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Topics: Travel, Food and Drink, News, Health
Britt Jones
Your flight is going to get a little hotter now that experts have come out against the best refreshment available, as it may cause you to get quite ill.
There’s nothing quite like a cold soft drink while you’re up in the air, right?
It’s light, it’s refreshing, and it doesn’t break the bank.
But you might need to say goodbye to your pop of choice after experts have come out to urge air travelers to avoid this common mistake while on a plane, because it could lead to the spread of gross germs.
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The germs could then make you sick, and a flight attendant told Reddit: “Every surface on the plane is touched by hundreds of people daily and not often disinfected.
“We don’t have the opportunity to wash our hands at all during the beverage service.”
So, what is this pesky mistake you could be doing while ordering a drink?
The attendant said: “Don’t get ice in your drink.”
They explained that ‘the ice is put in a tray with a scoop, and the trays don’t get cleaned very often.’ Ew.
You might think it’s a bit of an over exaggeration that the ice is so filthy that it could lead to serious health concerns, but a 2017 study found it to be true.
It said: “A consistent percentage of the microorganisms identified from ice are known agents of human infections, and their presence indicates an environmental contamination.”
A cabin cleaner at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, even told The Washington Post in 2022: “Some flight attendants get upset because it’s not clean.”
Verna Montalvo said: “Of course, it’s not clean — because this is how much [time] they give us.”
The 2017 study was conducted by researchers who sampled 60 ice cubes from domestic and industrial facilities to find out how many bacteria strains they harboured.
According 47to Travel + Leisure, it found that there were over 50 different bacteria strains in the ice.
Researchers wrote: “A consistent percentage of the microorganisms identified from ice are known agents of human infections, and their presence indicates an environmental contamination.”
But if you absolutely need to have a few ice cubes in your drink, experts say you should go for something fizzy or alcoholic to diminish the amount of microbes.
A 2019 study by the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center at the City University of New York found that there is a ‘consistent reduction of bacterial risk due to alcohol, CO2, pH and antibacterial ingredients of vodka, whisky, Martini, peach tea, tonic water, and Coke.’
This means that choosing those drinks could save your stomach later. But it won’t stop your chances entirely.
The best way to stay safe is to just drink your own beverage in a bottle.
Charles Platkin, the study author and the executive director of the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center explained: “My takeaway from doing the research was to not drink the coffee and the tea.”