School is Evacuated Over Pumpkin Spice

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

Endlessly Groovin'
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USA
The odor of pumpkin spice made this school evacuate, don't blame them, not a fan of pumpkin tastes or smells. :p More here.

The strong scent from a pumpkin spice air freshener caused the evacuation of a Baltimore high school Thursday when students got a whiff of the mysterious fragrance and became ill.
The heavy aroma — a popular fall addition to lattes and cookies — caused panic among students and teachers at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, according to the Baltimore Sun.





“It was a smell that they certainly weren’t used to,” the school’s president told the paper. “It appeared to be getting stronger.”


After several students reported difficulty breathing, the principal had the school evacuated and called the fire department — who then requested a HAZMAT team.


The team conducted tests to determine whether there were any hazardous materials in the building, but the tests all came back negative.


After firefighters opened the windows to air out the building, they eventually discovered the source of the offending odor: a pumpkin spice aerosol plug-in inside a third floor classroom.
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My goodness, that's surprising, but it looks like we have to be more careful of fragrances we're breathing into our bodies. As far as I know, the spice blend for pumpkin pie is
ground cinnamon
ground ginger
ground nutmeg or mace
ground cloves
ground allspice

I doubt the ingredients were natural, though.
 
I'm allergic to cloves. That means I have to avoid certain stores until the pumpkin pie spice season finally ends. The scent makes me nauseous; probably not actually harmful, but it's definitely unpleasant.
 

I recently bought a pumpkin pie to satisfy my memories and tastes of pumpkin pie by my mother or her families. They had good smells and good tastes and were always desired each fall for parties and dinners.

This pie I bought was from one of the US's large grocery chains and I paid about $7 for it. The wife and I had some after dinner but then we were both very disappointed by the pie characteristics. Crust was too thick and had no flavor at all. The filling was mostly tasteless and not much to smell either. A bit of a rip off as we saw it.

But then in the bakery shops of many stores we no longer see folks hurrying to get things going. One lady I talked to in a major store admitted that most comes in by truck. She said the don't even get to fill items any more. I have given up on most stores donuts and pastries as they have lousy dough and not much flavor either. Most are poorly shaped dough balls that are way too often over glazed with sugar spreads. Mass produced, frozen, and delivered. Fast but absolutely no quality at all. Our modern world has gone to pot for sure.
 
Smiling Jane said:
I'm allergic to cloves. That means I have to avoid certain stores until the pumpkin pie spice season finally ends. The scent makes me nauseous; probably not actually harmful, but it's definitely unpleasant.
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Absolutely. And that cloves smell permeated the dentist's place back in the good old days. Even now that smell gets my heart racing.
 
True, Camper6. We discovered my clove allergy when a dentist used clove oil and I passed out.

I still bake everything from scratch, which is nice because I can leave out the cloves and have a perfectly wonderful pumpkin pie.
 
It must have been an extra strong air freshener. I don't know that I've ever smelled that aroma. I like the taste in some things, though. :)
 
Smiling Jane said:
True, Camper6. We discovered my clove allergy when a dentist used clove oil and I passed out.

I still bake everything from scratch, which is nice because I can leave out the cloves and have a perfectly wonderful pumpkin pie.
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I'm not allergic but never liked clove in my pies, too strong. I use allspice to replace the cloves. If you leave it fine but you might try this.
 

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