Disclaimer: This is satire. Please, under no circumstances, ever feed your child any poison. I'm writing this after someone we thought was an allergy ally said very similar things in regards to Lucy's allergies. So rather than punch him, (or her... could be a her...) (it was a him, but I won't say who) (I'm dying to say who) (email me) I thought it would be healthier to passively aggressively blog out my feelings on the matter. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present a satirical essay about feeding your child poison (which you should NEVER do).
I'm sick and tired of hearing about kids not eating arsenic. I mean honestly, how do you really know it's deadly? Have you ever given it to your child? No. Just because some "doctor" says it's "deadly" you act like it's poison. You make sure it's not in your brown rice, even in small amounts. You won't even let your kid NEAR the stuff. I get it. You need attention. Why don't you just go put your kid in a Tyvec suit, inside a bubble and live out your helicopter parenting fantasies in an arsenic-free nanny state?
Deadly, you say? Prove it. What your kid really needs is a good dose of arsenic to get tougher, build up some immunity. I'm no doctor, but I have a business degree and I like to think of myself as smarter than you, and guess what, that makes me entitled to have a pretty strong opinion on just about everything, (seriously, try me) especially things about which I actually know nothing. It's called common sense.
Look, I've seen Princess Bride. Remember how Westley built up immunity to poison and didn't die when he drank it? You know why? Because he wasn't a pansy. Is that what you want your kid to be? A cowering, weak, nimby-pamby baby-man who is terrified to be in the same room with arsenic, let alone, eat it?
It's science. It's called Mithridatism. It's the act of giving people small amounts of poison so that they build up a tolerance to it. In fact, it's done for the very-serious-and-never-to-be-joked-about-or-taken-lightly-deadly-medical-condition of food allergy-induced anaphylaxis.
Doctors give kids a little every day and eventually, those kids are cured. Sure, every kid is different, and most start out at between 1/240th to 1/120th of one peanut, which is such a small amount you can barely see it, and to even qualify for participation in peanut Mithridatism at that teeny amount, the doctor has to witness the child experiencing anaphylaxis to that spec of peanut. Then, for those that can tolerate it, they increase the dosage by spec-of-dust-sized amounts every month, under medical supervision, at a hospital, with a Hep_Lock in the kid's arm, and do this over the course of 2-5 years, during which time most kids experience serious intestinal problems, and then have a 30% success rate of the kid being able to eat peanuts, and even then the kid has to eat peanuts every day for the rest of his or her life because scientific studies have shown that skipping peanuts even one day then eating them again will cause anaphylaxis.
But that's peanuts. That shit is crazy deadly. I'm talking about arsenic here.
So, what I'm saying is you should probably just give it your best guess and feed your kid whatever amount of arsenic you feel is about right, in the non-medical setting of your own home, and see what happens. That's what I mean by common sense.
I know some parents that are so ridiculously neurotic about it that they won't even let their kids eat food that was on the same equipment as arsenic in the factory. "Oh, arsenic is sticky and it leaves behind residue that gets in the food and I'm overprotective and crazy." And some are so outrageous that just because a food is made in the same building as arsenic, they won't let their kids eat it. Seriously? "Oh, the arsenic dust can get into other food and even though I've never seen my kid die from trace amounts of arsenic dust, I'm just an insane person who assumes it could be deadly."
Whatever.
Look, people. I don't hate these types of parents, I'm just sick of them freaking out about all these little things. Again, I'm no doctor, or scientist, or professor, or food allergy-sufferer, and I've never read a scientific article about it, but I have gut feelings and this arsenic paranoia wasn't around when I was a kid. It's something new and it was invented by parents who need attention. It's just a shame that their kids have to suffer for it.
Now, excuse me. I have some cancer patients to advise about their "tumors."
Please donate today. Because this is the kind of crap my five-year-old has to put up with. http://www.foodallergywalk.org/triangleNC/shelly
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