Sports podcaster Dan Katz — not the brightest light in the candelabra — revealed on his show last week that he had planned a fun prank: he purchased a bag of almonds and brought them to the studio, planning to toss them at his guest who suffers from a severe tree nut allergy.
Apparently, he thought “tree nuts” were a separate variety of nuts, not realizing that almonds, walnuts, pistachios, cashews, et al are all tree nuts. Luckily, his cohost stepped in and informed him that he would be putting the guest in real danger of a serious reaction.
That guest was TJ Watt, the 6′-4″, 250lb linebacker of Pittsburgh Steelers fame.
During the show, TJ recounted a number of incidents where tree nuts had triggered serious reactions related to football:
Once, he was in Arizona when his brother — Cardinal defensive end JJ Watt — was receiving Defensive Player of the Year honors. He ate some lo mein from the hotel he was staying at and showed up to the red carpet ceremony with a beet-red face.
Another time, teammate James Harrison drove TJ to the hospital after he suffered a reaction. He said his face “looked like I had gone five rounds with Mike Tyson”.
Another year at the Super Bowl, TJ’s father jokingly tossed a pecan at him that hit him in the face and his face “blew up”.
Katz, finding the stories amusing, joked: “Why don’t we just try an almond, just with the boys”, and: “This is like a spin-off of a Sean Evans ‘Hot Ones’ where we just find things people are allergic to and try to kill them slowly during an interview.”
You can see the portion of the interview here, where Katz laughs off his plan that could have sent his guest to the ER:
PMT 2-16
— Big Cat (@BarstoolBigCat) February 16, 2022
-DPOY TJ Watt
-Cleaning up our SB Takes
-Kyler Murray is being a big drama show
-Hot Seat/Cool Throne
-Guys on chicks
I almost killed TJ Watt last week because I’m a moron. Very happy that didn’t happen
Download —> https://t.co/9wKpKr0ezR pic.twitter.com/4SEF40iH2J
There’s not much to say here, other than to keep in mind that the world is full of chuckleheads like Katz who think food allergies are fun to laugh and prank about. And those people often have kids who are raised in households where they are not taught regard for others.
That’s another reason to be sure to always take 2 epinephrine auto-injectors along everywhere, every time — just in case some moron decides it would be fun to see you or your child react.
US Allergen Labeling Regulations are Unreliable, Confusing, and Dangerous. Let’s Change Them
