Denmark has recalled several spicy ramen noodle products by South Korean company Samyang, claiming that the capsaicin levels in them could poison consumers.

Three fiery flavours of the Samyang instant ramen line are being withdrawn: Buldak 3x Spicy & Hot Chicken, 2x Spicy & Hot Chicken and Hot Chicken Stew.

Denmark’s food agency issued the recall and warning on Tuesday, urging consumers to abandon the product.

But the maker Samyang says there’s no problem with the quality of the food.

“We understand that the Danish food authority recalled the products, not because of a problem in their quality but because they were too spicy,” the firm said in a statement to the BBC.

“The products are being exported globally. But this is the first time they have been recalled for the above reason.”

It’s unknown if any specific incidents in Denmark had prompted authorities there to take action.

The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration said it had assessed the levels of capsaicin in a single packet to be “so high that they pose a risk of the consumer developing acute poisoning”.

“If you have the products, you should discard them or return them to the store where they were purchased,” it said in a statement.

It also emphasised the warning for children, for whom extremely spicy food can cause harm.

The notice has sparked heated discussion online with many amused reactions from lovers of spicy food. Many have made assertions about the Danes’ low tolerance for spice.

“I had a friend from Denmark who thought tasteless breaded shrimp with a little bit of ground pepper on it was too spicy. Not surprised they think this ramen is poison,” read one top-liked comment on the Reddit r/Korea group.

Samyang said it planned to “closely look into the local regulations” in Denmark and respond after that.

The noodles don’t appear to have been recalled before in any other country, nor have there been other safety warnings issued.

Capsaicin is the chemical compound in chilli peppers which creates the burning feeling.

When humans eat peppers, the capsaicin is released into saliva and binds on to receptors in the mouth.

Samyang is a major South Korean food manufacturer which brands itself as the first company in the country to create instant noodles, back in the 1960s.

  • FlakesBongler [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    I will say, the 2x spicy chicken was really fuckin’ hot

    I can see it being lethal to people for whom the spiciest ingredient in their cuisine is whitefish

    • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      It’s just so weird because there’s a pretty decent culture for eating spicy food here as well. The usual go-to nighttime drunken dish is pita or durum, served with a large bowl of chili on the side so you can slather it yourself. There’s a large middle eastern population here as well.
      It’s so weird. I’m legit pissed, the 2x spicy were perfect for me and now they’re gone because of someone screaming “won’t somebody please think of the children?”
      Why not get rid of dairy products? A lactose intolerant child might eat them. What about meat? Eating it raw is bad for you, so that’s a danger as well.

    • Rojo27 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Yeah the heat these are packing is legit lol. I enjoy spicy food most of the time, but the one time I had the Hot Chicken Stew I struggled to finish it.

      • FlakesBongler [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        Yeah, I used to think I could handle pretty much anything in terms of spiciness, and those noodles kicked my ass

        Calling it poisoning is a bit melodramatic though

    • take_five_seconds [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      yea i don’t think i’d ever try the 2x (or 3x god forbid) because the regular one (or the other flavors like quattro cheese or carbonara) are spicy af i wouldn’t be surprised if ‘experts’ told me i shold wear special gloves when preparing the 3x one because i could blind myself if i rubbed my eye wrong

  • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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    6 months ago

    "I had a friend from Denmark who thought tasteless breaded shrimp with a little bit of ground pepper on it was too spicy.

    Oh white people

    • dkr567 [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Ground pepper spicy? I get that we all have different level of tolerance for spicy food but this is genuinely the first time ive heard of ground pepper being spicy for others.

      • FlakesBongler [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        One of my friends legit can’t handle black pepper, she says it’s just overwhelming

        She also lacks a sense of smell, so it probably has something to do with that

        • PointAndClique [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          6 months ago

          Allergy is possible, esp if your friend has similar reactions to other nightshades like eggplant. Speaking for myself, I notice a reaction when I eat smaller tomatoes that have more peel to flesh, like roma or cherry. Not spicy but more like itchy/prickly. Still eat them tho

          • 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            6 months ago

            Allergy is possible, esp if your friend has similar reactions to other nightshades like eggplant.

            Huh, no. Favorite Veggie, never described as spicy at all

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        I thought it wasn’t a real thing until at a recent family gathering when food talk came up and I found out one of my cousins apparently cant stand too much black pepper, her baby nieces have a higher tolerance for spice than her.

        Plain bizarre to even conceive of.

