Yes, you read that right. It seems that hotdogs are a choking hazard. Doh – what isn’t?
The esteemed American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has decided that hotdogs are a choking hazard for children, and they want them not only redesigned – don’t even want to think what that might look like – and they think the government might want to force manufacturers to put warning labels on them.
Give me a break! If you’ve read more than two of my articles, you know that I’m a hard-core progressive, and that I believe there are areas where the government must control our behavior because we’ve amply demonstrated that we aren’t willing to govern ourselves; the latest financial crisis where Wall Street took us all to the cleaners is a prime example. But, there is also the issue of individual responsibility and discipline.
When I was a youngster, we were warned not to play with fire, run with scissors, put anything smaller than our elbow in our ears, or jump off of anything taller than we were. It was common sense. Admittedly, our parents had to repeat these warnings more than once since as children you’re ability, or perhaps willingness, to retain this information rivals that of a of door knob.
It wasn’t just hotdogs the geniuses at AAP went after. Their list included such things as, hard candy, whole grapes, raw carrots, peanut butter, chewing gum, marshmallows, peanuts/nuts, popcorn and sausages. I especially want to know what redesign they have in mind for peanut butter.
Anything, and I mean anything can be a choking hazard if you take a big bite, don’t chew properly, and happen to suck it down your gullet. What ever happened to the old saw about chewing your food? I seem to recall being told to chew each bite of food some 30-plus times. Of course, you don’t. As a child, especially boys, you have more important things to do, like climbing trees, tying cat’s tails together (please don’t email me cat lovers – I’m one too) etc.
I just conducted a totally unscientific test and found that it took me about 21 seconds to chew a bite of food 30 times. If I assume
there’s some additional time getting the food cut, on a fork or spoon, and to my mouth, I’m probably at 30 seconds for each bite. If I consume all the food on my plate, a piece of meat, some starch, vegetables, a liquid, and perhaps dessert, I could conceivably be looking at 50 or more bites of food, each chewed 30 times. Allowing for a few moments of talking, I’m looking at a half-hour or so to eat my meal, not to mention second helpings. We all know that kids are in too much of a hurry to spend that amount of time at the dinner table. Come to think of it, does anyone eat at the dinner table any more?
I mentioned individual responsibility. If you put a cup of hot coffee between your legs at a drive-through, and then spill it, burning yourself, that is not the fault of the vendor that sold it to you, the roaster of the beans, or the donkey-riding Juan Valdez who picked the beans; the fault is squarely in your lap, pun intended. If you store battery acid alongside your soft drinks and inadvertently drink the acid, that is not Pepsi’s fault.
Why aren’t the parents supervising their kids, as well as teaching them to chew their food properly? Where is parental responsibility in all this? If the kid is barely a toddler, you probably should not give them a big honking hotdog to munch on by themselves; that’s why we invented things like knives and forks, so we didn’t have to eat like Henry VIII.
When I heard the story about the AAP recommendation, I didn’t know whether to fall down laughing at the stupidity of it all, or to blow a gasket over the fact that we have people making six-figure and larger salaries wasting money on this sort of nonsense. Come on, find a cure for the common cold, cancer, arthritis, the list goes on and on, but for heaven’s sake don’t tell us that carrots, which I’d guess mankind has been eating for 10,000 years, is suddenly a hazardous material. If you solve all the other perils facing this world, then go back to looking at hotdog design.
There is one positive aspect here. In this meager economy, consider investing in blenders and food processors. If these nimrods get their way, kids will be eating pureed everything until about the age of 10, at which time their teeth will probably have atrophied and fallen out, but they will be free of choking hazards, and the sales of blenders is going through the roof.
Thanks to my wife, Gale, for the title of this piece.














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