China's KFCs aren't doing so well in the health department; new tests have shown their ice cubes have more bacteria than toilet water.
A KFC restaurant in Beijing was found to have 13 times the bacteria as toilet water, reaching 20 times the national limit, Bloomberg reported.
"We have a strict quality assurance process for ice and water. Right now, we're investigating the report about an isolated incident at one restaurant to ensure that our standards are followed," Jonathan Blum, a spokesman for YUM brands, the company in charge of the offending restaurant, said.
Ice samples taken from a China McDonald's also exceeded the local limit, but turned out to be marginally cleaner than water from a toilet bowl.
This is not the first health-related offense pinned on China KFCs; an investigative report in December accused the chain of fattening their chickens with illegal hormones.
A government probe confirmed KFC was using amantadine, a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease, to keep the chickens eating around the clock.
The chain has already suffered seven months of declined revenue, due in part to the bird-flu scare and competition from other restaurants.
The food safety issues in China go beyond KFCs walls, the country has been struggling with illegal cooking oil known as "gutter oil" for years, foodsafety.gov reported.
Gutter oil is a mixture of "sewage and hazardous chemicals like heavy metals which will cause acute abdominal cramps, anemia and toxic hepatic disease.
A Chinese University recently produced a new method for testing food for the noxious substance, a press release reported.
The system will allow food safety officials to quickly and safely test restaurant dishes.
Illegal oil may be put to good use, officials believe the toxic substance could be used as fuel, China Daily reported.
"On the one hand, we emphasized cleaning up illegal oil collectors," Lou Diming, a professor at Tongji's School of Automotive Studies who led the study said. "On the other, we looked for ideal ways to use the recycled oil. Using it as auto fuel is one of them."
