Bacteria-infested leftovers, a delicate game of balancing temperatures,
and the always-dreaded high fructose corn syrup. While it may be a tasty treat,
here's why you should avoid indulging in some soft serve.
If pathogens end up contaminating the soft-serve mix, some may die during the freezing process,
but there could still be enough to be a problem. For example, listeria doesn't die
when you freeze it, and if the soft serve mix becomes contaminated with listeria,
it can continue to multiply when it's as cold as 29 degrees Fahrenheit.
Even if the soft serve mix starts out pasteurized or the machine is cleaned daily,
pathogens can accumulate from anyone who handles the mix or even from the machine itself. While
listeria outbreaks related to soft-serve ice cream are rare, they still happen. When the Toronto Star
randomly tested soft-serve ice cream across Toronto, it found coliform in several samples,
including from machines in restaurants that were diligent in cleaning and sanitizing daily.
"I would expect that my ice cream to be coliform free. It would certainly be an
indication to the restaurant that they ought to investigate their sanitary procedures."
Norovirus can show up in soft serve,
as well as other microbes including E. coli and Staphylococcus. Salmonella can
also be a problem if the mix contains eggs, like soft serve custard does.
Listeria is the third most likely foodborne bacteria to cause death in the U.S., and it
keeps popping up in soft serve. About 16% of people who get sick from listeria each year die,
and there are a few categories of people who are more likely to become sick from consuming
listeria in their soft serve. Anyone who is immunocompromised is at risk,
and it's also more likely to sicken people who are pregnant or over age 65.
"Listeria is a concern for pregnant people because
of the risk of transmitting the infection onto the unborn baby."
"It can have really severe outcomes for a baby."
In 2014 and 2015, two people in Washington with weakened immune systems fell sick in a medical
facility after they drank milkshakes made from a contaminated soft serve mix that was later
recalled. A year later, another immunocompromised person became sick after drinking a milkshake made
from the same machine. The mix itself didn't have listeria in it, but samples of soft serve from the
machine contained listeria with the same genetic markers as the listeria from the recalled mix from
the year before, even though the machines had been sanitized twice a week since then.
The presence of bacteria in a soft serve machine is a given,
so if there's too much time between machine cleanings or the cleanings aren't thorough,
the microbes can multiply out of control.
For the safest soft serve, machines should be taken apart on a daily basis so they can
be cleaned and sanitized. However, if you've ever worked at a restaurant with a soft-serve machine,
you probably don't remember this happening. After all, the process is a big undertaking,
requiring employees to drain the remaining mix from the machine,
rinse, and wash the tank and all its parts.
Then you have to let everything dry in a place where it won't be contaminated and resanitize
all those parts for at least a minute before putting them back in the machine. After that,
you have to run a sanitizing solution through the machine. During the whole process,
you need to make sure to wear sanitary gloves and use sanitized cleaning cloths
or brushes. Different machines have different cleaning requirements,
so it's important for employees to be well-trained in the process outlined in the machine manual.
Even if the mix is fine and the machine has been cleaned thoroughly,
contamination can occur when employees are not being safe. An employee who washes and scrubs
their hands for at least 20 seconds with hot water removes a lot of bacteria, and wearing
sanitary gloves is an even better choice to prevent food contamination. Unfortunately,
we've all seen food service employees put on a pair of gloves and use them to touch
everything in the kitchen without changing them. So, any infected surfaces that even a gloved hand
touches can cause cross-contamination with soft serve. Direct contact with the soft serve cone
can be a problem, too, so never accept cones that haven't first been wrapped with a napkin.
With soft-serve machines being near other food prep areas and in the path
of employees walking from one food prep area to another, there are plenty of contamination
avenues. Any raw food or any open food or condiment containers near the machines
are a potential source for bacterial transfer. Even having cleaning supplies
or personal items like phones or keys near the machine could be a contamination source.
At the very least, freezing stops bacteria from multiplying to dangerous levels. So keeping the
soft serve mix from getting too warm is essential for your safety. Unfortunately, the perfect
temperature range for soft serve is extremely narrow. The mix itself needs to stay at or below
40 degrees Fahrenheit, but it shouldn't get cold enough to freeze while it's in the machine. Still,
the mix needs to stay as close to freezing as possible or the product won't be soft. Some
companies have very specific temperatures set to be safe AND get the perfect taste.
"What is the perfect temperature to serve ice cream? According to these
ice cream experts, it's 23 degrees Fahrenheit."
There are a lot of opportunities for the soft serve mix to rise
to 41 degrees Fahrenheit or above. It could get warm during the transportation process,
from sitting around too long after delivery, while transferring out of the machine during
the cleaning process, or while in the hopper. There's also a chance that the
machine could simply malfunction and keep the mix at a higher temperature than it should.
When some restaurants clean their machines, they remove the soft serve mix that is left over at
the end of the day and save it to return to the machine, returning pathogens that were
there before the cleaning process. While this frugal practice might save money, it's one of
the top ways bacteria end up overrunning soft serve. If a restaurant returns the leftovers to
the hopper every day, it's really serving up a microbial mix. It's essential that restaurants
throw away any leftover mix at the end of the day before cleaning and sanitizing the machine.
