THURSDAYS WITH COLLYBRIGHT
DANGER
For many households
and restaurants, using paracetamol is the fastest way to prepare meat. It saves
gas, kerosene or firewood. And costs much less, NGN50 for one sachet of 12
tablets, and each tablet can cause a pot-full of meat to cook soft within few
minutes. It's an amazing discovery, or so it seems. But what they don't know is
that as much as they are quickening the amount of time it takes to cook, they
are also quickening their days on mother earth.
"It's
a lot faster to boil meat with paracetamol,"
a young mother, Adeola told this writer upon inquiry. "I have used it to cook cow leg on a number
of occasions. If you add one tablet, the meat will melt and become soft in just
ten minutes."
But Adeola is
endangering her life and those of her young children. She was in shock to realize
this. Paracetamol, ordinarily, is a killer, when consumed regularly to cure a
headache or take care of pains, but when cooked in a pot, it's a certain
expressway to kidney or liver failure.
Medical experts say
when paracetamol is used in cooking, it loses its pain-relieving
responsibilities and becomes highly acidic and dangerous for human consumption.
When the process occurs, paracetamol is hydrolyzed into what is called
4-aminophenol, which, experts say, is highly very toxic to the kidney and
liver.
Last week, a Facebook
user raised alarm about the prevailing use paracetamol to cook goat meat 'pepper soup' in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State
and other surrounding areas.
Investigations by
this writer revealed that restaurant owners opt for paracetamol because it helps
them save cost and reduce the waiting time for customers.
Recently, there has
been a hike in the number of young Nigerian men coming down with kidney
failure, most of which result in death on account of poor medical care, part of
the reason for that, apparently is consumption of paracetamol/panadol 'pepper soup' or meat it is used to
prepare generally. Ignorance is proving costly in this regard.
In its 2016 report,
the Nigeria Medical Journal noted that Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is
prevalent in the country.
Source: Mccollybright.blogspot.com.ng
About The Author: Adeshile Adekolajo
Adeshile
Adekolajo is a graduate from the University of Abuja, He works for Ntel
Nigeria and he owns - Mccollybright.blogspot.com
Comments
Post a Comment