Dangerous trend: A vendor preparing a snack frozen with liquid nitrogen in Jakarta. — The Jakarta Post/ANN
The government urges parents to be more vigilant and has ordered local health agencies to increase their monitoring of food establishments, after multiple children were poisoned by consuming a street-side snack that was frozen by liquid nitrogen.
The snack in question, locally known as Chiki Ngebul, named after a popular Indonesian packaged snack brand, has taken social media by storm in recent months, as children would often record themselves eating the snack with smoke from the liquid nitrogen coming out of their mouths.
But the social media sensation has also resulted in a number of food poisoning incidents.
Speaking to the press on Thursday, the Health Ministry’s director for environmental health Anas Ma’ruf said there had been at least nine confirmed incidents of food poisoning due to the snack since last year.
Liquid nitrogen is not inherently poisonous and is often used in food preparation as a preservation agent.
But, Anas said liquid nitrogen could be dangerous when consumed in large amounts and pointed to the fact that the snack has been widely sold by street vendors, hawkers as well as in night markets, which escapes the National Agency of Drug and Food Control supervision, as a potential cause for the spike in food poisoning cases. — The Jakarta Post/ANN
