Don't Feed the Birds

So today I stumbled across a list of the top ten most believed myths. As soon as I saw the topic of the article I was immediately intrigued. I began thinking about all of the things that I would assume were myths but that I myself believe. But I was not ready for the list that I was about to read.

The first one on that list, number 10 for those of you that can not count backwards, was the one that I am writing about here. This myth was one that I had not heard of before. And one that apparently has effected weddings all across the nation. According to the list of the top ten most believed myths if you let a pigeon eat uncooked rice they will explode. Yep, you heard me right. The bird will walk along, eat the rice, and BOOM! the bird will explode.

First off, this is just silly. Of course the bird will not explode. But apparently people believe this myth so much to stop throwing rice at a wedding. This is why we now throw birdseed instead of rice. Now if that does not make you laugh. We go from throwing an Asian lunch time treat to throwing something that will not make the birds blow up into a million pieces but provide them with proper nourishment.

And you know, the more that I think about it do birds and other wildlife not eat grains and rice products to survive the long winter months? That is part of their yearly diet if I do remember correctly. So how in the world did the idea of birds blowing up ever become a reality? Maybe it was Anne Landers (from the Simpsons for you sheltered type) that got us all hooked on the idea. She once stated that this argument was in fact true.

But what happens if birdseed proves to be making all animals in flight fat? Will we then stop throwing birdseed at weddings? What are we going to throw next? Toasters? We can’t blame fat people for eating McDonald’s can we? So how can we blame birds for eating rice? (By the way, fat people do not actually blow up from eating a double cheese burger, their stomachs just make them look like they do.)