Pediatricians Want Grapes Re-designed for Safety

Okay, this story (through Yahoo) mainly focuses on hot dogs and candy, but grapes are also mentioned as a common choking hazard. One wonders if the American Academy of Pediatrics will present a petition asking God to take things like grapes, peanuts and baby carrots back to the drawing board for an update.

In the case of the "baby carrots", even the name is a problem, as it could be taken as being specially made for babies. Hereafter, they should probably be called "Small, Dangerous Carrots, Perfect for Choking On".

Anyway, the AAP can rest easy... hot dogs already come in a safer, flat shape... it's called "bologna".

Meanwhile, one wonders if hot dogs will disappear from store shelves, along with malted milk balls and jaw breakers, or whether their purchase will merely be restricted to those with the proper permits.

Hot dogs are famously vile, and have even served for some time as a kind of symbol of everything that is wrong with factory-made food. But they have their place, especially where a campire is involved.

Still, based on this latest bit of Public Health hysteria, the League recommends (as a substitute for hot dogs) introducing your children to Bratwurst at the earliest age possible. Too big to choke on (the grease would help it slide down in any case), but a joy to gnaw. A much more substantial and satisfying texture than hot dogs, too, which (one would think) would help boost neurological development, as well. The inside of a Bratwurst is a subtle and complex experience.

Oh, modern child rearing is so dangerous and complicated...

Comments

[pcNielsen]

Hot dogs should be banned regardless of whether or not they're a choking hazard IMO. Blech.

[Will Duquette]

Frankly, I *like* hot dogs. (Hebrew National, particularly.) That they are commonly despised is, consequently, all the more reason to champion them.

[Tim J.]

Our family are Hebrew National fans, as well! If you're going to eat hot dogs, may as well get some good ones.

I don't feel that because a given thing is commonly despised, however, that it follows it should be defended.

It certainly makes defending it more fun... but the common American love/hate relationship with hot dogs is well founded, in my view.

That's not to say I don't like eating them, but it seems like a separate issue. I also love Twinkies, but that doesn't mean they are not still a kind of abomination. I would ten times rather eat anything made in our kitchen.

Speaking of which... time for soup!

[John Kasaian]

I'm all for bratwurst..or knockwurst for that matter. Of course they do go better with---no they were made to go with beer so I also have to support lowering the drinking age for pre-Reformation spirits to a sensible 10 years old or so.

[Will Duquette]

Is there some good in hot dogs? Yes. Are they sometimes despised in an elitist way? Yes. Sounds like GKC territory to me, is all I'm saying.

[John Kasaian]

There is an arguement that things which are to be eaten should look similar to how they would have appeared in life.

I don't think I'd like to see, or even think about what goes into a hot dog but that dosen't prevent me from enjoying a truly good hot dog.

But I digress.

In a way, a truly good hot dog---a memorable hot dog---is a model for God's mercy. We poor fallen children of Eve are filling---made good yet suffering from some our origins within an undisclosed bovine anatomical location we have inherited,and encased in the Baptismal sacrament which binds us to the hope in a greater destiny where we are blessed with the graces of mustard, relish, onions, kraut, perhaps even chili and clothed in the embrace of a warm heavenly bun---ultimately sharing in the glory of the God's baseball stadium
(which IMHO is better than being burned and consumed by the devouring mutt!)

[ukok]

I watched a documentary not long ago about the making of hotdogs. The method is absolutely disgusting. In the documentary it showed a mechanical recovery machine and what the machine does is recover every extractable drop of vaguely edible substance from the animal (hence the name).

If you are eating something while reading this, you might want to pause for a moment....after the (for example) cow/pig/chicken has been stripped of its flesh, organs, meat etc, and no human being can pick anything else off the carcass, the bones of the animal are put in to the mechanical recovery machine which then crushes them so that any marrow, goo or whatever, oozes out into a pan below. This gunk constitutes a large percentage of the contents of hot dogs, chicken nuggets etc. So tehnically, stomach churningly, manufacturers can till make the claim that the product contains 50% cow or whatever. We consumers are too ignorant to ask which bit of the cow the product contains and the manufacturers sure as hell aren't going to tell us. Well, that or we are too closed off and don't want to know what is in our fod, and the effect it may have upon our health someday....cumulitative effect...perish the thought of it.

The humble grape, by comparison, gives me much less to fear.

Having said that, my son has been a choker for all his life and almost everytime he eats grapes he chokes on one...when he was younger I used to panic like heck and start smacking him on the back (not that i enjoyed that bit ;-) ) to try to get the grape to shoot out....before now i have had him out the front door and down the garden path and on the verge of shouting in the street for help when 'POP' out the grape came. (perhaps it was the fear he had of his manic mother ranting in the street?)

Still.