Of Toxic Tim Tams and Feather-laden Bread

Amongst my work colleagues I am generally referred to as “one of those... skeptics”, said with the tone that implies that I over analyse everything and ruin everyone’s fun. Which pretty much sums up the title of this blog. I am, apparently, a killjoy.

But wait.

Recently a colleague asked “Is there anything on snopes about Tim Tams containing toxins?”
Apparently said colleague’s neighbour had refused to touch those chocolate covered bits of chocolate with chocolate sandwiched between them, because they apparently contain toxins and it’s illegal to sell them in America for this very reason and that’s why you can’t buy them in America.

My response was, of course:

• What on earth do you mean by “toxins”? You’re going to have to be more specific if you’re making such claims

• What specific ingredient on the following list is the supposed “toxin”? (Milk solids, cocoa, salt, raising agent (E500), emulsifier (E322: soy) and flavoring, colours (E102, E110, E129, E133, E150). May contain traces of peanut, other nut, egg or seed).

• Why would you assume the food quality regulations in the United States are far more stringent than those in Australia?

• Why would you assume toxins are the reason Tim Tams are not available in the USA, rather than the fact that Tim Tams are an Australian branded product, just like several USA products not available here?

• If Tim Tams are so toxic, I should have died years ago.

I don’t pretend to have the answers to these questions. The toxic Tim Tam theory may be correct. But the person claiming such is going to have to provide some evidence to the fact.

In response to my ranting another colleague started in on the “The local Vietnamese bakery puts ground up chicken feathers in their bread, so you shouldn’t eat it”.

I love this one because it’s almost not quite like the McDonalds worm meat burgers or chicken feather shakes.
Which, I suspect, has the same indicators of unlikelyhood:

• Ground up chicken feathers don’t sound to me like a cost-effective filler compared to plain old flour

• Chicken feathers do not appear on the ingredient list

• Failure to declare this ingredient could get them in a world of trouble according to Australian Food labelling laws

• Surely, even finely ground chicken feathers will make the bread taste funny

My arguments which, of course, in addition to not changing this person’s opinion one bit, caused another colleague to comment on the smarties I was eating as “having all those bad artificial colours in them”.
I told her I was lucky that I wasn’t sensitive to artificial food colourings so I was fine, and anyway, Smarties now have “natural” colourings. Her argument was that even if I’m not sensitive, they still must be bad for me because they are made of chemicals.

Sure. So is water, salt, and, I don’t know, EVERYTHING.

Nope, natural things are always better for us, she insisted. Yep. I’d happily consume the following natural things:

• Arsenic

• Cyanide

• Deadly night shade

• Mercury

... need I go on? I won’t. I failed to convince her either.

So I left this group of merry people, muttering about my negative skeptical attitude. They remained convinced that they can’t eat yummy Tim Tams, or delicious Smarties, or fluffy bread.
I returned to my desk and savoured the chocolatey goodness of my Smarties. I pondered the feeling eating a really good Tim Tam can bring. I was happy.

But apparently, I’m the negative killjoy.