Woman gets a cup of ice from Chick-fil-A. Then she looks inside, sees something disturbing: ‘This why I ask for no ice in all of my drinks’

Leaving a beverage cup in the car is a common mistake. Sometimes, it slips our minds as we park and lock up for the day. When it’s time to discard it, most of us don’t check the contents. Except for this one woman’s son, who alerted her to the gross specks in his Chick-fil-A cup.

What’s In This Chick-fil-A Ice Cup?

“I went to Chick-fil-A yesterday and I asked for a cup of ice for my son,” Georgia TikTok creator Tasha (@tashaontheinternet) says, referring to the iconic styrofoam she is holding. “He ended up not even eating the ice, right? So, today, he got in the car and got the cup.”

After he picked up the cup, she says her son peeked inside it, making the disgusting discovery. “Y’all, look at the inside.” 

Then the content creator zooms in on the melted ice, revealing to over 472,000 viewers what her son found: A round, slimy bubble with a dark outline and black specks. “What is that? Is that mold?” Tasha asks, repulsed. 

As if the ice alone wasn’t bad enough, it got worse. “Mind you, we also had a lemonade yesterday, but didn’t check it,” she shares in the caption.

Viewers Point To The Ice Machine

“Ice machines are notorious for having hidden mold,” one viewer remarked.

“I can confirm that it probably is mold. Most cfas don’t clean their ice machines very often and it’s very easy to get mold inside of those machines. Not all cfas clean good,” a second proposed.

“Their ice maker machines are moldy and they never clean it so basically in almost every restaurant the ice is very very dirty” a third agreed.

As a result, others claimed that was the reason they avoid ice in their fast food drinks.

“This why I ask for no ice in all of my drinks,” one commenter remarked.

“That’s why i always say NO ICE,” another echoed.

Could The Ice Machine Be The Culprit?

Noticing suspicious items in Chick-fil-A isn’t completely unusual, such as a dark pink mass in a Chick-n-Mini and a fly egg on a chicken strip. What Tasha’s son found could possibly be mold. Typically, the more often an ice machine is used, the more often it needs to be cleaned. However, this doesn’t happen as often as it should in both fast food and sit-down restaurants. Because of how complicated and difficult ice machines are to clean, they often go ignored, according to Tasting Table. Newsweek states that brown, cloudy substances should raise alarm bells and mold can even start growing in the machine’s water. 

The darkness and moisture inside the machine create an ideal environment for pink slime and black mold to fester. Pink slime is linked to foodborne illnesses like Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, and norovirus, while black mold can cause allergic reactions and respiratory issues. In fact, contaminated ice was responsible for the norovirus outbreak in 2013 at a golf course that infected 80 people. If that’s not stomach-clenching enough, studies have revealed that ice in some fast food restaurants can harbor more bacteria than toilet water.

So, if your ice-filled beverage looks, smells off, or tastes off, stop drinking it and monitor your symptoms.

@tashaontheinternet Mind you we also had a lemonade yesterday, but didn’t check it ?. #fastfood #chicfila #healthinspector ♬ Saxophones getting louder – Sped Up – AntonioVivald

The Mary Sue reached out to Tasha via TikTok comment and direct message as well as Chick-fil-A via press email.

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