Don't think of it as an ingredient, think of it as "frozen air". Literally, air so cold that it has frozen. That's extrmeley dangerous because it's cold enoug

Don't think of it as an ingredient, think of it as "frozen air". Literally, air so cold that it has frozen. That's extrmeley dangerous because it's cold enough to damage your body very very quickly... but at the same time, when it thaws over time? It's air. Just like how when you cook things, you often use "burning air". If you eat something burning? You will destroy your insides. The difference is that freakishly-destructive levels of cold don't ruin food nearly as fast as freakishly-destructive levels of hot. If we blasted your food with a rocket-engine, it would be too hot to eat, but it would also be charcoal. If we blasted your food with liquid nitrogen, it would still look like food and would still be edible after it returns to normal temperature, so there'd be more temptation to try to eat it while it's still lethally cold. Hence the danger.