Bakso

Bakso is one of the most favorable foods to Indonesian. Despite its delicacy, the price is also relatively cheap. Even Obama, the USA’s president, during his visit to Indonesia, said that Bakso is one of his favorable foods. Due to the high number of its consumers, Bakso is very ubiquitous. Bakso vendors can be found from an alley to the big market. For some people, Bakso has even been their daily food.

In fact, Bakso plays important role on poor economy cycle because most Bakso vendors are people with low income level. The high number of Bakso consumers provides job opportunities for Bakso vendors and it decreases the number of unemployment in this country.

In other hand, some of Bakso ingredients are believed to be harmful for people’ healthy. In order to give better taste, many Bakso vendors add additive substance to their product regardless of the nutritional values. One of the additive substances is MSG (monosodium glutamate). As a matter of fact, MSG may not be harmful if it is consumed in accordance with legal standard level by issued by the Government. In contrast, if it is consumed in excessive number, this substance will be accumulated in our body and will give various diseases. Therefore, the more frequent the consumers consumed Bakso, the more the MSG substance will be accumulated in their body.

Most of Bakso are made of beef meat that has cholesterol. Our body needs fat/cholesterol to support our activity, but it should be in proportional number. So it is recommended to consume Bakso inexcessively.

The consumers should also be aware of the hygiene of Bakso vendors. Some of them never wash the plates and spoons using pure clean water and it has a potential risk to spread various diseases. Although not all Bakso vendors are poor in terms of hygiene, being selective to the Bakso vendor is necessary if we care our health.

In conclusion, it is not prohibited to consume Bakso. However, people should consider how much they ate and hygiene or cleanliness of the Bakso vendors.

Written by Khairul Syahri | The Executive Board of HEC