Killer Hot Dogs

Killer hot dog captured in the wild.

John Lott has the straight scoop on the newest peril to "the children". Forget obesity! The kid will choke to death long before he gets fat!

"Doctors Urging for a Safer, Choke-Free Hot Dog"
Choking to death on food of any type is very rare. There are about 60 million kids under age 15 in the US. 61 choked to death on food. I don't know how many of those choked on hotdogs, but I assume that given everything that kids eat it couldn't have been that many.

Mr. Lott is an outstanding statistician. How would he rate the risk?

So how many hotdog were eaten each year? Apparently about 9 billion!

Suppose that children eat hotdogs in proportion to their share of the population. That would be about 1.8 billion hotdogs (that may be high or low, but take it as a rough guess). If all choking deaths from food were due to hotdogs, that is 61/1.8 billion, a 0.0000034 percent rate. You are probably at more risk crossing a street.

I'm thinking the government should mandate "Pâté dogs"!

(I realize that the death of children is a serious subject. I raised five children, and I was concerned with each and every one of them and the possibility that they might choke on their food. At no time, though, did it enter my head that the government had a responsibility to cut my children's meat for them.)

Study: Vegetarian Diet Shrinks Brain

We could have told you that!

MELBOURNE: Scientists have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain-with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage.
Vegans and vegetarians are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish. Vitamin B12 deficiency can also cause anaemia and inflammation of the nervous system. Yeast extracts are one of the few vegetarian foods which provide good levels of the vitamin.
The link was discovered by Oxford University scientists who used memory tests, physical checks and brain scans to examine 107 people between the ages of 61 and 87.

Yet another reason that conservatives triumph over the sprout and tofu bunch! Meat! It's what's for dinner! Heh.

Hat tip The Lasso of Truth
Cross posted at Say Anything