On a recent NBC Today Show segment, some Martha Stewart wannabe said you shouldn’t throw rice at weddings because it kills birds. Supposedly birds eat the rice, it swells in their stomachs, and they explode over playgrounds. Having cooked a lot of rice, I know it takes boiling heat and a good 20 minutes to get it to swell (aside from so-called Minute rice). It seems to me if any bird has an intestinal temperature near boiling, eating a few grains of rice is the least of its worries. Also, despite zillions of weddings, I don’t recall seeing piles of blown-up pigeons near churches, nor do I remember seeing inordinate numbers of bird carcasses near rice paddies in southeast Asia. Is there any basis in fact to the rice = bird killer story, or is this yet another urban myth?
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Cecil humbly concedes that the final word cannot yet be written on this urgent subject. Instead, as is his custom, he merely recites the facts as ascertained to date:
(2) Having momentarily tired of the Internet, I had little Ed go on the Mara Tapp Show on WBEZ radio in Chicago to see if any of the Teeming Millions had seen birds exploding over playgrounds. Number of calls from kibitzers who wanted to hear what their voices sounded like on the radio: zillions. Number of sightings of detonated birds: zero. Told ya.
(6) Some people think that, from the point of view of bird endangerment, a distinction should be drawn between regular rice and Minute rice. These people are losers.
Ain’t science great?
