Buldak spicy noodles are back on shelves in Denmark after the food authorities there canceled part of their recall decision concerning the famous Korean instant noodles product, originally issued due to their extreme spiciness and consequent health risks.
The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration announced, Monday (local time), that two of the three products that had been recalled were not harmful to health, based on updated risk assessments.
“Based on the new analysis results and the DTU Food Institute’s updated risk assessment, the administration concludes that two of the products, Samyang Buldak 2x Spicy Hot Chicken and Samyang Buldak Hot Chicken Stew, do not contain capsaicin levels as high as those reported by the distributors in the marketing,” the Danish administration said in a press release.
Damn, Denmark really just called Buldak not as spicy as the label says.
“skill issue”
And apparently that’s better? You’d think they’d get in trouble for the false advertising now.
Better to get in trouble for false advertising than actually dangerously high capsaicin content, I suppose.
According to the report, the capsaicin levels were calculated based on the Scoville scale information disclosed on Danish retail websites selling the noodles, rather than the noodles themselves, as no specific measurements of capsaicin or total capsaicin content are provided by the manufacturer.
False advertising by the Danish themselves.
Okay, this is the funniest possible option. It was just a circle of Danish people panicking each other over the scary spicy noodles. No actual issue was ever present by any empirical definition.
the ban sounds like great advertising material.
“so spicy that Denmark had to make it illegal”
“are you stronger than the entire country of Denmark?”
“criminally spicy”
When Monty Python’s The Life of Brian came out, Norway banned it. Sweden then advertised it as “the film so funny that it was banned in Norway.”
That’s beautiful, thank you for sharing. I’ve been a fan for ages but didn’t know that.
No problem, it’s one of my favorite Monty Python factoids.
For what it’s worth, the Norwegians have since made up for this issue by making a really funny TV show. And doing it in both Norwegian and English versions, which must have been an extra challenge since so much of comedy is about language and it would have been the second language for most, if not all of the people involved.
I love that show. It’s fucking hilarious!
I love it too. I don’t know Norwegian, so I have no idea how that version works, but I am really impressed that they made a very funny English-language comedy in a country where English is, at best, someone’s second language most of the time. I realize many Norwegians speak very good English, but it’s still impressive.
You’re not wrong. My interest in that brand jumped. But reviews basically said “it’s just spicy, not great flavor”
I thought it was delicious. And that’s when trying to eat the black package, which was so spicy I very nearly threw up. But it still tasted delicious.
I tried them and really enjoyed it. it was an amazing experience. wouldn’t call it delicious tho. more comparable to skydiving than a meal.
Flavor’s actually not bad at all. I’ve definitely had spicy foods that are nothing but capsaicin but this one actually has taste
I may have to check it out then! I like spicy food but I dislike spicy food that is just spicy no flavor.
It would have been until they measured the capsaisin levels and declared it not as spicy as they were told.
Notice the ban was based on the information given by the dealers themselves.
When the actual lab results came back it turned out to be not quite as strong as advertised.
So I guess it’s false advertising, but that’s probably another department.According to the report, the capsaicin levels were calculated based on the Scoville scale information disclosed on Danish retail websites selling the noodles, rather than the noodles themselves, as no specific measurements of capsaicin or total capsaicin content are provided by the manufacturer.
False advertising by the Danish themselves.
Which is why I wrote dealer, not the manufacturer.
But where is the most likely place for the dealer to get those numbers?Out of their ass
Maybe, but that now makes them guilty of false marketing, and Denmark is generally pretty strict about that too.
Yeah, they probably ate other spicier food along with the Buldak stuff, causing their excrement to have a higher amount of capsaicin, than was in the original product. Hence, the false advertising.
The scoville scale is itself fairly flakey.
Using the amount of capsaicin per unit of weight would make much more sense.
That’s generally how SCU are measured nowadays: They’re measuring the concentration of three or four types of molecule, then weigh them according to how hot they’re perceived to be. The scale itself is very sensible: “I have a litre bottle of red sriracha, it has 3000 SCU, that means if dilute it with 3000l (3m3) of water I won’t taste any heat any more”.
So they don’t have five guys tasting spicy sugar water any more?
My whole life is a lie!
However, the Danish authorities maintained the recall decision on Buldak 3x Spicy Hot Chicken, the spiciest product in the Buldak line, stating that it is still believed to be harmful to health. They cited the high capsaicin level as posing a risk to consumers developing acute poisoning upon consumption.
Animated thumbnail is awesome, never seen that before on Lemmy
Stoned me just stared at it, delayed…
Thanks for saying something or I’d still just think I was losing it 🤪
Buldak is back on the menu, boys!
The fire coming out in that animation
They should have advertised it in norway as “so spicy, it had to be banned in denmark”
Take my money.
