The Danger's In The Calories
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Health on Wednesday, October 27, 2010 2:00 PM
We heard so many trick-or-treat horror stories growing up. Did you?
Razor blades hidden in candied apples. Poisoned candy bars.
Each year our teachers warned us about the perils of trick-or-treating, and clearly our parents believed at least some of these tales, as we were never allowed to eat apples, popcorn balls or any homemade treats we might have gathered in our sacks of loot.
As a child I never questioned these stories, but later I came to view them as obvious urban legends.
I mean, think about it. How could a razor blade be placed in an apple without the tampering being obvious? And why would any of your neighbors poison your children? Even if they were so malevolent, the crime would be so easy to trace!
This morning’s Wall Street Journal carries a piece from Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kid fame, documenting the fact that no child in the U.S. has ever been poisoned by trick-or-treat candy. She writes of an experience similar to mine:
Sure, the folks down the street might smile and wave the rest of the year, but apparently they were just biding their time before stuffing us silly with strychnine-laced Smarties.
That was a wacky idea, but we bought it. We still buy it, even though Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, has researched the topic and spends every October telling the press that there has never been a single case of any child being killed by a stranger’s Halloween candy. (Oh, yes, he concedes, there was once a Texas boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix. But his dad did it for the insurance money. He was executed.)
Take or leave what she says about other Halloween dangers (not every neighborhood is safe to walk around in, and safety objections aren’t the only reasons parents might eschew trick-or-treating).
I’m just happy to see my teenage musings about neighbors not being out to get us verified in print. (Snopes.com has more on Halloween “poisonings” that weren’t.)
Isn’t it funny the things we accept until we think to question them?
In college I knew a girl who said she used to be terrified by her father’s threat, “If you kids don’t behave, I’ll be all over you like a herd of turtles.”
Only in her 20s did it occur to her such a gathering would not be at all frightening!
I am afraid of trick-or-treating…but it’s not strychnine in the chocolate I fear.
I’m afraid of my littlest child being struck by a car. He’s terrible about looking both ways.
Print Blog
Email a FriendPost a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
