johnnymk

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...e=nletter-news

To the list of simple childhood pleasures the safety of which has been questioned add this: eating snow.

A recent study found that snow -- even in relatively pristine spots like Montana and the Yukon -- contains large amounts of bacteria, the Associated Press reported.

But experts say there's no need to banish snow-eating (unless it is obviously dirty or discolored) along with dodgeball, unchaperoned trick-or-treating and riding a bike without a helmet.

"It's a very ubiquitous bacteria that's everywhere," says Dr. Penelope Dennehy of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on infectious diseases. "Basically, none of the food we eat is sterile. We eat bacteria all the time." (Isn't that why we have an appendix?)

Want more about what you're eating?

"We eat stuff that's covered with bacteria all the time, and for the most part it's killed in the stomach," says Dr. Joel Forman of the pediatric academy's committee on environmental health. "Your stomach is a fantastic barrier against invasive bacteria because it's a very acidic environment."

Unless you're a newborn. Don't feed your baby snow or melted snow because, the experts say, tiny kids on formula a lot of times don't have the acid in their stomachs.

OK, so you haven't heard of youngsters getting sick from eating snow, but because of ordinary air pollution in it, it's probably wise not to eat a lot of the white stuff.

Here's where we get down and dirty.

"When I heard bacteria, at first I went 'eew,'" says Tricia Sweeney, a mother of three in Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y. But as long as the kids eat snow as it's falling, "I think it's OK."

How long have you stood with your mouth wide open waiting for a snowflake to fall inside?

ShawnLee

Same reason you don't feed kids honey - because they can't deal with the botulism in there. Everything kills you and everything gives you cancer.

Me, I stopped eating snow here in Korea because the skies are dirty - don't even want to care about the bacteria that might be there.

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oblongmelon

I used to love eating snow as a kid!..my grandmother would make us get a bucket of it-bring it inside and then she'd make a syrup and pour it over the top and bingo! Snow cones!

DarkFury

We've known all along.... "Don't eat the yellow snow".

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johnnymk

Lots of vitamin C, though.

DarkFury

More like.. Vitamin "P".

Maarchk

Nasty! And there was an article similar to this that bacteria forms around snow. So i'd say avoid it. But its fun. I dont know if as a child, i'd see snow and think heck yeah, i want to eat that. then again, i think kids at that age see dog poop and think, heck yeah i want to eat that.

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Markel

Is there any way that this thread can be voted off the "Cooking & Food Subforum" island?

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johnnymk

Only if you and kevster pretend to like kitties.

uncledaddy

I may be wrong but the fact that we keep todays kids from doing things that we all did as children affects their ability to grow immune. We have anti-bacterial this and that, and science is telling us that there is a danger in everything we used to do. Since we now protect our kids from every possible source of bacteria, using air purifiers and spraying Lysol on everything, the minute they do get exposed they're not just sick, you have to take them to a hospital.

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