No, not my ice cream too!!

First it was French wine - now it's ice cream.

Brands including Cold Stone, Dairy Queen and Baskin Robbins have been found to contain excessive bacteria, Shanghai's consumer protection bureau announced yesterday.

DQ Blizzards were found to contain 4,600 parts per 100 milliliters of coliform bacteria, 10 times the national limit of 450 parts per 100 ml.

The ice cream was produced on June 25 at the Xujiahui Road outlet of DQ, the commission said.

Shanghai Shida Catering Management Co Ltd, DQ's largest Chinese partner, said the store closed for a time to do its own checks, but said the commission's results didn't mean DQ products had any quality problems.  "It is the result from only one cup of ice cream sold at only one store of DQ," said Yang Yating with Shida's marketing department. I wonder if DQ in North America would support this guys rationale. DQ has more than 90 outlets in Shanghai

The amount of bacteria found in Cold Stone's original flavor ice cream reached 32,000 CFU (colony-forming units) per ml, compared with the national limit of 25,000 per ml, the commission said. It was produced on June 26 at Cold Stone's Pacific Department Store branch.  Tu Yijing, from Cold Stone's brand promotion department, said she had not been informed of the results. Cold Stone has about 30 stores in the city.
  
The ice creams were among 22 sample products bought by the commission from 22 outlets randomly, it said. Ten failed tests, including Chinese brands, all for bacterial problems.

Some ice cream producers have very poor awareness of food safety, the commission said, and it suggested that the authorities should strengthen the supervision and training of producers of ice cream.

So there you go, we've got apples with insectcide, wine with pesticide and now ice cream with coliform bacteria. This is a great country if you want to loose weight.

The interesting thing is we are eating at great restaurants serving really good food (at least as far as we can tell). Neither of us has ever been food poisoned and we have both gained weight so as weird as the food seems to be, no complaints from us as far as our own personal dining is concerned.