When a small trader care about health
(PS: Maaf kalau bahasa inggrisnya kacau. Saya menulis ini dalam rangka belajar menulis bahasa inggris.)
This is a wonderful day when I received a message from my mother, a normal message actually — but I rarely get it from my mother
“0.01 gram is equals how many mg
0.004 grams is equals how many mg?”
I answered her,
“0.01 gram = 10 mg
0.004 grams = 4 mg”
“That is the comparison of artificial sweetener of Milk Jus and Starcafe…” My mother explained.
Starcafe? I know Milk Jus, but I do not know what is Starcafe. I asked my mother and she explain.
Starcafe, like Milk Jus is a brand of an ice blend/milk shakes drink product, a powder that is then dissolved and blended together with ice to be a fresh cold drink. One of my family’s livelihood is sells milkshakes drink — with given some variations, usually with an extra grass jelly.
We sell it Rp 2.000 for each glass. The price is cheap indeed, but alhamdulillah it was sufficient to meet the daily needs of my family — because there is a lot of glass that can be sold.
My mother had a long time sold milkshakes by using Milk Jus… and for this time my mother intends to sell milkshakes by using Starcafe (because its new flavor variant does not exist on Milk Jus)
Then my mother bought Starcafe.
By looking at the ingredient part, my mother then realized that the content of artificial sweeteners on the Starcafe is much more than Milk Jus. It is not good because too much artificial sweeteners is not good for the health of the body.
“Starcafe:
21 mg aspartame/sachet
Cyclamate 17 mg/sachetMilk Jus:
Aspartame 0.004 g/sachet
Cyclamate 0.01 g/sachetADI:
Aspartame of 40 mg/kg body weight
Cyclamate 11 mg/kg body weight“
(*ADI/acceptable daily intake is a measure of the amount of a specific substance in food that can be ingested (orally) on a daily basis over a lifetime without an appreciable health risk)
The question of my mother is that cyclamate content in Starcafe is higher than ADI. Cyclamate on Starcafe is 17 while ADI for cyclamate is 11.
“How was that?” My mother asked for suggestions to me.
“It’s less good, because the content exceeds the limit” I replied.
“Yes… but I’ve already bought this”
Then I tried to find information about the dangers of cyclamate if it exceeds the limits of reasonable. At least if the effect is not too dangerous, it doesn’t matter if my mother still sell it.
But the result was out of my expectations: cyclamate excess can cause tremor (nerve disease), migraine and headaches, memory loss, confused, insomnia, irritation, asthma, hypertension, diarrhea, abdominal pain, allergy, impotency and sexual disorders, brain cancer — I don’t want to continue this.
…until finally I realized one thing. Units at the cyclamate content per sachet and ADI limit is different. Cyclamate content on Starcafe was 17 mg/sachet while ADI limit is 11 mg/kg body weight. Nah!
That means, in the case of persons with a weight of 50 kg,
The limits of cyclamate could he consume in a day is 11 x 50 = 550 mg. While one sachet contains Starcafe is 17 mg, then it takes more than 32 sachet Starcafe to reach the limits…
…and drinking a glass of milkshake Starcafe is clearly still far from limit level.
I then explain it to my mother, figure that 17 greater than the 11 it doesn’t mean over the limit, because they have different unit. And obviously, consuming one glass Starcafe in a day is still contained within the limits acceptable to the body’s health.
Luckily… .
“Small trader but have a bit care about health… so I don’t dare to sell milkshakes with too high artificial sweetener.” My mother explained.
Although my mother just a small trader, but my mother doesn’t want to sell random stuff to sake the profit. At least the stuffs sold is not harming others, and it will be better if the stuffs sold is beneficial to others.
Yes, it isn’t big care about health actually — just a bit — but I think it is very good thing that we can learn to think for others, not just think for our self.
And from that I sure that my mother isn’t just an ordinary like others.
