Why
Taking aim at an icon of North American cuisine, U.S. child-safety guru Gary Smith released a report this week calling for the redesign of the lowly hot dog, which has long sat atop the most-wanted list of food choking hazards. The report - Dr. Smith, an associate professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University, was the lead author/investigator - represents a gutsy attempt by the American Association of Pediatrics to reduce the rate of accidents involving a food that poses a risk to infants and toddlers. The AAP's move was met by a flurry of bad puns, ridicule from safety skeptics and push back from the U.S. meat-processing industry.
The story so far
When it comes to child safety, the public's attention tends to focus on toys, clothing, playground equipment, car seats and cribs - all of which are subject to labels, warnings or other regulation. With food, the onus is on parents to be vigilant.
But the AAP aimed its shot across the dinner table because watchfulness isn't enough to prevent injury or death. Little kids tend to choke on small, rounded objects, including hot dogs, popcorn, grapes, nuts, hard candies, marshmallows and carrots (peanut butter is another culprit). In the United States, 10,000 children end up in the emergency room each year because they've choked on something. In Canada, 45 children under 14 die annually from choking, half from aspirating on food. The AAP report cited one study that found as many as 17 per cent of such deaths are attributable to wieners. (Balloons were a bigger risk.)
"If you were to take the best engineers in the world, and you said to them, 'Design for me the perfect plug for a child's airway,' you couldn't do better than a hot dog," Dr. Smith told Time Magazine this week.
"Unfortunately, it's exactly the right shape of the airway, it's the right diameter - it forms a plug, completely sealing off the upper airway, right above the vocal chords."
Dr. Smith, whose previous research has focused on safety issues such as trampolines and shopping carts, also points out that there has been little progress since the 1980s, despite a cluster of deaths in the late 1990s caused by mini-fruit gels - plug-shaped soft candies the size of coffee creamers.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has issued several warnings on these items since 2008, but none for hot dogs.
What's next
A key recommendation in the AAP's report is a call for warning labels on risky children's foods, including hot-dog packages. Dr. Smith points out that Sweden has required food processors to use age-oriented labels since the late 1970s. In other words, food-safety regulators in both Washington and Ottawa now have little choice but to respond. A spokesperson for Health Canada says, "Currently there are no specific requirements to label hot dogs, or any other food, as a choking hazard."
So will the hot dog industry. At Maple Leaf Foods, where memories of the 2008 listeria outbreak remain vivid, the company's marketing officials were quick to read the study. "We need to assess and be confident that [labelling]is an effective mechanism," says the company's vice-president of communications, Jeanette Jones.
As for reconfiguring the venerable wiener - maybe it's an idea whose time has come: In 1991, an American inventor patented a hot dog with elongated slits designed specifically to prevent choking.
An opportunity? As Dr. Smith argues, "Safety sells." Now, it will be up to the Maple Leaf Foods of this world to demonstrate that they can build a better hot dog.