      • iridaniotter [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        Black pepper is spicy. However, I only realized this like 15 or so years into my life when I made a Norwegian dish that called for copious amounts of whole peppercorns. In 99.9% of meals, you’re not using enough to make it spicy.

      • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        Interestingly piperine actually does have a sensation of heat similar to capcaisin, and it works on a different enough pathway that a capcaisin tolerance doesn’t impact it. It’s much, much milder, but it is there.

        So with my level of capcaisin tolerance something like a habenero pepper is roughly as mild as a whole peppercorn, and I’ll toss a half dozen or so whole peppercorns into my ramen that’s also spiced with red pepper and then mixed with ghost pepper in the bowl, because the peppercorns provide their own little distinct bursts of bitterness and heat when one crunches on one, which stands out from the background warmth of the soup.

    • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      That guy must have been over exaggerating, people here put too much pepper on their food. My grandmom serves plates that are completely black. On the other hand I do have a friend who can taste if chili flakes have been near the plate…

  • lol, the Wikipedia says Denmark’s national specialty “dish” (smørrebrød) is a piece of bread with cold cuts on it.

    that’s what people “make” when they are too tired to figure anything out. like exhausted single parent or low-tier conference fare.

  • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    Apparently the 3x is only around 13 000 Scoville units, but the high volume of chili and the mixture of the sauce with the noodles makes it taste much, much hotter than that. At least that’s what friend who tried some told me.

  • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    Sounds like mostly a social media panic type thing, this is the stuff that has been memed about all over twitter and tiktok right?

    I think I saw a post in Danish also that was really really heavy handed on the danger to children thing, claimed that it was being recalled due to kid(s) in Germany eating it and starting to puke or getting high blood pressure.

    • FlakesBongler [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Like, the package shows you a chicken breathing fire on it

      I know media literacy is at an all time low, but chicken on fire should be a universal warning

    • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Yeah that was the food administration’s post. They say that “too much capsaicin has had kids in Germany admitted to the ER” but they dont specifically talk about samyang or even just ramen. Just some vague product with a lot of capsaicin. They also mention that its marketed to kids and that it’s hard to know how it will affect their children, which is like???

      • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        The stuff in Germany was one kid sent to the ER after eating one of these carolina reaper chips on a dare in school - you know, the ones where it’s just one chip in the entire coffin shaped box, that are intentionally marketed to people who want to brag about how much spice they can handle. The scoville on buldak aren’t anywhere in the same ballpark as that and honestly i think all of this is kinda ridiculous when there’s hot sauces where one drop too many can be enough to make an entire pot of chili too spicy for most people. Capsaicin is a thing that just exists in nature and in an untold number of preparations that are more powerful than a sauce package in instant ramen. I’m not familiar with buldak noodles myself because they aren’t vegan afaik, but a friend of mine said that the 3x ones “are tasty”. Granted, she once made a ramen place in our town run out of chili oil, but it was really weak chili oil.

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        The child marketing claim is why I assume this is about social media and tiktok shit, where the Food Admin can’t tell the difference between viral memes and company marketing.

        The ER thing I have to imagine is just parents taking their kids there after finding out they puked and/or felt ill after eating spooky foreign food.

        • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          6 months ago

          Yeah apart from eating a Carolina reaper, I’ve never heard of anyone who ACTUALLY needed to be admitted to the ER. An upset tummy can hurt a lot and be scary for a child, but its not dangerous. Especially not with ramen because if its dangerous then you wouldn’t be able to finish a bowl of it, right?

        • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          6 months ago

          The ER thing happened at a school, i could imagine that a teacher just decided they need to call an ambulance to avoid liability when they saw one of their students have a strong reaction to the stuff.

    • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Probably just is not actually accessible in Denmark outside of specialty asian market stores or online order.

      You’re probably lucky to find dirt tier sichuan peppercorns in the regular grocery store.

  • dead [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    For people doubting that Samyang 2x is unbearably hot, watch the woman’s reaction in this video. I’ve ate whole raw ghost peppers and enjoyed it. I enjoy super-hot hot sauces, 100k+ scovilles. Samyang 2x is just unpleasant to eat. Samyang’s other spicy noodles are really good.

    https://youtu.be/ubqAHNWnhkY?t=179

  • ta00000 [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    You can’t say you don’t know what you’re getting into. We have three bombs, a character crying and breathing fire, several angry peppers, and it says 3x spicy right there. I don’t know how much clearer they could make it. shrug-outta-hecks