For the Love of God, What Is NyQuil Chicken?
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For the Love of God, What Is NyQuil Chicken?

Emerging as an early contender for this year's Darwin Awards, the FDA has had to issue a warning advising people to not cook chicken in NyQuil, best known to soothe cold and flu symptoms.

Yup, you read that right. Apparently there is a new TikTok challenge is making the rounds that's teaching users how to make NyQuil marinated chicken, or "sleepy chicken" as it has been called, and its gotten to the point where the Food and Drug Administration has to step in to point out the obvious fact that it's a dumb thing to do.

Apart from sounding downright disgusting, who knew that basting an unseasoned chicken breast in a whole bottle of cold medicine isn't actually healthy? Not only does NyQuil chicken appear to well exceed the recommended dosage amount, but the FDA also points out that boiling medicine can end up concentrating its contents and changing it in other unexpected ways. You don't even have to actually eat the vile chicken to put your health at risk. With the vapors released from boiling NyQuil, you could cause high levels of the drug to enter your body and damage your lungs.

"One social media trend relying on peer pressure is online video clips of people misusing nonprescription medications and encouraging viewers to do so too. These video challenges, which often target youths, can harm people — and even cause death," the FDA wrote in their official warning. The federal agency went on to draw comparisons to equally ill-advised Benadryl challenge that emerged in 2020 and saw kids take excessive amounts of the medication in order to hallucinate. The FDA advises parents to "sit down with your children and discuss the dangers of misusing drugs and how social media trends can lead to real, sometimes irreversible, damage."

The NyQuil Chicken challenge is only the latest in a long line of unnecessarily hazardous social media trends, from the questionable Pink Sauce to the neck-breaking milk crate challenge. Let's not forget everyone's favorite, the forbidden Tide Pods. The Internet has proven time and time again that common sense is in fact not all that common but it at least does make for some quality memes.

Photo via Getty/Scott Olson

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