A restaurant can minimize how much they end up throwing away by not adding as much new
mix to the machine toward the end of the day or using the remaining mix they remove
to make products like ice cream bars that can stay safe in the freezer until purchase. If
restaurants do hold over some of the mix, they can choose to add it to the machine
only during high-volume sales periods, which could help minimize potential contamination.
When you think about every hand that has touched a
soft-serve machine or everyone who has walked by the machine with their food,
you might want to think again about getting yourself some soft serve.
All the germs the average person has on their hands have the potential to transfer to the
soft serve machine. While some germs don't last on surfaces long, others do and may even thrive
in the right environment. A wet surface is the perfect environment for germs to multiply. Any
hard surfaces like metal and hard plastic that don't have pores the bacteria can sink
into have the potential to transfer even more bacteria particles to your hand. The common
cold can stay contagious on hard surfaces for 24 hours, and the flu virus can stay contagious for
48 hours. Meanwhile, some robust coronaviruses can last on hard surfaces for up to 72 hours.
If you're one of the 60% of people in the world who have problems digesting
dairy after childhood, soft serve won't make you feel very good when you eat it,
and some people find that soft serve is harder on their bodies than other dairy products. There
are different amounts of lactose in different dairy products, including different types of soft
serve. Ice cream and frozen yogurt tend to have somewhere between two and six grams of lactose,
which is more lactose than cheese, but less than milk. You may find that the amount of lactose in
a specific brand of soft serve may activate your lactose intolerance more than others. For example,
soft serve made with yogurt instead of milk will often have less lactose,
so you may not feel as bad when you go to TCBY as you do when you go to Dairy Queen.
Side effects of lactose intolerance can include symptoms of digestive distress like nausea,
painful gas, or even diarrhea. Because food-borne illnesses also cause stomach distress,
it can sometimes be difficult to determine if the soft serve is making you sick because
it was produced under unsanitary conditions or because you're having a reaction to the lactose.
While there are some ways that soft serve can be healthier than hard-frozen ice cream, it's not
considered a healthy food. Soft serve ice cream does have some advantages over the hard frozen
kind. For one, all the air whipped into soft serve allows companies to sweeten it with less sugar and
use less milk and milk fat than hard ice cream. And if you choose to eat soft-serve yogurt instead
of soft-serve ice cream, you'll be acquiring good gut bacteria through your dessert. Plus,
as an added bonus, soft-serve yogurt can be easier to digest for people who are sensitive to lactose.
In the end, however, whether soft serve has more or less fat
or sugar than regular ice cream is relative to the comparison product,
so you shouldn't automatically assume that soft serve is going to be the healthiest choice;
you have to check the nutrient content yourself to see if it's within acceptable parameters.
While soft serve doesn't tend to have all the mix-in ingredients that regular ice
cream often has, it still tends to have a lot of added sugar,
and in that regard, frozen yogurt isn't any better.
"People love frozen yogurt. I don't know what to tell ya."
The list of additives you'll find in soft serve is often quite long. Many of them help
keep the main ingredients combined rather than separated into parts so that the texture remains
smooth and creamy. These emulsifiers may include tetrasodium pyrophosphate, mono- and diglycerides,
sodium phosphate, polysorbate 80, and guar gum. Maltodextrin keeps it from feeling grainy like
sand on your tongue, while ingredients like cellulose gum, and potassium phosphate help
stabilize it, with the effect of thickening it or giving it the right mouth feel or flavor.
The safety level of another of those additives, called carrageenan, has been debated among
scientists, some of whom worry about its side effects. A 2017 journal article in Frontiers
in Pediatrics discusses the fact that carrageenan changes the gut microbiome, causes inflammation,
and promotes irritable bowel disease in research animals. While the same types of studies are not
considered ethical for humans, studies of the human gut microbiome of people consuming
carrageenan seem to indicate that the same thing happens within humans, and there's also a worry
it could lead to more serious issues like irritable bowel disease or colon cancer.
Besides carrageenan, most of the other additives in soft serve are perfectly acceptable to consume,
and guar gum may even provide some positive health effects. However,
that doesn't mean they're completely harmless - as maltodextrin and polysorbate 80 may
negatively affect your gut microbiome. Meanwhile, sodium phosphate and potassium
phosphate both have the potential for being extremely bad for people with kidney disease.
Corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup, often abbreviated HFCS,
are both common sweeteners for hard ice cream and soft serve. HFCS actually comes
from corn syrup and has become popular as a cheaper alternative to regular sugar because
it's sweeter. The problem with HFCS comes from consuming a lot of it. If you're a label reader,
you'll notice that it shows up in everything from soft drinks and restaurant food to frozen and
shelf-stable processed foods. Soft serve is just one way you may be consuming it on an average day.
Consuming a high amount of fructose through ingredients like HFCS and the
subsequent weight gain can cause more fat to form around organs like your liver and heart,
which can increase your chances of contracting fatty liver disease or heart disease. It also
contributes to problems like diabetes, inflammation, and gout. A 2015 study
in Nutrition Journal specifically links HFCS consumption to chronic bronchitis in adults.
A 2016 Nutrition & Diabetes study links HFCS consumption to asthma, so it can potentially lead
to negative side effects that are different from those that are found when consuming regular sugar.