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Short video app TikTok: Known for trends and challenges
Photo: Lilian Cazabet / imago images / Hans Lucas
Weird stuff is always being spread on social media, and that goes for food too.
A bizarre supposed kitchen trend has now received additional, but perhaps important, attention there with a warning from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
It's about medicated cooking and specifically why it's not a good idea to cook chicken with cough syrup.
The social media challenge to create such a menu sounds "stupid and unappetizing," writes the FDA, "and it is.
And it can even be very dangerous«.
The FDA is referring to videos that have surfaced on platforms like TikTok in recent months.
The clips show users cooking chicken with NyQuil, a cough medicine popular in the US.
The recipe called "NyQuil Chicken" or "Sleeping Chicken" had attracted many reactions from other TikTok users who expressed their disgust at the dish or pointed out the dangers of consumption.
A joke with risk of injury
But if you take a closer look, you will notice that the most popular video on the subject is obviously a joke.
In it, a person can be seen dousing the partially raw chicken in the pan with a large amount of green cough syrup.
The chef says he usually uses four-thirds of the bottle, then flips the chicken with a flat iron.
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A TikTok user uses a hair straightener to cook chicken with cough syrup.
Appetizing is different, healthy too.
Photo: TikTok / letmeusejinn
Photos and videos of other users who have cooked the "sleeping chicken" can be found online only a few.
Whether they took the pictures as a joke or out of appetite can hardly be judged.
However, cooking with cough medicine does not seem to be a huge social media trend.
Nevertheless, the FDA takes the videos seriously and appeals to only take medication in the intended dose.
The authority clarifies that boiling cough syrup can change its concentration and properties.
Inhaling the vapors can also damage the lungs.
"Someone could ingest a dangerously high amount of the cough and cold medicine without realizing it," the FDA warns.
TikTok has also responded by adding a warning to the "NyQuil Chicken" videos: "Participating in this activity could cause you or others to hurt themselves."
Not the first dangerous trend
The FDA and TikTok reacting so drastically to a joke has a serious history.
Because in the case of the "Benadryl Challenge" from 2020, in which users took large amounts of an antiallergic drug and filmed themselves doing it, the FDA's warning apparently came too late.
According to individual media reports, a 15-year-old girl died as a result of her participation in the challenge.
From the »Nutmeg Challenge« to the »Blackout Challenge«, numerous other examples of risky network challenges can be found online.
The boundary between entertainment and health hazards is often blurred.
The FDA's announcement is now aimed primarily at parents, encouraging them to talk to their children about "how social media trends can cause real, sometimes irreversible, damage."
cjw