The thumbnail is somehow a gif with flames over the cup, but then you click it, and the picture in the article does not have the flames.
Weird! Here’s the actual image resource that’s being loaded, with the flames: https://lemm.ee/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.koreatimes.co.kr%2Fupload%2FthumbnailV2%2F378743_20240716_162624640_94dbd938333e8.gif
Here’s the same resource on the site, with the flames: https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/thumbnailV2/378743_20240716_162624640_94dbd938333e8.gif
Maybe this is a clickbait-type thing, so scrapers will drive more content to the article while it itself remains serious and professional-looking?
Edit: It does look like it loads it for sharing purposes, at least onto Facebook and the like. Not sure how it worked for Lemmy specifically. Maybe an actual web dev can answer.
You don’t have to use the same image for the feature as the embed preview. The featured image is often the default (and you have a fallback just in case), but you can also choose to replace it for socials. Don’t know what this is built in (on mobile) but it could just be using a different file.
I haven’t seen this before so grain of salt but I’m assuming it’s just to be eye-catching so you click to their site. I’m also assuming you wouldn’t want it to be a gif on your own site because of accessibility concerns, but that depends on your requirements which vary pretty widely by country.
Man I’m all for spicy but there’s a point for me when I can’t even enjoy the flavor that just kills it. As much as I want to love them, I haven’t found a version that isn’t ‘light you life on fire’ hot.
I like it sometimes. The temporary pain is stress relieving for me. It’s not about the flavor anymore then.
Having done extreme spice multiple times you start to taste the flavors again btw.
Also if it’s not your thing why would you want to love them? I don’t think anyone should need to justify not liking some food.
It definitely takes a lot more than “a few times”.
I have the regular Buldak and use 1/4 of the sauce pouch. You get the flavor without the pointlessly high spice level.
Try the ones not called 3x spice and replace the water with coconut milk.
Source: Trust me bro.
As a Thai food lover, I’m trying this fusion.
Thanks for this! I’ll give it a try.
A coworker of mine introduced me to these about five or six years ago, when they could only be acquired in specialty Asian grocery stores. Now I can get them at Shaws and I fuckin love them. I’ve got three packs in my pantry at the moment. They’re best if you add microwaved chicken nuggets to them.
Removed by mod
They are hotter than a habenero burn. It is a slow burn though, so it’s mellow. If you aren’t used to that heat, it may be uncomfortable.
Someone got the 3x spicy buldak where I work and it’s hot as fuck. I didn’t know there was a 3x version, the 2x was already hotter than I like. Still had to try it.
I want to try 3x, but I can only find 2x around here and don’t want to pay thirty bucks for one package from a scalper on Amazon lol
So they were given the go, because their false advertising was caught?
Good for Denmark.
I honestly do not get the appeal of super spicy food like that.
It just tastes of hot. Hot is not a flavour.
Eating spicy food is fun though
Literally, as your body releases happy-hormones to deal with the pain
Ya actually the buldak stuff is really flavorful, as well as being blast your ass tomorrow morning hot
Its only 13000 Scoville. Some people consider that medium. A Chipotle pepper is like 10,000, serano 20 thousand. I’ve been known to make chipotle sandwiches. It’s not really a toughness thing, it’s a skin thickness deal, plus acclimatization
Speaking of, Scovilles should generally be listed on packaging, also, when you buy raw chillis, some approximate number of what you can expect. At least for stuff over what 500 or so.
Their tamest ones have ~9000, that’s 3x red Sriracha meanwhile there’s other products on the shelves where “extra hot” means 2000 SCU no wonder people are calling poison hotlines.
Scoville units are also not a very good method of measuring spiciness (not that I have a better one). Ime I’ve eaten a variety of things at a variety of Scoville levels and I’ve found some of the lower ones way, way hotter than some of the higher ones. I’ve had many, many, many high/extra/killmepls strength hot sauces but still believe a homegrown ghost pepper to be the hottest thing I’ve ever eaten.
Fat tends to reduce heat perception (capsaicin is lipophilic), and then there’s stuff like Szechuan pepper which manages to balance out heat by stimulating the movement sensors. A raw ghost pepper certainly doesn’t come with either. Also parts of that thing will be way hotter than others, for the whole thing to have an average of what 1M SCU the pith near the stalk needs to be absolute hellfire. Protip: Always try the very tip first, if it’s making you spit fire you don’t want to eat the rest :)
Idk if mine is better but my method is to pay attention to the peppers used (and avoid anything with that fake capsicum bullshit), and just trial and error. After a while you get pretty good at reading it and seeing “oh bhut jolokia, cool. Oooh trinidad brown scorpion, this one will be hot” etc. Tbf though I can eat sauce made with reapers so it’s less of a concern for me, I just can’t do the fake shit, it tastes like garbage and reapers are plenty hot I don’t need the lies.
