Oh So Yummy Bak Kut Teh... But is it healthy?

You never really think about what goes into Bak Kut Teh. Especially not when the fragrant soup puts most people into a trance. Spoonful after spoonful of that delicious herbal broth goes down your throat and for the fatty pork lover, its a heavenly combination of flavours. For some, its the best way to mask that rather unpleasant odour of pork innards that you would otherwise not eat. But here's the real debate, can such a fatty dish be healthy?

Some sources say that Bak Kut Teh's herbal qualities can neutralize the fat contained in pork belly meat and that it was a herbal concoction created to boost health. But I'm rather skeptical that a dish of such high calorie content can be anywhere near healthy or have any positive impacts to one's health. But we'll never know unless we dig deeper into the pot. So here goes.

Bak Kut Teh

Broth
Chinese Angelica (Tong Kui)
Chinese ginseng
Polygonatum Odoratum (it’s a flower, dried out)
Licorice root (Tonifying the heart and spleen, moistening the lung to arrest cough, purging fire to remove toxins, relieving spasm to alleviate pain, and moderating other herbs.)
Wolfberries
Rhizoma Ligustici (part of ginger family, great against cold + flu)
Star Aanise
Radix Rahmaniae (great for cleansing liver/kidneys; cooling effect – not in most pre-made packs but essential for the nice colour)
Cassia bark
White pepper
Black pepper
Radix Codomopsitis (Poor man's ginseng)

Now, at this point, the broth looks pretty good especially since most of the herbs have medicinal properties that help stimulate your internal organs, which in turn benefits overall health. But of course you can't have a wholesome soup without the meat or bone component. So let's look at what's contained in a typical pot of bak kut teh.

Pork - 620 calories (Not belly meat)
Tau Pok (Dried tofu) - 520 calories
Mushrooms - 50 calories
Intestines or innards - 280 calories
Total calories contained = 1,470

If you're sharing the bowl with say 3 people, it would be around 490 calories each (the above count serves around 3 to 4). But you'll have to add in your individual rice portions which is around 200 calories for normal rice and up to 300 calories for oily rice. So your one Bak Kut Teh meal, could cost you about 2 hours in the gym and I haven't even included the calorie count for the broth, which is around 50 to 100 calories. So why do people say Bak Kut Teh is healthy? 

Well if you look through the history again, this dish was created for hard labourers. Unfortunately in the present day, we don't do enough hard labour to burn off the amount of calories this dish contains. So unless you workout enough, weekly consumptions of Bak Kut Teh will definitely set you back in your weight watch. Having said that, we can still enjoy the healthy properties of this dish. Just stick to the lean meat, don't eat too much tau pok or fried bread sticks (yau char guay) and don't order the oily rice.