Debunking Dangerous Tik Tok recipe & BPA! How To Cook That Ann Reardon

Welcome to How To Cook That I'm Ann Reardon  and this is an episode of debunking. Let's   jump right in with the first one which is a  Tik Tok trend that sending kids to hospital   with severe burns it's called Tanghulu. If  you've never heard of it it's a street food   that originated in China and normally it's  made by washing and drying fruit threading   it onto skewers and then putting sugar and water  into a pan and adding a little glucose or corn   syrup you don't have have to add it but it  helps stop crystallization. Stir until the   sugar is dissolved then brush down the sides  of the pan with a wet pastry brush to get rid   of any sugar crystals and then you leave it  to boil unstirred and as the water evaporates   away the sugar gets hotter and hotter and once  it gets to 149 C or 300 F it reaches what is   called the crack hard stage. If you drop some  of this into a glass of cold water it will set   instantly and now you carefully dip the fruit  skewers into the hot mixture and you get a thin   coating of crack hard sugar on the outside and it  gives you that pleasing crunch when you eat it. Grape! Yum it's good. Now of course any candy  recipe that you need to heat sugar up to crack   hard stage is going to put you at risk of burns  because it is really really hot but in this case   it's not the Tanghulu recipe itself that's the  issue it's the method that's being promoted on   TikTok that's putting people in danger. Apparently  you can make Tunghulu in the microwave. And we're   going to microwave this in 30 second intervals  until it's an amber brown color. Put that in   for like 8 minutes and now should be really bubbly  and like a dark amber color and it came out really   good. Beautiful it's easy crunchy and satisfying.  That's right the videos are telling you to make   this really hot sugar mixture in the microwave and  that's a problem because when you're getting up   to such high temperatures the ideal container  for that is a metal sauce pan and metal can't   go in the microwave. So that leaves us with a  couple of options the first being plastic and   if a kid was to grab a plastic measuring jug  and put that in the microwave at best you're   going to get a measuring jug that deforms and goes  out of shape and is going to end up going in the   bin. This measuring jug looks like it's totally  fine but go to grab it out of the microwave and   you'll get bad Burns as that Hot Sugar pours  out the bottom. Let me show you that on a   thermal camera it just melts through the plastic  and pours out. This one is already not looking   good if we leave it a moment you can see now  it's starting to bulge and when I pick it up... the whole bottom just came out so now there's  hot Sugar and melted plastic everywhere. Now   you already know that if you were to take half a  cup of boiling water and spill that on your skin   you'd end up with a really nasty burn so to show  you how much worse this is let's compare boiling   water side by side with hot sugar 3 2 1 pour. You  can see the hot water drains off while the hot   sugar sticks. Now with burns the longer it's at a  high temperature the deeper the burn goes and the   more tissue damage that it does let's have a look  at that through the thermal camera. 3 2 1 pour.   Look how hot that sugar is and even if I pick it  up the sugar doesn't just come off it's stuck you   have to physically take it off and even 5 minutes  later when I checked with the thermal camera it   was still really hot which is why if you do get a  burn it's really important to as soon as possible   get that under cold running water and keep it  there for 20 minutes to take the heat out of that   burn so it doesn't keep doing damage further down  to deeper layers of the skin. The Royal Children's   Hospital said here in Australia and New Zealand  in the last month there have been 15 kids admitted   to hospital with burns from this trend. About a  third of these children are requiring grafting   and so then their recovery can be a lot longer  and then in addition to that they'll need scar   management. Now I know some of you are probably  thinking well they should have used a microwave   safe jug it's their own fault if they just  used a random measuring jug. So let's test   that out this one says it's microwave safe and if  we flip it over it says warning overheating oils,   fats or sugars may cause product to melt risk of  burn injury. Microwave safe plastic is not made   with such high temperatures in mind plastic melts  at those temperatures. This one at first looks   like it's okay but when you pick it up you can see  the whole bottom is deformed and very quickly a   stream of Hot Sugar starts pouring out the bottom.  So if you can't use plastic for this recipe that   leaves you with the option of glass or ceramic  now if you're a regular on this channel you will   have watched the 'why is Pyrex exploding video'.  Certain types of glass and some ceramics cannot   handle thermal shock which is a sudden change in  temperature so if you put it in the microwave with   the sugar and you've heated it up to a really high  temperature and then you pull it out and put it on   a cold bench top or on something that's damp or  just something that's substantially colder than   that measuring jug it can explode which is exactly  what's happened to some of these kids in hospital   and they've ended up with burns on their stomach.  Now this Tiktoker does warn that that can happen:   and now make sure the bowl you use can't go on the  microwave cuz if it can't it will explode and that   is the last thing I think anybody wants. Just  using a cup that says microwave safe is not going   to guarantee you are safe they are not designed  for such high temperatures they don't have sugar   work in mind and I can tell from reading the  comments on these videos that it's not just an   issue here in Australia and New Zealand. Listen  to these: I saw someone do this and it broke the   measuring cup thingy. Last time I made Tunghulu in  the microwave I cracked the bowl. And Abby said:   I had to go in the ambulance because of it second  degree burn. Do not make tunghulu in the microwave   if you want to make it it needs to be done  in a pan on the stove top and if you're a kid   you need adult supervision, covered in shoes and  preferably silicon gloves to give you a little bit   of protection because it is super, super hot. All  right next moving on to a trend in Korea. 