Straight from the "News-I-could-live-without" section of the tabloids, a seventh grader in Florida is getting national recognition for her school science project.

Apparently, the ice we use to cool our soft drinks in fast food restaurants is dirtier that toilet water. That's right — toilet water.

Jasmine Roberts started her project because her friend's ice-chewing habits were driving her crazy. Now, it appears Jasmine is getting the last laugh.

Jasmine took random samples of ice from 10 self-serve soda (or "pop" if you live in Western Pennsylvania) dispensers and then dipped a cup into 10 toilets at various fast-food restaurants to get samples. The results were stomach turning, as in seven out of 10 cases, the ice was unhealthier than the toilet water. Over half of the ice samples contained traces of the E. coli bacteria.

I've spent my fair share of time in fast food restaurants, as well as their lavatories. This science project is disturbing to me.

These are the same restroom facilities that are usually off limits unless you really, really, REALLY have to go and there isn't another facility for another hundred miles or so. The irony, of course, is that above each sink rests a stern warning to employees: "ALL EMPLOYEES MUST WASH THEIR HANDS BEFORE RETURNING TO WORK."

I guess in retrospect, maybe the employees should wipe their hands on their jeans and be done with the whole thing, eh? Or they could dip their hands in the toilet if they want sparkling clean phalanges. After all, this same water goes into making the ice out front.

Maybe the other disturbing part to this whole story is that this was a seventh grader's science project.

Whatever happened to making a volcano and having it spew out ketchup or cheese whiz to imitate an eruption?

Have we come so far that our students need to start dipping tiny cups into toilets so that they can analyze water molecules for deadly bacteria?

When I was in seventh grade, most of my school projects involved trying to sit next to a pretty girl who was smarter than me so that I wouldn't fail miserably.

Most times, I was the "gopher," running back and forth for supplies so that she could analyze the data, which were usually the guts from a frog, bugs or sawdust.

Additionally, limitations were set on students, so blowing things up was out of the question.

Maybe another question to consider is do we really need to be afraid of al-Qaida and terrorist plots to contaminate our water? It seems like we are doing a fine job ourselves, thank you very much.

The results of Jasmine's school project come at a very bad time for fast food restaurants as well.

Last week, McDonald's announced it miscalculated the actual number of fat grams in its french fries, and oh yeah, they aren't gluten free like they originally told us.

Hmmm. Who would've thought that a large, highly profitable fast food chain would overlook something as important as those two things? After all, the same place now serves salads because they are concerned with our health.

So long as they don't wash the lettuce in their own water, I guess we'll be okay. Maybe they should dip the lettuce in the toilet before serving.

Regardless, I'm sure some seventh grade student somewhere will analyze the salad dressing and determine there are traces of something that will harm us.

As for me, I'll stick with packing my lunch.