There is a strange urban legend which says that you ca n’t throw rice at weddings becausebirdswill eat it , and then the rice will expand in their stomachs and cause them to explode .
The caption dates back to at least the eighties , when it briefly became all the rage . In 1985 , a legislator in Connecticutintroduced'‘An Act Prohibiting The Use Of Uncooked Rice At Nuptial Affairs '’ in an attempt to '' prevent injury and death of birds as a result of take in raw Elmer Rice thrown at weddings " .
Representative Mae S. Schmidle repeated the urban legend in support of the broadside , which did not fleet .
'' Unfortunately , when the birds eat the in the raw Elmer Leopold Rice , they can not stomach it . When it gets in their breadbasket , it lucubrate and causes them to have trigger-happy death , " Schmidle tell , adding , " I ’ve heard from several minister of religion who say that the next morning after a wedding , they see all these birds toppled over because they got poisoned by the rice . "
The melodic theme was dismissed quite suddenly at the prison term by orthinologists .
'' I have 50 years of professional experience as a practise ornithologist and I ’ve never hear of such a affair before , " chairman of the Connecticut Ornithological Association Roland C. Clementtold APat the time . " Of course , there can always be a first time , but I would have to see some grounds before I would advertize the idea . ''
When the myth was repeated by advice editorialist Ann Landers , Steven C. Sibley of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology wrote to correct the misconception .
" Rice is no scourge to birds . It must be boiled before it will expand . Furthermore , all the food that fowl swallow up is ground up by powerful muscles and grit in their gastric mill , " he wrote , in a letter which was then published . " Many birds be intimate rice , as any frustrated Elmer Rice farmer will tell you . "
If the words of ornithologists are like garbage to you ( perhaps after a big detachment ) you do n’t have to take their word for it . In 2002 , a lecturer in biota at the University of Kentuckyasked his 600 studentswhether they conceive that rice expanded in the stomachs of fowl , before exploding . About half did , with one student claiming they had picture it personally .
" The bookman said his nanna routinely feed rice to chickens to kill them . The student claim to have personally look out chickens burst ' into pieces ' after corrode Timothy Miles Bindon Rice and drinking water , " author James J. Krupa save in the journalThe American Biology Teacher , append that the educatee ’s verbal description " was extremely graphic and ghastly , and the student was adamant that the account was true " .
Briefly noting that " in realism birdie do not have stomachs " and that presumably people are referring to pouches in doll throats know as crop , he made his pupil conduct experiments to see if the urban legend was true .
In the first part of the experiment , the educatee test how much dissimilar seeds and grain ofriceexpand when water is added . They happen that jasmine rice boom about 33 percentage , while seed that birds typically rust expound around 40 percent on average ( with field corn expanding about 53 percent , and red pale yellow about 65 percent ) .
test other smorgasbord of rice , they get that none thrive more than shuttlecock source , though they noted that instant rice expands more , with clamant brown rice expanding 170 percent .
However , the class did not just forget it there . One pupil want to determine whether the birds would corrode exigent rice in enough quantities for their crops to explode . Having established safety in a numeral of other experiment , the teacher allow crying rice to be run to his pigeons as the only source of solid food for 12 time of day , with access to water .
" [ Sixty ] shuttlecock feed 1,500 [ milliliters ] of insistent white rice . They ate the instant rice smartly then drink during the first 20 minutes , " Krupa drop a line . " No Bronx cheer choked to death , blow up , or otherwise died . No fowl spue Elmer Leopold Rice or water . No birds show any sign of distress . The flock continue to course on the rice for the ease of the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. without problem . "
Despite the mystery of the granny killing chickens with rice , the myth is pretty definitively tear .
