When I first heard people were eating Tide pods, I thought
it was a joke. I had seen the eating Tide pods meme
on Reddit, and I thought I understood the joke, which is that they look
delicious.
A few weeks later, when one of my Facebook friends posted a
status lamenting the younger generation’s eating of Tide pods, I assumed it was
one of those things like rainbow parties
or poisoned
Halloween candy – i.e., not something that ever actually happens, but that
people freak out about anyway.
But no, it turns out kids are actually eating Tide pods. It’s
called the Tide pod challenge, and knowing about it adds a whole new layer of
humor to the meme.
The thing is, I can kind of understand why someone would
want to eat a Tide pod. They tell you to keep them away from kids for a reason. Tide pods are small, round, plump, squishy, shiny, brightly colored, and slightly
sticky; everything about them calls to my scavenger instincts and harkens back
to the colorful sweets of my childhood, and that, according
to neuroanthropologist John S. Allen, is exactly why they look so scrumptious.
I mean, just look at this little guy and tell me you’re not at least a little
bit tempted to eat him:
 |
| Image by Soulbust from Wikimedia Commons. |
Apparently, the Tide pod challenge involves filming yourself
biting into a Tide pod. I thought, it’s only soap, it can’t be THAT bad for
you, can it?
It can. The super-concentrated ingredients in Tide pods will
burn your stomach lining if you swallow the pod or its contents. There’s
probably not enough poison in one Tide pod to kill an adult, and you’ll
probably only need to spend one night in the hospital if you eat one, unless
you aspirate some of the detergent into your lungs, in which case you’re probably
going to die.
Plus, there’s the taste. I’ve never tasted laundry
detergent, but I can’t imagine it tastes nice. Actually, I can. That’s the
problem.
