One of the most dangerous food disasters to hit Tik Tok is ‘sleepy chicken.’
While Tik Tok has given us some truly awesome food trends (hello, 15-hour potato), unfortunately, there are more than a few downright stupid ones doing the rounds of the internet as well.
The idea behind sleepy chicken is that by marinating your bird in a bowl of Nyquil – or the cold and flu elixir of your choice – and then cooking the breast in the liquid, you can help abate cold and flu symptoms that range from a cough or sore throat through to a stuffy nose and headaches. Check out more info on Sleepy Chicken’s Tik Tok trajectory here.
The problem with sleepy chicken – aside from what I think would be a sickly green (or red), truly horrible tasting filet – is that it concentrates the medicine while boiling away the water and alcohol used to make the drug safer for consumption. Doctors and pharmacists have condemned the sleepy chicken phenomenon, arguing that it’s dangerous to counteract the strict instructions on the bottle’s label.
My pharmacist laughed outright when I asked her, saying only, “What a stupid idea – do you want a trip to the hospital?”
The likelihood is that by eating sleepy chicken you’ll get an upset stomach (at the very least), combined with a much greater chance to get food poisoning or other side effects from ingesting too much medicine. If you’re feeling unwell, take cold and flu medicine only as directed, and leave the poor chicken breast filets alone.