You have to be careful out in the world wide web area.  I just looked up the dangers of eating snow.  Yes, plain old every day snow.  Snow that has just fallen and is nice and fluffy and nobody has made any attempts at making it yellow, or stepped in it or anything.  Just plain snow.

One web site went into great detail making me think twice about eating snow.  They site the Canada Safety Council and go into great lengths telling me how snow is formed.

The atmosphere is filled with nasty little dusty bacteria particles floating around and circling the globe.  Suddenly moisture in the same general area gets really cold and water molecules begin to freeze, but they have to find a host to freeze around..in come the bacteria, dirt and other undesirable things.  The molecules continue to form around this nasty host until it gets heavy enough for gravity to take hold of it and send it earthward.

Here I stand on earth with my face pointed upward and my tongue hanging out, my eyes focused on a potential snowflake descending to my position.  How lucky will I be to have it drop onto my tongue?  BUT WAIT!  That is not lucky…it’s lucky to have it MISS my tongue according to these guys!  Don’t eat it!  These CSC guys took 20 samples from all around the world and found loads and loads of bacteria crawling in the snow they sampled!  YUK!  Spit it out!

AND a direct quote from that article reads:  “The amount of bacteria in snow is comparable to the amount of bacteria children exposed to when they play in dirt”.   Read more: Is Eating Snow Safe? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_5513100_eating-snow-safe.html#ixzz2IMiuOEqY

And so, they suggest you not eat snow, no way, no how.  But what if you were dieing of thirst and stranded somewhere away from help?  Would you take your chances?  Of course, but keep in mind, it would be better to melt it in a pot and let it boil for awhile if you have the capabilities to do that.

Now, as I continued to look on the web for the uglies of eating snow, I found a site that was completely the opposite.  And this site is one intended to teach kids about stuff.  The site is an answers web site named “http://answers.askkids.com/Weird_Science/can_you_eat_snow”

Here is the question and the answer:

angeleyez410, Answers Expert

So, what do you believe?  I think I’ll take my chances and try and catch another snow flake.  Can’t my body take care of one more little bacteria bug?  If not, I guess I’ll go under having caught that last snow flake and bathed in my own glory knowing I could do it!

Bears Butt

Jan. 19, 2013