Burns from hot food add to ACC bill

Common injuries are burnt lips from a hot pie and burnt fingers from cooking with hot fat. Photo/Thinkstock

Each year hungry Western Bay folk forget to "always blow on the pie", racking up thousands in ACC injury claims for hot food burns.

Hot pies, hot chips, two-minute noodles and oil burns from frying chicken were just some of the culprits responsible for 43 Western Bay claims for hot food or liquid burns last year, down from 48 in 2012.

The total cost of local hot food injury claims last year was $8439, down from $17,210 in 2012.

ACC recorded 1817 claims nationwide last year for injuries sustained during food preparation, or while eating and drinking, at a cost of $410,345 - down from $518,379 in 2012.

In the "what you were doing" section of accident victims' claim forms, claimants specified injuring themselves with something "hot" or "heated", such as spilling hot noodles on to a thigh, or burning the roof of their mouth on hot chips.

Fraser Cove Jesters Pies worker Tracy Schep said she had heard a man complain of the temperature after biting straight into a pie, but said people needed to be mindful that pies legally had to be served at 65C.

Mount Maunganui Bakery's Heather Herbert said she had the occasional minor burn from ovens but had not seen any customers suffer injuries.

One Dunedin man, 48, who did not want to be named, made an ACC claim after he burnt his oesophagus on the filling of a mince and cheese pie.

He had reheated the pie in his workplace microwave, as he had many times before.

"When I reheat a pie in the microwave, I put it in the same spot and for the same time - 55 seconds."

However, the pie had been off-centre in the machine and heated unevenly. He swallowed a bite, burning himself on the "super-hot" filling.

His oesophagus remained sore a week later and his doctor logged his gullet injury with ACC in case surgery was needed, he said.

Police advice to "always blow on the pie" became famous in 2009 after a policeman advised a potential car thief to "always blow on the pie" in television show Police Ten 7.