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(Food) Myth Bustin'
Well, it's nice to know rice really doesn't hurt birds. I always thought that was a dumb one, but stopped noting it after it became obvious the various Bridezillas I had the temerity to contradict took it way too personally. If there's anything more dangerous than getting between a bride and her Perfect Weddingtm, I'm not sure what it is.
I don't see why alka seltzer would be deadly if rice isn't. I've never encountered a bird, from sparrows to eagles, that couldn't barf or belch anything that disrupts their digestive tract sufficiently, nor was it necessary for anything to trigger their "regurgitate food for the babies" instinct.
If there is a reason why birds die from alkas, I'm more inclined to believe it's from the carbon dioxide they produce. Birds need oxygen, and lots of it; their diaphragms are even designed to pull air completely through their lungs with each breath, unlike human lungs that squeeze the air out and in like a sponge. That's what made canaries so useful in coal mines... the slightest whiff of a suffocating gas would kill them, long before the miners themselves could be incapacitated by it. When the bird belches up the fizz, it probably inhales some of the gas it just released, probably enough to make it black out or even suffocate.
Posted by: Tatterdemalian on April 28, 2009 05:00 PM