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Well, when you are on the go, and you are looking for a quick bite to eat, you may want
to think twice before you heat up some instant soup, especially if it is for your children.
Here to tell us why, Andy Crouppen from Brown and Crouppen. You follow Rob Schneider and
Cheech. How do you feel about that?
Tough lead in.
You can do it. You can do it.
Yeah.
You the man here. They're gone. They can't hear us. So what's up? I had this yesterday,
honestly. I did.
Delicious.
One of my sons likes the instant soup thing there. Why should I be afraid? What's going
on?
You know, that's the thing: These soups are so ubiquitous. Everybody uses them. Everybody
has used them their whole life.
And they're cheap!
They're cheap and they're quick. They are kind of good. But what happened is, about
4 or 5 years ago now, Doctors in burn units across the country were all kind of complaining
that they were seeing these burns from noodle soups at alarming rates. And so one doctor
in California actually did a study and got about 12 different types of noodle soups and
kind of studied the angle at which they tip because what was happening: They were seeing...
these burn units across the country were seeing 3, 4, 5 of these a week. Burns from these
types of soups, and he thought it was a little much. One of the doctors was even quoted as
saying, he does not see any other injury that is as directly correlated to a product's design
as these noodle soups, and he called them uniquely dangerous. So I will show you why.
What happens is that you are taking some hot, boiling water, often you...
You are challening our photographer here...
You set it in front of a child. And if you look, what happens is that some of these are
really light and top heavy, and so it does not really take much to tip it over.
Gotcha. And then...
This one... this design... now this is not the brand that...
Is in question...
That is the worst, but this design... this sort of very light-weight styrofoam that is
top heavy goes over very easily, and what happens is that it would be just as easy as
turning it over to make it significantly harder to tip.
Now I thought you were going to tell me that the styrofoam, people heat it up too much
and that is melting and people are ingesting styrofoam, but that is not the issue.
No, no, no.
But that the design...
It is a design defect. And what makes it worse is since there are noodles in it, what happens
it that the noodles then stick to... and it is often children... stick to your skin and
so they say that the stays in burn units and hospitals are generally on average twice as
long when the burns are from a noodle soup.
What are the companies saying?
They aren't commenting.
At all.
No. And they have known for years and years, because this study is, I believe, from 2007
or 2008.
So it has been out there a while.
They are aware of it. And what is so troublesome about it is that it is really as simple as
taking this design and flipping it over, or having a wide base like this, you are not
going to tip that over. Now, on the parents' side of it, since a lot of these happen to
kids: Use a little common sense. Don't set a cup of boiling hot soup right in front of
a 4-year-old kid...
Without supervision... right.
Because regardless of the design, if you have a young child, they may well tip it over,
and no design would prevent that.
I was just trying to read -- because you know we are into label reading here at Great Day
-- if it says, you know, "Warning. This may tip over." I don't think it says that anywhere.
No. No. I don't think they have had warnings. But you know, to me when you can warn some
things away, when it is as easy as just turning it over and making it a little less top heavy,
it wouldn't cost you anything. And when you have doctors in burn units across the country
reporting so many of these injuries every week, they are more dangerous burns than just
a traditional hot water burn because of the way the noodles stick, and they say that 1
in 5 of these that they see generally results in someone having to have surgery to heal
those burns. So this is serious, and not something to take lightly. Obviously be careful when
you give your kids the soups but also...
Be aware...
Be conscious of which ones you buy as well.