Gerrard Kaonga
A doctor explains what will happen if you for some reason decide to try the ‘do not eat’ silicone packets inside packages for a snack.
As a general rule for things that say 'do not eat', the warning is a good enough reason to not stuff them in your mouth and yet... it is hard not to be curious.
As a kid, you likely asked your parents what would and wouldn’t poison you and these packets were almost certainly something you asked about.
But, how damaging can they actually be to your body?
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Well, according to plastic surgeon Dr Anthony Youn, it is not all that terrible for you, but still not advisable to eat.
Speaking on YouTube, Doctor Youn explained that, while eating these packets can be dangerous for your health, it's not necessarily in the way you think.
In a YouTube short, he said: “What happens if you eat a silica gel packet that says ‘do not eat’, will you die?
“The silica packets are in shoeboxes, bags and pill containers to absorb moisture and they are filled with silicone beads.
“These silicone beads are technically harmless if you swallow them but if a dog or a child swallows the packet they can choke on it.
“So technically, eating one of these packets can lead to death.”
But for arguments sake, let's say you do actually swallow a packet or two. Well, not a lot actually changes in your body.
Silica gel tends to be nontoxic and shouldn’t make you sick. More often than not, it’ll pass through your body and exit without any harmful effects, according to a Healthline report.
But it is also worth noting that, while it won’t necessarily harm you, the gel doesn’t have any nutritious value and could potentially cause intestinal obstruction if eaten in large quantities.
If someone mistakenly ingests it, it may be beneficial to drink water to help the gel go into the stomach.
However, while most packets tend to be non-toxic, in some rare instances manufactures use silica gel that coated with cobalt chloride, a toxic compound, according to the outlet.
They warn that if someone ingests this silica gel, it’ll likely cause nausea and vomiting.
So, just to err on the safe side, it is probably best to avoid eating them all together. All in all, you can’t get clearer signage than ‘do not eat’, if we are being honest here, so put the silica gel packets down.