And Just Like That, Goth-Friendly Charcoal Foods Were Canceled
It turns out those highly Instagrammable, pitch-black "goth" foods were far edgier than we could have ever imagined. According to a new report in Eater, the Department of Health says that activated charcoal is currently banned from all food- and drink-serving establishments in NYC. A spokesperson for DOH told Eater that the rule isn't new, but enforcement has increased.
Morgenstern's Finest Ice Cream, that NYC ice cream shop that caused a mini frenzy in 2016 over their popular jet-black ice cream, reportedly had to dump "$3,000 worth of product during a routine inspection," per owner Nick Morgenstern. The ice cream shop posted a cryptic Instagram in late May that hinted something was afoot. The ice cream, which they've been making since 2015, uses coconut ash—a form of activated charcoal. "I don't see any evidence that this is actually a question of public health safety," Morganstern told Eater. "I would challenge someone to identify the public health safety risk of that ingredient."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2018, @02:23PM (1 child)
They're not telling anybody what they can and can't eat. They're telling people what they can and can't serve to customers. Those are very different things.
But, then again, small government people tend to be complete dipshits that will put random things in their mouths because freedom. It's somewhat ironic that it's the same people that are too ignorant to know how to protect themselves are also the same people that fight hardest against any effort to limit the unsafe things in the environment to something reasonable.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by requerdanos on Monday June 11 2018, @02:41PM
It's a fine line. Should unsafe things be available? Absolutely, positively yes. Should restaurants serve them with fries and a salad? No. That's evil.
Is charcoal unsafe? Debatable. It's safe and non-toxic in meal quantities, dangerous in excess (like water). I've seen much more unsafe things served in buffet lines that didn't violate any specific punitive rules.