Choking and Labeling

[talon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/health/25choke.html?src=me&ref=homepage

That would mean labeling every single piece of food because all food is a choking hazard. So is water. Pretty much anything we put in our mouths is a choking hazard.

Scratch that. Everything we put in our mouths has the ability to be a choking hazard. That includes air.

We might as well just admit it. Life kills. Everything is dangerous, whether we can put it in our mouths or not. Nothing is safe. I bet that hot dog designed to break into 8 smaller pieces is every bit as much of a choking hazard as a hot dog that doesn't break apart. What's the designer going to do when some child eats one of his designer dogs and chokes to death on it because some parent believed it was safe?

That man whose daughter choked to death on popcorn said, "What person reads the bottom of a box?" and to him I answer, "People who eat and people who feed others." I know I read the labels on all the boxes, bottles, jars, bags, and other containers of food I buy, the first time to know what it is I'm buying and what the manufacturer has to say about the food and then after that to see what's changed because food manufacturers have this habit of changing things without notice.

I'm sorry his daughter choked on popcorn. My children didn't get popcorn until they were 6 years old. Ditto for other foods that need serious chewing before swallowing - grapes, gummi bears, hot dogs, some breads, jawbreakers, gumballs, dried fruits, those teeny grape tomatoes, and so on. Some foods they could only have pureed or minced: cauliflower, broccoli, peas, and so on; until they got older.

Even then, they were prone to choking on foods they ate too fast, even things like pudding and ice cream and water.

There's no way to know whether or not that little girl would have choked on something else if it hadn't been popcorn, or that little boy on the hot dog, or those children on the jelly candy.

Labeling individual foods isn't going to substantially change any of that.

And you know what else? Really good parenting isn't going to prevent children from choking, sometimes to death, either.

The only way to prevent choking deaths is to prevent children (and the adults they grow into) from ever putting anything in their mouths and swallowing.

To substantially reduce choking deaths, we should fit every newborn with a feeding tube and only feed them through that their entire lives long.

And I do believe that even then, some children and people will still die of choking on something anyway.