3 2 1  Those green things are toothpicks made from  corn starch and potato starch and people are   deep frying them and eating them it became so  popular on shorts that the Food Ministry in   Korea issued a warning saying starch toothpicks  are not an edible product, their safety has not   been verified please do not eat. This one seems  fairly obvious to me but I guess if you've never   been at a food production facility you may not  realise the number of tests that have to be done   along the way on the production line and then if  there is any contamination that whole batch can   be pulled back from shelves but those tests don't  have to be done if it's not a foodsafe product,   it's nowhere near the same amount of hygiene and  stringent testing and all of those things going   on. So while it might be made from corn starch  or potato starch it doesn't have to be food grade   level and it doesn't have product safety testing  to make sure it's okay to ingest. It's the same   issue with eating the packaging peanuts since  they're made of corn starch essentially what   Cheetos are made of I decided to try one it sticks  to the top of my mouth and it kind of tastes like   popcorn. I've been eating these packing peanuts  for like the last 10 minutes I'm not even kidding.   They kind of taste like Cheetos but without the  cheese. If you really want to eat some puffed   up starch you need to avoid things that were not  intended as food and grab some rice noodles and   just dry as they are put them in some oil and  fry them and they will puff up nicely for you.   Next we have a question from NG and he wants to  know is there really a plastic lining on Coke   cans and drink cans and if so is it bad for you  and should you be having drinks in glass bottles   instead? Now that's a really good question if I  take a can of Coke and sandpaper the paint off it   then open the top and put it into a caustic  solution to dissolve the aluminium and then   wait a while and then realise it would be a  good idea to add some string to to support it   and wait a while longer, eventually the bubbles  slow down and now that the metal is gone we can   see this clear plastic layer 😮 Let me just give  that a quick rinse in water to get the caustic   soda off so I can touch it and look at that it  is a really thin layer that gets sprayed onto   the inside of the can during manufacturing. Let  me tip out the Coke. This plastic layer is is a   food grade epoxy and it's there to protect the can  from being eaten away by the drink obviously you   don't want the can failing and the drink spilling  everywhere but you also don't want metal from the   can leeching into the drink or into the food and  then you're consuming that metal cuz that wouldn't   be good for you. On the flip side of that this  epoxy resin that's been used since the 60's has   BPA in it which has been leeching into the food  now it's known that BPA is not good for humans   in large amounts. What is being debated at the  moment is what level of BPA consumption is safe.   Back in 2015 the FDA set the safe level or the  daily limit as five micrograms per kilogram body   weight per day they said that was a safe amount  and according to the studies that were available   at that time that would not cause any issues to  human health. Now if we say a person weighs 70   kilos so then they can have 5 * 70 micrograms per  day so 350 micrograms each day without issue that   would be about the weight of seven grains of  sand. Because we're talking about such teeny   tiny amounts I want you to imagine that I have  zoomed in on those seven grains of sand here they   are this is the amount per day if you weighed 70  kilos that the US says is safe of BPA to consume.   Now keep in mind they set this back in 2015  and there has been a lot more studies on BPA   done since then. In 2023 the European Food  Safety Authority did their own review of all   the current studies and they have set the safe  amount per day if you weighed 70 kilos to be   this much which is substantially less than that  much! There we go just pop that one there one   of the main reasons for setting it so small was  a study that showed an effect on the autoimmune   system and causing inflammation at amounts that  were higher than that so they said it needs to   be really low. Now Germany disagreed because they  said the inflammation yes that study was there but   that's not linked to any disease as such so they  said just ignoring that study and looking at the   other studies it should be set to this amount per  day, which is still a lot less than that amount.   So regardless of which way you look at it there  is cause to think this should probably be reviewed   which is what's actually happening at the moment  the US is reviewing and we'll have to wait and see   what they come up with. So how do these amounts  compare to what you're actually getting in food   or in drinks? Well there's a lot of studies going  back in 2010 that give amounts of BPA in foods,   there's not much currently that says what's in  foods now there's a lot that says it's reduced   since then due to consumer pressure. The only  studies I could find were from overseas and they   showed promising results so if we have a look  one study looked at cans of drink and they had   17 different cans including Cola and iced tea and  majority of them came out at zero for BPA which   is great. There was a couple of them which were  iced coffees and iced lattes which came out at   3.3 micrograms of BPA per can. They also looked  at tuna and again the majority of these little   cans per can came out at 0er micrograms of BPA per  can which is great but one brand they tested came   out at 10 micrograms per can so there's quite a  bit of variation there. They tested some little   tins of tomato paste and it came out at 0.5  micrograms per can and they tested some beans   and they came out at 2.2 micrograms per can. Now  these these are the highest ones that were on the   list that I could find so if this amount is safe  per day these are great not an issue at all. If   this amount is safe per day then we've still  got some work to do. If we look at these two   cans of tomatoes this one says it's BPA free if  we take half the labels off you can see they're   both metal cans if we open them up they both have  a plastic liner so the concern is as manufacturers   have responded to pressure and moved away from  BPA what are they moving towards? And are they   safe? It's taken us 20 years of studies to figure  out that BPA was not a great idea. So it's going   to take more studies going into the future as  a general piece of advice probably limit the   amount of plastic packaging you have for foods  particularly foods that get heated up in that   plastic because that's when the chemicals seem to  leach out and into the food. If you enjoyed this   video make sure you like comment share subscribe  all the things that tell the algorithm that   you liked the video. With thanks so much to my  amazing patrons for your support of this channel   it's really appreciated. Make it a great week by  being kind to others and I'll see you on Friday ❤️

Channel: How To Cook That

Views: 853,142

Keywords: debunking, ann reardon, food scientist, how to cook that, howtocookthat, tanghulu, warning danger tanghulu in microwave, BPA in cans, plastic inside coke can, eating fried toothpicks, can you eat packing peanuts?, dietitian, usa, youtuber, tiktok, dangerous tiktoks, dangerous trends on tiktok

Id: LT7N0WaIMh0

Length: 14min 46sec (886 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2024