Are poinsettias poisonous? Does feasting put on pounds? Revealed: The answers to the biggest holiday myths

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Myths and misconceptions pop up every holiday season.

For decades, there have been fears surrounding festive red poinsettias, with claims it they kill you.

On the other hand, we seem unfussed by snowflakes, but they may carry a serious germ risk. 

And when it comes to feasting, no one seems sure how to do it right. 

Here’s what science says about some of our most burning questions:

1. FLOWER POWER

Poinsettias, those showy holiday plants with red and green foliage, are not nearly as harmful as a persistent myth says. 

Mild rashes from touching the plants or nausea from chewing or eating the leaves may occur but they aren’t deadly, for humans or their pets. 

Poinsettias belong to the same botanical family as rubber plants that produce latex, so some skin rashes occur in people allergic to latex. 

According to a Western Journal of Emergency Medicine research review, the plants’ toxic reputation ‘stems from a single unconfirmed death of a two-year-old in Hawaii in 1919.’

e8fb7b1aa509320673d0d40d0ff459de Are poinsettias poisonous? Does feasting put on pounds? Revealed: The answers to the biggest holiday myths

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