Doctor Explains What Will Actually Happen To Your Body After Eating Tide Pods And Yup, It’s Gross

People Eating Laundry Pods Meme

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Teens eating Tide Pods? I thought this was a joke for so long. I was on vacation when this meme took off and came back to find an Internet that wouldn’t shut up about Tide Pods. It really seemed too laughable to be true. Then I saw a few confirmed reports of morons eating Tide Pods and getting really sick.

You should NEVER eat Tide Pods. It’s poison. And it is going to mess your body up. It doesn’t matter that they look like edible candies. Tide knows this and they’ve even added chemicals to the outer layer of Tide Pods to induce immediate sickness to stop kids from eating them. So what will actually happen to your body if you eat Tide Pods? Elizabeth Narins of Cosmopolitan spoke with Dr. Michael Lynch, M.D., medical director of the Pittsburgh Poison Center and AAPCC spokesperson. He discussed, in graphic detail, what will happen. Spoiler alert: eating Tide Pods is a very bad idea:

When it First Enters Your Mouth
In 2015, Tide began coating laundry pods with a special substance called Bitrex (aka denatonium benzoate) to stop children from eating them, according to the The Wall Street Journal, so the first taste will be bitter. Your body may respond with a wave of nausea, and your stomach may release extra acids to prepare you to vomit, even before you swallow.

Assuming your food stays down, you may react to the foul taste by inhaling sharply, a move that could lodge the pod in your throat and temporarily block your airway, until the pod’s coating dissolves. The time this takes will vary based on the amount of moisture present, and the discomfort could trigger coughing. (via)

So you’re basically getting sick as hell long before that Tide Pod (or any laundry pod) reaches your stomach. You’re going to feel nauseous and possibly start vomiting almost immediately. This is just the first wave of pain. It only gets worse from here.

Here’s what happens when the liquid gets released:

If the pod remains in your mouth, you’ll release saliva containing digestive enzymes. If it hasn’t already, the pod’s coating will begin to dissolve, unleashing a gel-like substance made from various cleaning agents and stain fighters into the mouth.
When the gel comes into contact with the tissues that line your mouth (aka mucous membranes), the detergent coats the cells that make up the membrane’s outer layer. Its pH kills the cells on contact, which results, at a microscopic level, in them releasing internal matter. In most cases, this will cause a burning sensation almost immediately, with sensitivity on the insides of your cheeks and your tongue that can last for a few minutes or up to a few days. It’s like when you burn your mouth on hot soup, except it’s a chemical burn, not a physical one. The worst is over once the irritant leaves your mouth, but if you’ve bitten into a pod and spit it out, your lips could be particularly burned.
In response to the burning sensation, your immune system jumps into action, launching the body’s natural defense — its inflammatory response — to fight injury and infection. As a result, your lips, tongue, and insides of your cheeks may become swollen. The longer you’re exposed to the irritant at its full concentration, the more swelling you will experience. (via)

Now, to read what happens to your body after you swallow the Tide Pods you’ll have to click here to visit Cosmo.

My dudes, there is absolutely no reason to ever eat Tide Pods. They don’t actually look delicious and if they do somehow look tasty to you then you need to sort your disgusting diet out and start eating normal foods.