The art of eating snow

A new trend has popped up in recent weeks with viral videos showing people eating snow in a number of ways. Many involve making desserts or drinks containing or topped with freshly fallen snow. Reese Witherspoon recently posted a TikTok where she makes a “Chococinno” from coffee, chocolate, and flavored syrups. The internet being, well, the internet, her post drew many detractors commenting that it was disgusting or unsafe to eat snow.

Food & Wine reached out to food safety experts to find out if it is, in fact, safe to use snow in drinks and desserts. It turns out that it is okay, with a few caveats. First and foremost: although it’s cliche, don’t eat yellow snow – or any snow that isn’t pristinely white, as it probably contains contaminants of some sort. Additionally, you shouldn’t eat the first snow that falls during a snowstorm. “As snow falls through the sky, it can lock in pollutants into its intricate latticework,” according to The National Snow and Ice Data Center, so you should wait until later in the storm, after the snow has “scrubbed” the air it’s falling through. You should also avoid snow on the ground as it might pick up debris or chemicals.

When I was a kid growing up in a very snowy place, I ate my fair share of snow. As an adult I feel less compelled to do so, although different types of snow each have unique textures that are worth trying if you’ve never eaten any. I could only find one recipe in the EYB Library that calls for snow as an ingredient (pictured above), but you could also riff off recipes like Cola and lime snow cones from Australian Gourmet Traveller Magazine.