Children were reportedly injured after eating smoky 'dragon's breath' liquid nitrogen candy, a snack featured in thousands of TikTok videos

• A number of children in Indonesia were reportedly injured after eating a liquid nitrogen dessert.
• The snack, often referred to as "dragon's breath," is something of a spectacle because of its smoke.

A number of children in Indonesia were recently injured after eating liquid nitrogen-covered candies, a street snack often referred to as "dragon's breath" or "ciki ngebul," according to multiple outlets.

Maxi Rein Rondonuwu, the Director General of the Indonesian Ministry of Health, told the Guardian that around 25 children were negatively impacted by the food, including two who were hospitalized. The Indonesian digital news outlet Kompas reported that at least 10 cases of people suffering food poisoning from the dessert had been found, appearing to cite the Indonesian Ministry of Health's Director of Environmental Health.

The Indonesian outlet Kontan published a timeline with information about multiple individual cases, including one where a child reportedly had to be operated on because the snack made a hole in his stomach.

There are multiple health risks to consuming these kinds of liquid nitrogen-fueled snacks, and doctors have warned about them before. The liquid nitrogen is so cold it can burn the skin and body, and it can also cause asphyxiation, Dr. Reed Caldwell, an assistant professor at Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine at NYU Langone Health, told Today.com.

In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about dragon's breath, noting that injuries had "occurred from handling or eating products prepared by adding liquid nitrogen immediately before consumption, even after the liquid nitrogen has fully evaporated due to the extremely low temperature of the food."

Indonesia's Ministry of Health has warned mobile vendors against selling the snacks and advised other precautions be put into place, like informing children in schools, the Guardian reported. The Ministry of Health did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

The food — essentially candy (or sometimes cereal) dipped in liquid nitrogen, which gives it a striking visual look as smoke billows out of the dessert — has been featured in YouTube videos and tweets for years. It's called "dragon's breath" because it makes smoke flow out of the consumer's mouth and nostrils.

Liquid nitrogen-coated candy is also a popular phenomenon on TikTok, with a trend hashtag about it ("dragon's breath") amassing over 200 million cumulative views. However, Insider was only able to find one recently uploaded video of a child indulging in the candy, and it had less than a thousand views.

TikTok did not respond to Insider's request for comment about whether the platform has already taken action against clips featuring the candy.

Tiktok has often been blamed for dangerous trends that didn't actually originate on the platform, or were similarly widespread on platforms like Facebook or YouTube.

A purported trend where kids would place magnets in their mouths to make fake piercings was attributed to TikTok despite the fact that variations of this game have existed for decades, and Insider couldn't find any indication that the craze found traction on the platform.