Thursday, March 6, 2008

Is it ok to eat snow?

You might want to cross this off a list of fun and simple things for kids to do: Eating snow.

A recent study has found that snow, even in pristine spots, contains large amounts of bacteria. The bacteria is Pseudomonas syringae, and it is apparently everywhere. But according to Dr. Penelope Dennehy, kids won't get anything from snow that they wouldn't get from dirt. So maybe eating snow is ok?

Well, according to pediatricians cited in the AP article about this study, even if this bacteria isn't a big deal, parents may want to be cautious about large amounts of snow-eating anyway. Why? Because of ordinary air pollution that finds its way into snow. Lovely.
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