Report No: 258 (Char Kway Teow)
Submitted by: Prof. Georgina
What it is: A kind of flat rice noodle that is FRIED
Sent to Judge Jan for TRIAL...
I WILL convince you that Char Kway Teow is BAD. It has 235mg of cholesterol per serving- that's a lot you know?
Now, why is that so?
- Char Kway Teow is cooked using dark and light soy sauce and most should know, it is fermented product made from soybeans. Yup, soybeans ARE healthy, BUT soy sauce is NOT. It contains 135 calories per serving (255 g), and 14 374mg of sodium (salt)!! Goodness! That is like a lot of salt. Imagine just one plate of char kway teow would have so much salt in it!
Why is too much salt bad?
Too much sodium will lead to/aggravate high blood pressure which develops into heart diseases and stroke, and for the body to retain water. This is because too much salt will make a type of "hypertonic solution" in the body, so water will diffuse out of the cells and into the other parts of the body, like the arteries- leading to water retention in the body parts and the heart needing to pump harder to push blood down the arteries as water is blocking the passage way (High blood pressure which leads to stroke). GASP
- Char kway teow contains cockles AND (sometimes) prawns. Both are very high in cholesterol, but since prawns are normally in a smaller proportion than cockles in a plate of char kway teow, cockles are more harmful and also in other ways.
Cockles, if not cooked properly, will cause very very bad food poisoning because there is a number of pathogenic micro-organisms and natural toxins that the cockles contain that are harmful to the body. It also contains the virus Hepatitis A, and this is worsened because the cockles are normally half-cooked to retain its "original" flavour. *Eww* Why would anyone eat half-cooked stuff???? >.<>LARD!!!!!!! Lard is pig fat containing a lot a lot of saturated fat... and it is like white and gooey- yuck. (see below)
So ya, lard is normally used because it is a cheaper way to make the dish more delicious instead of using more ingredients and gas to cook the food. >:( so BAD!! Since lard contains a lot of saturated fat, it can cause (yet again) heart diseases. :(
- Lastly, char kway teow is FRIED- which means a lot of oil is used (see how oily the plate and kway teow looks on the picture right at the top?), or in some cases, lard. Normally, olive oil will not be used, because it is more expensive and char kway teow is sold primarily by hawker stalls- I don't think they will spend so much to cook a $2 plate of char kway teow for you. So they may most likely use peanut oil- more flavour you see.
Oil is very high in calories and cholesterol, causing heart diseases again because they are high in saturated fats. :(
So the next time you decide to tuck in to a plate of charkway teow in a hawker centre, think twice.
Personal opinion: As a health coroner, I DON'T LIKE IT. But, it is nice to eat- JUST DON'T EAT TOO MUCH!! :D
