Is it safe to eat snow? Jenna Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb back up Reese Witherspoon in online debate

Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager say Reese Witherspoon's snowstorm hack is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ingredients.

During a Jan. 22 segment on TODAY, the two discussed Witherspoon's latest snow-utilizing recipe, which has caused a debate online about whether or not it’s safe to eat snow.

What's the deal with Reese Witherspoon and eating snow?

On Jan. 19, the "Legally Blonde" actor shared a video of herself consuming snow after she fashioned it into a chocolate drink. In the video, Witherspoon captured herself gathering snow outside her house in large cups. After that, she added salted caramel sauce and chocolate syrup over the snowflakes and mixed it with cold-brewed coffee.

"Oh my gosh, this is so good," she said while trying the creative drink on TikTok.

Witherspoon captioned the clip, "Snow days were made for Chococinnos."

After she posted the video online, Witherspoon was quickly met with comments from people who argued it's not safe to eat snow.

"U can get seriously sick," one person wrote to her.

Hoda and Jenna eat snow, too!

Adding her opinion on the controversy, Jenna said on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna that she's been eating snow for years.

"We would eat it like three days later,” she continued. “We tried to make sure it wasn’t yellow, but if it was white, we were going for it.”

Hoda added that she and her daughters now make snow treats based on a hot tip that came straight from Jenna.

“When the snow falls, we get cups," Hoda explained. "We fill it up, we take half and half or heavy cream. You add some sugar or sweetener, mix it up and it’s called snow ice cream.”

Jenna added that the recipe Hoda follows belongs to her mother, former first lady Laura Bush, who would add any type of sweetener, from agave to maple sugar.

"That was what my mom did when it snowed once a year in Texas," Jenna explained. “That was her recipe that we passed down."

Witherspoon responds to criticism

Witherspoon made several videos responding to concerned fans, including one where she talked about her upbringing and said she never grew up drinking filtered water.

"We actually put our mouths on the tap and then sometimes in the summer when it was hot, we drank out of the hose. Like, we put our mouths on the hose growing up," she said.

In the clip, Witherspoon also laughed and said she doesn't know how to filter snow.

In another video, Witherspoon responded to a comment that asked her to microwave the snow to "see if it's safe to eat."

In the clip, she held up a jar of liquid to show that it's clear after melting.

"Is this bad? Am I not supposed to eat snow?" she asked.

Finally, she explained that her attitude towards making the "delicious" treat is, "you only live once."

"It snows maybe once a year here," she added.

So, is snow safe to eat?

In 2021, TODAY Food asked Madelyn Fernstrom, NBC News’ health and nutrition editor, this very question.

Fernstrom said snow is OK to eat as long as it's "freshly fallen," she said at the time.

"And it goes without saying, no snow plows, either anything that’s plowed or on the side, even if it looks OK, skip that. And of course, skip anything that is not snowy white, anything that’s discolored at all," she said.

Fernstrom added that it's always best to collect the snow after it's fallen "for an hour or more" because "that will tend to be the cleanest snow."

“Can you guarantee any snow will be contaminant free? No, but the levels will be so tiny, some research shows that it doesn’t exceed any of the levels for anything else that you find anything in the atmosphere. And so that’s a good thing," she said.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com