Food porn dangers: Liquid nitrogen shouldn’t be in drinking water

Shortly after dinosaurs roamed the earth, I worked in a lab and we used a lot of liquid nitrogen to preserve the now dead plant tissues and their more interesting cells and components before we began our devious extractions.

That was the mid-1980s (we also used a lot of radioactive P-32 to mark DNA; prehistoric times).

Now food porn chefs use liquid nitrogen like a dipping area.

Maxine Shen of the Daily Mail reportsFlorida woman is suing a hotel after she drank liquid nitrogen a waiter poured into her water glass, resulting in her needing to have her gallbladder and part of her stomach removed.  

Except, wouldn’t it immediately freeze the water?

Stacey Wagers, 45, and a friend were celebrating her birthday with a dinner at Don Cesar Hotel’s Maritana Grille restaurant in St. Pete Beach in November 18 when she said she needed to be rushed to hospital after the incident. 

Wagers told NBC News that she and her friend had just finished eating when they saw a waiter pouring a liquid over a dessert that made it ‘smoke’ at a table nearby. 

Wagers said that her friend told the waiter that the smokey effect looked cool, so he poured what turned out to be liquid nitrogen – a freezing agent – into the women’s water glasses. 

‘Of course I didn’t think it was dangerous at all,’ Wagers said, noting that the waiter ‘had just poured it on a dessert’.

When Wagers and her friend drank their liquid nitrogen-laced water, Wagers said she immediately fell sick. 

‘There was an explosion in my chest,’ Wagers said, adding that it felt like she was dying and that she was unable to speak. 

Wagers was then rushed to the hospital, where she had surgery to remove her gallbladder, as well as portions of her stomach which had been burned by the liquid nitrogen. She also had to stay in the ICU for several days. 

In August 2018, the FDA issued an alert warning customers and retailers ‘of the potential for serious injury from eating, drinking, or handling food products prepared by adding liquid nitrogen at the point of sale, immediately before consumption’.

‘Liquid nitrogen, although non-toxic, can cause severe damage to skin and internal organs if mishandled or accidentally ingested due to the extremely low temperatures it can maintain,’ the FDA added.  

Wagers’ lawsuit stated that she is suing both the hotel and the food and beverage director of more than $15,000 each and is seeking a jury trial.

Molecular gastronomists beware: UK teenager has stomach removed after drinking liquid nitrogen cocktail

We used to play with liquid nitrogen as genetics grad students in the mid-1980s, primarily to extract proteins and enzymes from plant tissue. I respected it; a lot (worse was the phenol used for DNA extraction which permanently left my left little finger smaller than the right; or maybe it was the creosote I painted on to solid oak fence posts as part of summer employment with the Danish carpenters, when we would spend a few weeks making fancy fence for fancy racehorses in Brantford).

The Guardian reports a teenager has had an emergency operation to remove her stomach after becoming ill while celebrating her 18th birthday with friends in a wine bar and drinking a cocktail laced with liquid nitrogen.

Gaby Scanlon, from Heysham, Lancashire, was celebrating her birthday at Oscar’s wine bar in Lancaster city centre when she began to feel ill, becoming breathless and developing severe stomach pain.

She was taken to hospital at 11pm on Thursday, where she was diagnosed with a perforated stomach. Surgeons operated immediately to save her life. Lancashire police said: “Medical opinion is that this would have proved fatal had the operation not been carried out urgently.” She is now in a serious but stable condition in the Lancaster Royal Infirmary.

An investigation is taking place into the circumstances of how she was given the drink. Once added to alcohol, liquid nitrogen makes the drink appear surrounded by a cloud of white or grey vapour.

Doctors at Lancaster Royal Infirmary said their only option was to operate immediately and remove her stomach.

In a statement, Oscar’s wine bar said it was “tremendously concerned” about Gaby and sent its best wishes to her family.

Last month, the bar posted a photograph on its Facebook page of a cocktail which contained liquid nitrogen. It was sold for £8.95, containing champagne.

Police said the bar had ceased selling all liquid nitrogen cocktails following the incident and had co-operated with all the agencies.