Kids across KC, including Mahomes children, enjoying snow treats after storm. Is it safe?
Last January, Reese Witherspoon kicked up a social media storm when she posted a TikTok of a homemade drink she made with cold brew coffee, chocolate syrup, salted caramel sauce — and fresh snow from outside her house.
“Oh my gosh, this is so good,” she gushed.
“Snow days were made for Chococinnos,” she captioned the video, seen millions of times.
The backlash blew in quickly, with people howling that it’s not safe to eat snow.
But generations have done it. Kids across Kansas City are indulging in the sudden bounty of free frozen treats right now after the weekend’s storm, including Brittany and Patrick Mahomes’ two little ones.
The wife of the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback posted photos of the “real snow snow cones” she served Sterling and Bronze in pink and blue flower-shaped bowls.
In Riverside, Missouri, one dad wrote on Facebook Sunday: “What do you do in a blizzard, make Snow Ice Cream, Snow Cones, Snow Sledding… All things Snow!”
The Kansas City Mom Collective posted a recipe for snow ice cream, one of many popping up in local social media posts.
One Kansas City mom on Facebook acknowledged that “yes, I am aware of the controversy of eating snow,” when she posted pics of her kids indulging in “snow cones from heaven” — bowls of snow drizzled with caramel syrup.
She wrote that she and her husband “are on opposite sides of the snow argument. But look! It’s fresh snow! (Possibly contaminated with atmospheric pollution ...) Blah blah blah. It’s one bowl, and no one ate more than a few bites.”
Jenna Bush Hager shared her own snow treat hack when she and Hoda Kotb discussed the Witherspoon incident last winter on NBC’s “Today” show. Bush Hager said she’s eaten snow for years, making sure that “it wasn’t yellow, but if it was white, we were going for it.”
Kotb said she and her daughters used a recipe for snow ice cream that came from Bush Hager, who in turn got it from her mother, former First Lady Laura Bush.
“That was what my mom did when it snowed once a year in Texas,” Bush Hager said. “That was her recipe that we passed down.”
The Witherspoon incident spawned a flurry of media reports about the safety of eating snow. Generally, health experts say it’s safe to do, with a few caveats.
Like Bush Hager referenced, don’t eat snow that looks dirty or contaminated. (One doc on TikTok said avoid snow that looks like it’s chocolate or lemon-flavored.) Look for the pure white stuff.
And avoid the first snow that falls, or any that has been directly on the ground. Snow collects contaminants from the atmosphere as it falls.
“The fresher the snow, the less contaminated it can be with things like algae, bacteria, and pollution. However, as pollution also persists in the atmosphere, all snow captures these while forming,” writes the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“As snow falls through the sky, it can lock in pollutants into its intricate latticework. The most common is black carbon from coal-fired plants and wood-burning stoves.
“In a sense, that is why it is better to wait until a few hours into the snowfall to eat your first batch.
“Snow acts like a scrubbing brush as it falls through the atmosphere. So, the longer the snow falls, the cleaner the air, and also the snow.
“That being said, never eat plowed snow, which contains snow, dirt, and chemicals like magnesium chloride.”
When people accused Witherspoon of promoting “unhealthy” snow confections, she told folks in one of several follow-up videos that you only live once.
“Also,” she said, “I want to say something: It was delicious.”
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