Like all real Jakartans, we enjoy the occasional street snack such as crispy golden-brown gorengan. But we’re a lot pickier these days after so many reports about unscrupulous kaki limas adding hazardous ingredients such as borax to cut costs.
Unfortunately, school children don’t have much of a choice about what they eat, and many of those stingy street cooks are preying on our students by selling them dangerously tainted snacks.
A recent study by Food and Drug Administration (POM) of Jakarta showed that the street snacks being sold to students around schools were among the most dangerous in the city.
“We did a study with a sample of 420 hawkers located around elementary schools. Twenty percent of them turned out to be unhealthy,” said Head of Central Jakarta’s POM, Dewi Prawitasari today, as quoted by Kompas.
Dewi said the research was conducted in 2014 and included sample from elementary school all around Jakarta. The study was specifically looking for hawker-snacks that contained toxic chemicals such as borax, formalin, and others hazardous ingredients.
Dewi said POM would report the finding to Deputy Governor of Jakarta Djarot Saiful Hidayat later today. Then preventative measures would be taken to stop such dangerous snacks from being sold again.
Dewi also said hawkers caught selling such tainted products would receive sanctions from the city administration, but did not specify what those sanctions would be.
