Having my own daughter, I have become very much the worry wart that I used to make fun of when watching other parents. In my youth of 28 years ago, I used to live the life of high adventure on my parents small 11 acre parcel in New Jersey. We had horses, goats, cats, dogs, fish, ticks, hermit crabs, lawn tractor, barn rafters, and metal swing sets with ropes. All of the necessary elements for a boy to grow into a man or reach an early demise from an accidental pony kick to the abdomen.
In today’s safety conscience world of bicycle helmets and life jackets it is no wonder the earth’s population is booming into a Malthusian catastrophe from all of the added children that should have been taken out by their tire swing. If my father had let me do today what I did then he would have been dragged off to prison for child endangerment. Bicycle helmets? Phffffffft! All we had were training wheels and maybe an orange flag swinging from our rear bike axle. I fondly remember at the age of 8 walking freely through our woods, exploring foundations of old houses on our property, climbing up into the barn’s rafters over the horse stalls, and riding my bike miles down the road to buy a soda. Those were the sepia toned days of my imagination.
Then came the bane to gym teachers around the world. The Atari 2600. Instead of roaming the wilds of the outdoors or playing sports, children could now sit on their ass all day and grow fat playing Pong while chugging down carbonated high fructose corn syrup. What is this world coming to?
The icing on the cake was when I read that children under the age of one should not ingest honey as recommended by the CDC. HONEY? Your kidding? Apparently there is a slight risk of infants developing infant botulism. This life
The little bastards.
threatening disease is caused by the bacterium known as Clostridium botulinum. Up until the age of 6 months, infants are at a greater risk of developing this disease as their intestinal tract has not built up the ability to safely move the spores through the body. Symptoms of the illness include:
Fortunately it is very treatable and only about 100 cases occur each year. Apparently water, dirt, dust, and contaminated honey are the likely sources of this bacterium.
After doing a little Google research I came across a few articles that discuss why honey is a real risk. First, it is true that honey will inhibit the growth of bacteria and spores. Spores need to have just the right environmental variables for them to germinate and spread. In honey the variables are not all there. In the adult human body the high acidity and natural bacterial flora also prevent these spores from activating. However in an infant human body the acidity levels are low enough in combination with a lack of natural bacteria which adults have, allowing the spores to germinate and cause illness.
So as much as I like to tout the benefits of honey I would have to say I would follow the conservative course of action and just wait until my child was at least 2 before I started putting honey on her toast. So let me get back to heli-parenting around my daughter she is about to put her hands in the toilet water.
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