serve Machines Could Be Harboring Gross Bacteria

With warm weather approaching, there's no better way to beat the heat than with soft serve ice cream and regular ice cream. However, when ordering your next cone, you might want to think twice about ordering soft serve, and we don't just mean because soft serve contains more air than regular ice cream.

Rather, for the very same reason you shouldn't get ice in your drink at a restaurant, you shouldn't order soft serve due to the possibility of bacteria build-up within the machine. We realize that bacteria is pretty much everywhere, but the situation can quickly turn dangerous if machines aren't disassembled and sanitized on a daily basis. Vermont's Agency of Agriculture, for instance, requires that soft serve machines be not only cleaned every day but also sanitized with dairy-specific cleaning products.

Unfortunately, the effort it takes to clean one of these machines can also dissuade workers from keeping up with sanitary procedures. The actual cleaning process, depending on your machine, can be time-consuming. For instance, it takes McDonald's employees up to four hours to clean their machines. As inconvenient as it may be to clean them every day, when soft serve machines go unchecked, people can fall seriously ill.

Like with many other foods, one of the main bacteria that can cause problems with soft-serve ice cream is listeria. In a 2017 inspection of 89 ice cream facilities, the Food and Drug Administration found 19 to test positive for listeria, and one to test positive for salmonella. Listeria symptoms, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, include fever, headache, and other flu-like ailments, and can be very serious for pregnant people, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems.

Soft serve machines can also harbor staphylococcus, as was the case in 2005 when a dirty McDonald's machine caused illness in more than 120 people. According to Healthline, staphylococcus symptoms include vomiting and diarrhea, as well as abdominal cramps. While less severe than illnesses caused by listeria, staphylococcus is nonetheless something we'd all like to avoid. With all that being said, you're better off ordering a scoop of hard-serve ice cream or using your own no-churn ice cream recipe to make soft serve at home.