Toddlers who dislike spicy food 'racist'

[OneBlueSky]

Toddlers who turn their noses up at spicy food from overseas could be branded racists by a Government-sponsored agency.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/education/2261307/Toddlers-who-dislike-spicy-food-racist,-say-report.html

The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age. It alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive to root out prejudice as they can "recognise different people in their lives".

The 366-page guide for staff in charge of pre-school children, called Young Children and Racial Justice, warns: "Racist incidents among children in early years settings tend to be around name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships."

- more . . .

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/education/2261307/Toddlers-who-dislike-spicy-food-racist,-say-report.html

hey . . . I just report 'em . . . :shrug:

[LeftinOH]

1. I have no words...except "Yuck".

[exothermic]

2. Stupidest shit I've ever seen.

:eyes:

[Smith_3]

3. Utter bullshit. nt

[Clark2008]

4. Good to know my toddler's not racist.

She eats EVERYTHING and says, "YUM!!"

:hi:

[SacredCow]

5. I heard Oxycontin-Rush Limbaugh on this topic earlier this week....

And I really hate when I have to agree with him, but this is pretty misguided. Children LEARN racism, and it has nothing to do with whether he likes the taste or mouthfeel of hummus....

[slackmaster]

6. My stepson must really hate white people

When he was young we could never get him to eat common white people foods like boiled peas or hamburgers.

[cali]

7. my son wouldn't eat: mashed potatoes, peanut butter, tunafish

hamburgers, chocolate anything, butter on anything, and on and on. He did like: tabasco sauce, pan fried dumplings, smoked salmon and lobster. His odd tastes persisted until he was in his teens.

[slackmaster]

13. Sounds like a typical MexiDixieJewboyNewEnglander

:nuke:

[The2ndWheel]

8. That is an awesomely crazy story

Babies? What about a fetus? An individual egg and sperm? A nucleus? An atom?

[derby378]

9. As Opus once called it: "Offensensitivity"

[skooooo]

10. 366-page guide for staff

Evidently common sense was left out of the guide.

[mainegreen]

11. Seriously, what are they putting in the water in the UK?

:crazy:

[LeftishBrit]

17. Something that makes too many people take the right-wing media seriously!

We have the Torygraph; you have Fox News. We have the tabloids; you have the talkshows. Similar stuff.

[Gormy Cuss]

19. The "Torygraph".... now there's a good nickname.

The story seemed pretty bizarre, and if Limbaugh talked about it on his show there's always a good chance that the facts weren't presented.

[Midlodemocrat]

12. So, does that mean my son, who will eat and did eat Wasabi

by the spoonful is particularly tolerant?

Jeez, what a load of stupid.

[mainegreen]

16. It means he's turning Japanese, he's turning Japanese

I really think so!

:crazy:

(This post is a foolish reference to a foolish song)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpCcelpvkps

[Bluebear]

18. I really think so.

[Guaranteed]

23. LOL nt

[snooper2]

14. Stupid..

nt

[LeftishBrit]

15. Note: this is our right-wing press trying to discredit anti-racism

The Daily Telegraph is generally known as the 'Torygraph'.

I have not yet read the book concerned; and it may well be that it's a stupid book, or at least contains some stupid statements. Lots of stupid books get published.

It isn't a government document, and frankly few people would have heard of it if the Torygraph hadn't given it all this free publicity.

The NCB gets most of its funding from *non*-government sources.

The British DO have a tendency to get all worked up over trivial points of etiquette, and (though this is less true than in the past) to regard it as immoral to have likes and dislikes in food, and to not eat up everything on your plate! It's interesting, however, that the right-wing press *only* picks up on such attitudes when they could be related to something 'PC' or 'anti-racist', thus implying that the only people who fuss over such trivialities are liberal teachers and social workers who are under pressure from those eeeevil minorities. And then the Torygraph writers probably go home and rant for half an hour about someone who held his fork wrong at table, and said 'Thanks' instead of 'Thank you!' - but that doesn't count as 'PC run mad', though it's a horse from the same stable.

[GreenPartyVoter]

21. Thanks for that insider insight. It always helps to have some extra perspective when it comes to

news sources most of us are unfamiliar with.

[Bill McBlueState]

20. Yawn

Let's focus on the millions of incidents of actual racism that happen every day. Getting up in arms about stuff like this only distracts us from the real problems.

[bean fidhleir]

22. Well, that's "New Labour" for you. (nt)

[elocs]

24. I heard Dr. Oz address a similar topic to this the other day

regarding children's preference for sweet tasting food. First, children have thousands of more taste buds than adults have, so the flavors of foods are much stronger for them. I have a friend who has chewed tobacco for 45 years and he has to put tabasco on virtually everything simply in order to taste it. Dr. Oz said regarding sweet/bitter tastes that children have an evolutionary preference for sweets because when our distant ancestors traveled the savannah that poisonous foods usually had a bitter taste and so a sweet taste would mean to a child who might grab something in passing that it was safe to eat. If it was bitter, they would spit it out. It is certainly not unreasonable to believe that a child who is not familiar with the taste of spice foods may not like them because it would taste much more spice to a child than to an adult.