The Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning to consumers, one that the agency probably did not expect to issue: Do not cook chicken in NyQuil.
Nyquil chicken, as in chicken cooked in the congestion medicine, is the latest TikTok food trend to go viral.
The new social media challenge encourages young people to cook poultry with the basic ingredients of NyQuil and other cough medicines.
“One social media trend relying on peer pressure is online video clips of people misusing nonprescription medications and encouraging viewers to do so too. These video challenges, which often target youths, can harm people — and even cause death,” the FDA stated in a warning.
Boiling NyQuil can make it much more concentrated and change its properties
“Boiling a medication can make it much more concentrated and change its properties in other ways,” the FDA said. “Even if you don’t eat the chicken, inhaling the medication’s vapors while cooking could cause high levels of the drugs to enter your body. It could also hurt your lungs.”
This is not the only risky challenge involving OTC medications. According to the FDA, teens have died as a result of the “Benadryl challenge,” which involves taking a high dose of the medication in order to hallucinate.
The FDA recommended several measures to protect children from potentially dangerous online challenges, including keeping over-the-counter and prescription drugs away from minors.
TikTok challenges can be dangerous to children all over the world. A Montreal school board even issued a warning to parents last year about the ‘devious licks’ challenge, in which students were encouraged to participate in a task that could be “derogatory or hurtful to others or themselves (e.g., vandalizing school property, stealing, assaulting school staff members or peers, exposing themselves).”