The food authorities said the instant ramen contained such high capsaicin levels consumers could be poisoned.

Three fiery flavours of the Samyang instant ramen line are being withdrawn: Buldak 3x Spicy & Hot Chicken, 2x Spicy & Hot Chicken and Hot Chicken Stew.

Denmark’s food agency issued the recall and warning on Tuesday, urging consumers to abandon the product.

It’s unknown if any specific incidents have prompted the Danish authorities into taking action.

  • HejMedDig@feddit.dk
    262·
    5 months ago

    They were recalled because the level of Capsaicin has caused symptoms of poisoning in younger individuals. A consumer asked the board of food and safety if it was really allowed to sell the strong variants. They looked at them, and measured that they contained even more Capsaicin than the Hot Chip Challenge, which has caused hospitalizations in Germany. Combined with it being a TikTok/Instagram trend to try and eat them, food and safety decided to recall them

    I really like the stew ones, x3 were just dumb

    • Chee_Koala@lemmy.world
      5·
      5 months ago

      I had a 1x spicy variant from these producers and it was pretty intense but still enjoyable, and I’m used to some heat but normally try to stay below 100.000 Scoville (ish) to still have fun. I can imagine if you are used to nothing spicywise and try their 3x spicy stuff you might get poisoning. Maybe the time is ripe to have a global rating or warning label for spicy foods. Everyone always already tries to convey the spicyness-level, especially for guests/tourists and such. Why not try to make a standard for spicy warnings, you could even have region variability like in clothing labels.

    • ccunning@lemmy.world
      105·
      5 months ago

      They were recalled because the level of Capsaicin has caused symptoms of poisoning in younger individuals

      Is it really “poisoning” if some subset of consumers can’t eat something? Ok. It’s poisoning. Y’all really focusing on this part of my comment. We all know “the dose makes the poison” though. So “poisons” are clearly allowed to be sold as food.

      Like if some Danes are severely allergic to shellfish are they going to pull all crabs off the market?

      If it’s temporary until labeling standards can be defined and implemented, that makes sense to me but just blanket removal seems like an overreaction.

      • ggppjj@lemmy.worldEnglish
        114·
        5 months ago

        To the doctor treating a patient, they don’t care about the legal definition. A poisoned patient is a poisoned patient.

        Additionally, “causing symptoms of” a thing is a very different statement from “causing”. Covid causes symptoms of the flu, for example.

          • ggppjj@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            5 months ago

            If that kilo of cheese were artificially somehow shrunk down to a single serving and marketed to cheese enthusiasts as “the cheesy challenge”… Maybe?

            You would still have some kind of poisoning if you’re lactose intolerant, importantly.

            I think my own point is that someone showing symptoms of poisoning in this context is valid, even if banning a super-spicy food is a heavy-handed reaction to what would probably be better solved with better labelling and in an extreme case age restriction.

    • enkers@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      5 months ago

      I found the x2 were pretty tasty, but it’d be unpleasant for a few hours before the ring of fire, and that’d usually disrupt my sleep a bit, so it wasn’t worth it. I just went with the regular spice level instead. I haven’t tried the x3, but it seems like it’s getting a bit silly by that point.

      • joenforcer@midwest.social
        1·
        5 months ago

        I quite like the originals. While I’m big fan of spicy stuff (I get one level down from maximum spicy at a local Indian place), I tried x2 and saw a glimmer of what people might like about it, but it was a step too far for me, where it lost flavor for the sake of spiciness. x3 has got to be straight battery acid. I don’t know how any human can buy those saying “Yep, this is the level I enjoy.”