I did the challenge two days ago. It was the third spiciest I’ve had. Was definitely something that could do harm to someone who doesn’t know how to handle ultra-spicy. The kid won a Darwin Award. You can’t ban spicy food nor should you. This is a parenting issue. If this kid didn’t die from this skull and crossbones coffin wrapped in warnings, it would have been some other TikTok challenge like drinking bleach.
Also, I find it interesting that you are basically insulting this kid for doing something stupid while saying you did it in the same paragraph. I guess you are not stupid because it didn't kill you?
The instructions state that it is for adults only. I essentially have body training in handling extreme spicy. At 14, you are considered a man in most societies. Why should we wussify American youth? At that age, I was eating habaneros. I blame the parents for not introducing him to spicy food and allowing him to make an informed decision.
The 14 year old ate the chip at school, there's no mention of who gave the chip to him. It's a school administration problem, but hardly a parenting issue unless the mother bought the chip for her son and sent it to school with him. The mother came to pick the boy up right away when he complained of pain, rushed him to the hospital when he lost consciousness, and she is now speaking out to warn others about the dangers of this stupid challenge.
Warnings of what? Which warning would have made risk clear? Death imagery is part of their marketing not a legitimate warning. The kid eating a commercially sold food item is not on the same level as drinking bleach. It's weirdly cold and callous victim blaming to say that he was so stupid that he would inevitably die in some similar way. It rings the same as the people that scoff at the McDonalds coffee thing. Yeah you shouldn't ban hot coffee but you probably should ban serving coffee hot enough to cause third degree burns.
The keep out of reach of children and the adults only warning. Also, the thousands of videos online of people showing how hot the chip is or even ones of kids his age eating it and resulting in an ambulance trip. It wasn’t even the hottest thing that I’ve eaten honestly, but it was enough to make most people have a very bad time. The hottest natural thing that I have eaten was hot sauce prepared by the founder of Halal Guys many years ago when he worked at the original location. He called it a bad batch because it was too strong. The hottest extract was the hot wing challenge from The Mean Fiddler. This was third, but ranked closely with quite a few others.
At what point do companies have an obligation to save someone from themselves? There's ample warning on this package that he shouldn't have been eating it at his age or experience with spicy foods. There's a possible argument the shop that sold it to him or his peers is at fault, but there's not much more the manufacturers could have done to warn him off.
Listing the reason why they have those warnings seems pretty reasonable. That way kids could know that it's not "some nanny state bs". The verbage of those warnings is on par with "this is unhealthy if you do this" not "this is potentially lethal if you do this". So again, honestly, how is it as stupid as drinking bleach?
The verbage of those warnings is on par with “this is unhealthy if you do this” not “this is potentially lethal if you do this”. So again, honestly, how is it as stupid as drinking bleach?
I wonder if the verbiage is that way as well. I think that a requirement for warnings on super spicy food have never been codified into law. Certain challenges make you sign a waiver, but that is just because restaurants don’t want a customer attempting to claim that the restaurant is somehow liable for ambulance costs if someone feels too uncomfortable. Since the inception of the country, there has never been a need to regulate spicy food. The FDA exists and has not made guidelines that limit access to spicy products. If they did, there would be very large protests. It would be an issue for many different cultures, which allow their children to eat spicy from infancy upwards. I remember my first hot pepper. Spicy food is part of many ethnic identities. You can’t just throw up the gauntlet because one kid has died in the thousands of years that spicy has been a thing. That kid had some other issues at play. The chip hurts, but it doesn’t kill. The fact that he felt better later on and then lost consciousness screams that this uncovered something else that could have been triggered under many other circumstances, but the chip provided the lynch pin stress.