In today’s breaking news: Cigarettes can kill you, the sky is blue, and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos are bad for you. In fact, according to an interview on Medical Daily, pediatricians now claim that spicy snacks like Flamin’ Hot Cheetos send multiple children to the emergency room each year. This comes as a shock to the many people who assumed the “Flamin’ Hot Seasoning” (aka “maltodextrin, salt, sugar, monosodium glutamate, yeast extract, citric acid, Red 40 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 5”) was a perfectly fine product to consume in mass quantities, based on the old saying, “a maltodexin a day keeps the doctor away.”
Instead, eating too many spicy sticks of cornmeal can lead to severe abdominal pain, ulcers, erosions, peptic ulcer disease, and gastritis. (Not to mention a proliferation of the classic childhood prank: “Mom, I have blood in my stool! Just kidding, it’s just Red 40 Lake!”)
Dr. Martha Rivera of White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles sums it up best: “It burns when it goes down, it burns when it comes out.” Although to be fair, Frito-Lay did try to warn consumers its products were “dangerously cheesy.” It’s just too bad no one listened. [via Jezebel]