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Doctors Warn Against Viral 'Shell On' Challenge Where People Eat Food Packaging

Updated September 8, 2021

Nowadays, it gets harder and harder to tell when people are joking and when they're seriously going to do something crazy. For instance, before we enter a serious and bewildering debate with a Flat Earther, we might assume that nobody seriously believes that the Earth is flat.

But even wild ideas that start as jokes run the risk of reaching at least one person who's daring enough to actually try the ridiculous thing that people are ironically enthusiastic about.

That unfortunate reality is how we had people actually trying to eat Tide pods a couple of years ago, and it seems to be responsible for yet another dangerous challenge.

This time, we're dealing with something called the "shell on" challenge, in which people eat foods just as they found them.

Instagram | @kgriff.spam

These means eating bananas and oranges with the peel on, eggs with the shell on, and anything similar you can think of.

And yes, that apparently includes trying to eat cardboard or plastic packaging on foods that don't occur in nature.

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I can recall seeing tongue-in-cheek posts where people would say "do y'all eat bananas with or without the shell?" to obtain disgusted or disappointed reactions.

In one such case, a Twitter user followed their message up with, "Lmaoooo this blew up. Please people why do you think I'm being serious here."

However, once this idea picked up speed, some people either got genuinely curious or thought it would be even funnier to try it themselves.

Instagram | @1037play

In either case, Today reported that teens on Snapchat are daring each other to try this bizarre challenge and some adults are even caught up in the wave as well.

Strangely, in the case of the adults, some don't have any interest in the challenge, but go through with it anyway.

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And as pediatrician Dr. Hansa Bhargava told Today, it seems that their gut instinct was right because taking part in this challenge doesn't do anyone's health any favors.

Part of the problem is that food companies don't expect us to eat the waste parts of foods and thus, see no reason to make them safe to eat.

Reddit | trot-trot

In other words, the peels of bananas and oranges could hold some pesticide residue. Although Dr. Bhargava said that ingesting small amounts of this shouldn't make an impact, it's definitely a reason to keep the "shell" off.

Furthermore, eating uncooked eggs with the shell on introduces a significant risk of salmonella contamination.

Although this should seem obvious to most of us, eating the plastic wrapping on products like this is an even worse idea than eating banana peels.

Twitter | @Hostess_Snacks

Dr. Bhargava said that small pieces of plastic can pass through our systems within a day, but that doesn't make them any less inedible. The larger the piece of plastic someone tries to ingest, the more likely they are to choke on it.

But even if someone gets a large piece of plastic wrapping through their system without incident, that doesn't mean its harmless.

Reddit | BloviateBetting

Dr. Bhargava also pointed out that some of these materials may include phthalates, which are both known to make plastics more flexible and to potentially cause cancer in humans.

And so, it seems the only good that can come out of this challenge involves turning it into a teaching moment.

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Since most teens' first reaction to this challenge will likely be something along the lines of, "this seems like a dumb idea," that unease can likely serve as a good entry point to a conversation about social media challenges and thinking critically about what they may be pressured to do.

h/t: Today

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Food & Drink