Eating Too Much Papadom Could Cause Heart Attacks And Stroke

There goes your favourite banana leaf rice snack.

When you have banana leaf rice, the one thing that you need on your plate (besides sotong goreng) is the papadom.

Let's face it, your banana leaf meal would feel incomplete without munching on the thin cracker.

But unfortunately, that same thin cracker could also kill you.

The Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) recently conducted a laboratory test on 11 samples of papadom and they found that they contain a very high level of sodium.

Like, dangerously high.

Its president S.M. Mohamed Idris told The New Straits Times that all the samples tested contained more than 1,000mg/100gm of sodium, with four samples reportedly exceeding 2,000mg/100gm!

Giving an example, Mohamed Idris said you would have consumed 1,300mg of sodium if you have only five pieces of papadom, and add that to the sodium from the other foods in the meal, you would have exceeded the World Health Organisation (WHO) limit for the daily intake of sodium.

Not helping matters is the fact that an average Malaysian reportedly consumes 7.15gm of salt in a day, which is above the amount recommended by the WHO.

A high sodium level in your system causes high blood pressure and increases the risk of heart attacks and stroke, Mohamed Idris added.

And that's not all; besides the sodium level, the spices used in making the papadom could also kill you.

The spices, according to Mohamed Idris, could cause adicity if consumed in excess.

"A research has also shown that when papadom are roasted or fried, acrylamide - a probable carcinogen or cancer-causing substance - is formed due to its alkaline salt (sodium benzoate) content,” he was quoted by the daily as saying.

As such, Mohamed Idris has advised Malaysians to stop eating papadom until the Health Ministry sets a limit for sodium content in the cracker.

Sigh, what will we ever do without you, papadom?