Friends Suffer From Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Because Of The Charcoal Used During Their Hotpot

Charcoal’s a weird thing. On one hand, we have the food fad version of charcoal in food that makes everything black and cool.

And then there’s the version where apparently if you eat things cooked with it you get cancer.

Charcoal’s complicated.

In Singapore, things like Kaya Toast being cooked on charcoal is basically a thing of the past. Some say it’s an effort thing. Cause charcoal = more effort, taste better etc.

Which is probably true to a certain extent. But methinks it’s partly a safety and health regulation that charcoal-cooked Kaya Toast phased out.

So anyway, you probably know why I mentioned health, cause of the article’s title.

Sudden Vomiting And Dizziness While Eating

In Zhejiang, a man with the surname Wu went to eat Charcoal Hotpot (炭烧火锅) for supper with three of his friends. Although some restaurants use electric stoves, I believe that charcoal hotpot is still pretty common and is considered more traditional (and more InstagramWeibo-worthy?).

Just when they were eating happily, Wu just started vomiting, and the three friends felt really dizzy.

They were immediately rushed to the hospital and took a blood test.

Where it revealed…

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Because of Charcoal Hotpot

As it turns out, doctors found out that Wu’s carboxyhaemoglobin levels were 20 times higher than the normal levels at 30%, while his friends were at 20%.

It must have felt good to beat your friends’ high scores, but probably not in this case.

If it goes above 50%, they might experience an increase in blood pressure, difficulty in breathing, and even death.

But here’s why it happened: since the restaurant was in an enclosed air-con place, there was no proper ventilation and the windows are sealed.

Since the dudes were sent to the hospital in time, they ended up fine later.

What Is Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

It happens when you breathe in too much carbon monoxide. So that’s pretty simple to understand. The problem here is that carbon monoxide is colourless and odourless. So you won’t know what you’re breathing in until you get the poisoning…

Unless you have the best superpower called knowledge and science, of course.

When you burn things like charcoal, carbon monoxide gets released into the air. With modern air-con places (like the restaurant above), carbon monoxide accumulates in the air. Breathe in concentrated carbon monoxide, terrible things happen.

By terrible things, I mean carbon monoxide taking the place of oxygen in your blood, which prevents your blood from carrying actual oxygen. (Alright, it’s a pretty unscientific explanation, but there’s Wiki for that.)

If you think about it, if the setting in the restaurant were more traditional (i.e. outdoors), this case probably wouldn’t have occurred.

Though, I have to ask: how is this not more common when charcoal hotpot in an enclosed space is literally the product they are offering…?

As it turns out, there were cases like this before. A family of 10 had six people diagnosed with carbon monoxide poisoning after charcoal hotpot. Three people got them after eating charcoal hotpot in their apartment.

In the case of Kaya Toast, considering that our Ya Kuns are located in enclosed shopping malls, it’s no wonder that we don’t see charcoal Kaya Toast commonly anymore.