Yes, it is a very real problem, and Tide refuses to fix it…
But it’s not uncommon to make candy colorful, even blue, in order to attract children. That association never really goes away, even for adults, Allen says. For many people, the colors of Tide Pods don’t imply “Danger, Do Not Eat,” but suggest instead a large Gusher candy, which are often brightly colored. Colors are extremely important in helping young children understand the world, including what is and isn’t food.
Only on the Straight Dope does one find commentary like this.
I dunno, a lovin’ spoonful (as it were) doesn’t seem like it would change the flavor of a five-gallon tub of ranch dressing noticeably.
[Thurl Ravenscroft voice:]
Given the choice between the two of them, I think I’d rather eat semen-tainted dressing…
than floor sealant milk!!!
If they didn’t bother to remix it I imagine you could accidentally get some “choice” samples at the very top of the ranch tub.
This is, after all, a subject that The Straight Dope has delved into before. Cecil Hisself discussed the nutritional composition:
How many calories are in the average male ejaculation?
Cecil compares the stuff to raw egg white, so including some in a batch of Ranch Dressing apparently isn’t so far out there.
ETA: This is the very sort of subject matter that distinguished The Straight Dope. Cecil stood out in his willingness to cover topics that, e.g., Marilyn would never touch.
And then, of course, there was this infamous thread:
You can’t get them to eat vegetables, but they’ll drink floor sealant. Reminds me of a little neighbor kid who downed a bottle of aspirin and needed a stomach pump. You’d think the god awful taste would be preventative enough.
Oleander grows here in Arizona and the leaves and sticks are poisonous, to the point eating a hot dog impaled and roasted on one can cause gastric distress. There are also tales of small kids eating the leaves and having trouble. When I was about twelve my pediatrician mentioned in passing he’d sampled some oleander leaves and they were so bitter he regarded the latter as a myth.
I was thinking, “Ever hear of aspirin poisoning?” as I smiled and nodded.
If candy comes in all different colors, then what could Tide do to fix it? No matter what color they change it to, it still could be candy.
IIRC, the plain white ones are not as attractive.
Do they still make the orange flavored chewable children’s aspirin? When I was about five I gave my parents a scare when they found I had eaten them like candy. Luckily, my mom found me and stopped me after I had about eight of them. This being the seventies, they figured that stopping me was enough, no trip to the hospital or anything like that. IIRC, I survived.
These sort of answers are why Tide has been getting away with this crap.
I am glad [kenobi_65] has set the record and facts straight
Um, no. Quite the opposite. You presumed that it “looked like candy” and so kids will eat it. Kenobi quite accurately pointed out that kids will stick just about anything in their mouths at a certain age. It doesn’t really matter what it looks like; it’s small enough to fit in their mouths and has a unique smell and squishy texture that might intrigue children.
Insisting it “looks like candy” is ridiculous though.
As my article pointed, it looks like Gushers, a kids candy.
Also companies deliberately make candy look bright and colorful to attract people to eat the product. So to argue that color doesn’t matter doesn’t make a lot of sense. Just because some kids might still put it in their mouth doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try to make them unattractive.
There definitely are colors that look gross. Plus there are tactics used elsewhere, like bitterants to discourage consumption. Has Tide put any such intensely bitter substance on the outside of their Tide pods?
Got a link? Stories like these strike me as urban legendy.
In the late 1990s, Dave Barry went to another country where his wife was doing some reporting, and he and some colleagues were served a large white gelatinous…THING…that the waitress wouldn’t tell them what it was until they had all tasted it.
It was milt, or fish sperm, which led to numerous jokes that all seemed to have a punch line that rhymed with “Fresident Flinton.”
I miss his weekly columns.
I’ve also seen “the jellied shit that surrounds Spam” compared to alien sperm.
Also, I don’t have a link, but I have heard that more Tide Pods have been unintentionally eaten by elderly people with dementia, who have quite likely largely lost their senses of taste and smell, than by children of any age.
Moderating:
This is an official warning for failure to follow moderator instructions. And it was close to a suspension.
In my case the nozzles actually weren’t compatible. I was convinced that it was because I couldn’t figure out how to install it, not that the bag was wrong. So, I managed to force the thing in there and somehow crammed the spigot end into the bag end and got it to work. I had a line forming behind me, so I felt rushed and just wanted to get the thing in there. It’s possible the person in the story just somehow made the thing work. He/she may not have been the regular milk person. 