Please confirm or refute:
1. If you swallow your gum, it stays in your stomach for 7 years.
2. You use up more calories chewing and digesting celery than are contained in celery, so it effectively has negative calories.
3. Jews with tattoos can't be buried in Jewish cemeteries.
Anything you were told as a kid that you don't know whether to believe or not? Let's throw it out to the crowd and see what sticks.
I heard someone explain that thing about the celery on a news program on TV just the other day, but I can't remember why they said it wasn't true.
Posted by: Elena | November 29, 2009 at 10:22 PM
I wonder what happens in Israel? There are SO many Israelis with tattoos.
Just wondering...
Posted by: Dana | November 29, 2009 at 11:06 PM
1. Refute: I like to believe it's true, but my husband laughs at me and says the acid in your stomach eats thru the gum dang fast.
2. Confirm: Not a scientific answer; I just haven't heard anything to disprove it.
3. Refute: Have to believe this is false... what would they do about Holocaust survivors? Though I do recall hearing this as a kid as well.
Posted by: Jami | November 30, 2009 at 12:33 AM
The rabbis made an exception for concentration camp tattoos.
Posted by: Michael | November 30, 2009 at 07:48 AM
There is also an exception for converts to Judaism who got the tattoos prior to their conversion.
Posted by: Kristina | November 30, 2009 at 10:39 AM
What happens after death to a Jew who is not buried in a Jewish cemetery? I mean, is there some purported consequence?
Posted by: Wendy | November 30, 2009 at 12:43 PM
1. False (I think it just goes through your system, as is. No decomp, no nothing. Just a lump of gum.
2. True
3. I'd like to believe False
How about the one about refraining from swimming for at least an hour after eating? This would make for an uncomfortable swim, but cramping up and drowning? Not so sure about that.
Posted by: Jeananne | November 30, 2009 at 12:51 PM
This reminds me that when I was a teenager I was solemnly informed, and earnestly believed, that if you drank enough wine to get drunk you would wake up the following morning with an incredible thirst but you shouldn't drink any water because if you do "you'll get just as drunk all over again." Apparently this was only supposed to happen with wine.
Posted by: DJay | November 30, 2009 at 01:12 PM
Well according to the internets:
1.False:http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/chewgum.asp
2.True: http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/celery.asp
3.False: http://judaism.about.com/od/conversi2/f/tatoos_burial.htm
Whether we trust the internets or not is another question.
Posted by: Susan | November 30, 2009 at 04:20 PM