Text 22952, 103 rader
Skriven 2007-11-17 11:17:54 av Barbara McNay (1:382/48)
  Kommentar till text 22799 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Can'ts! 435
===================
 >  BM> It doesn't alter the seriousness of the lead issue at all, but
 >  BM> children are not going to stop chewing on toys if they have unleaded
 >  BM> paint, IMO.

 > But then it's the lead that is the problem, not the
 > chewing
 > on toys, which is normal and which no doubt I'd do if
 > I
 > had a toy handy.

Yes.  Teeth are for chewing, after all.  What is the function of the lead in
paint, anyway?

 >  BM> Later, I chewed on wooden pencils.  I don't know whether this was
 >  BM> before or after the flap about lead in the pencil paint.  Anyhow, there
 >  BM> was a cedar-woody taste, IIRC, but the most important thing was the
 >  BM> satisfying crunch of the wood.  Not taste at all.

 > For me with pencils it was the Cabernetty taste, which
 > isn't so pronounced any more - I think the quality of
 > the
 > wood used in pencils has gone down over the years.

Is that the flavor I described, or are we talking about different kinds of
wood?

 > There
 > isn't any lead in yellow pencil paint to my knowledge;
 > the flap about lead in pencils, I thought, came from
 > the
 > misunderstanding of the term "pencil lead."

A favorite "Betcha didn't know" when I was a child was the fact that pencil
"leads" were really made of graphite.  The flap I mentioned specifically
mentioned that it was the paint, not the "lead" that one had to watch out for.
I made note of that and stopped chewing the wood, and chewed the leads instead.

 > Of course,
 > now with pencils being made in China, that might be an
 > additional factor.

Appalling thought--the leads and/or the paint.

 > P.S. I'm now at my friend Dirk's, and I poked around
 > his
 > pencil urn, and 2 of 3 pencils have chew marks on
 > them.
 > I cannot say that it was he who chewed them, but it is
 > certain that one of the various scholars and musicians
 > who
 > frequent this place did. Just for consistency, I have
 > done
 > an exploratory little chew on pencil #3. It tastes not
 > so
 > nice as I recall pencils from my youth, but better
 > than
 > pencils of recent memory. It is a Dixon Ticonderoga
 > 1388-2/HB soft.

But did it have that satisfying crunch?

 > =

 > [bananas]
 >> on the mainland. A couple more in Hawaii. In the Asian
 >> markets, though, there are usually quite a few kinds.
 >  BM> Are they all eaten the same way, or do some need to be cooked?
 >  BM> (Thinking of plantain; I've never looked that up, but I've assumed it
 >  BM> looks like a banana, but isn't.)

 > Most of the ones sold as bananas are meant to be eaten
 > out
 > of hand, but there are "cooking bananas" and, as you
 > say,
 > plantains; the distinction between these latter is
 > obscure
 > - I always assumed that plantains were of the same
 > genus as
 > bananas.

 > [mangosteens]
 >  BM> So bitter that it overrides the sweetness of the interior, I assume,
 >  BM> when the whole is crushed for juice.  Well, then, I can see why most
 >  BM> people wouldn't try to eat it, unless they could separate it fairly
 >  BM> readily from the skin.

 > Bitter so it doesn't override the sweetness exactly,
 > just makes
 > it much more unpleasant to get to. One should be
 > pretty careful
 > to get rid of all the pith when chowing down on the
 > fruit -
 > it's usually easy to do so, as the pith is colored
 > pink and
 > sometimes almost as dark as the outside; but I've had
 > mangosteens
 > with light-colored pith as well.

Interesting.  Unlikely that I will ever eat one, as I assume they aren't sold
around here.

---
 * Origin: T E X A S ! (1:382/48)