Hot dog 'must be redesigned to reduce choking hazard'

[Sol Invictus]

Hot dog 'must be redesigned to reduce choking hazard'

By Nick Allen | Telegraph.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010

The respected American Academy of Paediatrics is calling for sweeping changes in the way hot dogs are designed and labelled to minimise the chances of youngsters dying.

Every year food-related choking kills up to 77 children in the US and up to 15,000 more are treated in emergency rooms.

About 17 per cent of the food-related chokings are caused by hot dogs, according to a report by the academy.

It wants to see the shape of hot dogs "redesigned" to stop them lodging in children's throats.

The academy said: "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."

Lead report author Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told USA Today:

"If you were to take the best engineers in the world and try to design the perfect plug for a child's airway, it would be a hot dog." "I'm a paediatric emergency doctor, and to try to get them out once they're wedged in, it's almost impossible."

The academy also said other high-risk foods including raw carrots, grapes and apples, should be cut into pea-sized pieces for small children. Other risky foods included marshmallows and peanut butter which could form a "tenacious seal" in a child's airway.

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[Monolith]

LMAO!

[Allenson]

I love a good hot dog. I like to grill them in a pan with some butter, toast the bun in the pan too, add some cheddar cheese, just a wee bit of ketchup and a side of nice kettle chips. Yum!

This thread is making me hungry.

[Cato]

Teach the snot-noses how to chew properly. I'm 33 and have never once choked on a hot dog- which I've been eating for as long as I can remember (earliest memories = age 2).

[Majar]

Hot dog 'must be redesigned to reduce choking hazard'

This study was co-funded by Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, with contributions from Jessica Simpson who funded similar research on modifying the shape of bananas and cucumbers.

[antonio]

Always supposed that foods arrive throat reduced to a shapeless state by action of teeth. So a child who used not to follow that procedure will choke no matter what he's eating or its form.

[Grumpy Cat]

LOL. As a kid I ate hot dogs, rode my bicycle without a helmet, and played with lawn darts and I turned out fine.

Stop bubble wrapping children.

Dennis Leary was right:

[YOUTUBE]2EGCwPXDR-0[/YOUTUBE]

[Óttar]

They should redesign more important things like mozzarella cheese, vitamin C pills and men's multivitamins... For the last two one must have a throat the size of an anaconda's.

I said, "screw this, I'm not dying over Vitamin C."

[Jägerstaffel]

I heard about this on the news.

Parents - cut the hot dogs up for the very young children.

Problem solved.

[Cato]

It's a bloody hot dog, one could also easily choke to death on a piece of lettuce if it's swallowed incorrectly- or as the story goes, like Mama Cass on a ham sandwich. When people eat like fat hogs, digestive trouble is bound to happen- and choking becomes more obvious if, say, some shit-for-brains kid quickly swallows a partially-chewed hot dog. That's what saliva is for, shithead kids, it begins the digestive process so that food is more easily swallowed (i.e the food is slightly liquefied so that it passes down your esophagus and into your gullet in an easier manner).

Chew first, chew well, and then swallow.