Reshaping Food In America

To be filed in the category of "We're Too Stupid To Use Common Sense", we have this little gem from the folks over there at Times Online that tells us "Doctors in America call for 'safer' hot dog to prevent child choking deaths." Wait. What now?

Correct. It would seem that in the journal of the American Academy of Paediatrics (I subscribe, do you?), hot dogs are responsible for "...causing nearly one in five food-related choking deaths among young children." Huh. OK. Didn't know. But one in five food-related choking deaths, well, that sounds serious. How many choking deaths are there per year? Let's see...oh, there it is. 77. "Up to 77 children die from choking in America each year" according to the article. One in five of those are choking on a hot dog, so that means that there are about 15 children that die each year from choking on a hot dog. No word on what the other 62 died choking on, but we're just going to focus on the 15 kids out of a country with a population of approximately 300 million. Why does that sound silly to me? Oh, that's right. Probably because it is.

So now what? Well, according to that article, “Food manufacturers should design new foods, and redesign existing foods, including meat products, to avoid shapes, sizes, texture and other characteristics that increase choking risk to children." Wait a minute. Do what now?

Redesign the...the...hot dog?? Like redesign it how exactly? It's a hot dog. There's really kind of only one shape for the damn things. What do they want it to look like? Well, the article (of course) doesn't specify that. They just say that's what should happen. Change it. Is society so dumb that it's come to this?

Wait. Before you answer that, let me hit you with this quote from the article: "...there are no food regulations comparable to those intended to stop children swallowing toys, even though “food is more likely to go into a child’s mouth than a toy.” ::: blink ::: ::: blink :::

Really?! You don't say?! Food is more likely to go into a child's mouth than a toy is?! Food? Are they sure about that?! For cryin' out loud, we KNOW! We know! You know what else we know that the article felt the need to state? That “stuffing large numbers of marshmallows in the mouth also may increase the risk of choking”. Whaa....?

Are they serious? Yes! Yes, I would imagine that stuffing a ton of marshmallows in your mouth would make it difficult to breathe and that it could possibly make choking more likely! I would also guess that stuffing a large number of, oh, anything in your mouth would increase the risk of choking! What is wrong with people?

Now, mind you that this choking risk is higher for children between the ages of 1 and 5. If you have a kid between the ages of 1 and 5, aren't you cutting up their food for them? Aren't you watching them eat? Aren't you mainly responsible for the well-being of your child? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that any child who has ever died due to choking on a piece of food did so at the fault of the parent. That's not it. I'm saying that this shouldn't be something that needs to be regulated. Some things just are what they are!

If I have to hear one more time about some group from somewhere overreacting about something and wanting a complete overhaul of some industry, I might just hang myself. Why can't common sense take care of this? I fear it's because we are out of common sense. And if that's the case, what say we focus on regaining a little bit of that as opposed to turning people into sheep (also known as sheeple) that just follow blindly because they can't think or figure things out for themselves.