Thai food is known as one of the best cuisines in the world, but this dish could kill you if you ingest it.
While you may have heard of foods that can be dangerous, such as puffer fish, this Southeast Asian meal could be your last.
In fact, it's so dangerous to your health that just one bite could give you liver cancer.
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Talk about a risky dish.
The carcinogenic meal is believed to contribute to the deaths of up to 20,000 people in Thailand each year, and that's no exaggeration.
Before you wonder whether it contains a chemical, inedible food group or explosives, it's nothing like that.
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This popular dish belongs to the Thai province of Khon Kaen, where many of the locals like to munch on it.
Named Koi Pla, it's essentially a plate of minced raw fish with ground herbs, spices, lemon juice, and live red ants.
It's typically eaten raw, and because it's so cheap to make, millions of people who live in one of the poorest provinces, Isaan, eat it up at their own risk.
They also eat Kio hoi which contains raw snail meat and can also be deadly.
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You might think it’s the raw fish that can give you cancer, but you’d be wrong.
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It’s actually what lives inside of it.
The parasitic flatworms - or live flukes – are what can give you liver cancer as these parasites are native to fresh water fish in the Mekong region.
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Isaan reportedly has the highest instances of cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer) in the world because of the meal.
A liver surgeon in Thailand, Narong Khuntikeo, whose parents both died after eating the meal, is now fighting against its legality.
He continued: "Nobody knows about this because they die quietly, like leaves falling from a tree."
The disease is almost impossible to survive if it’s not caught in time.
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Khuntikeo has spent four years testing villagers from the region for the parasite and has been joined by a team of scientists, doctors and anthropologists, who are all trying to find out the true impact of the dish.
The team of experts have been using ultrasound machines and urine testing kits, which shockingly found that 80 percent of inhabitants were found to have ingested the deadly parasite, which could lead to an awful future.
Even though he’s trying his best to spread awareness about the dangers of eating koi pla, the older generation don’t want to hear it.
He explained: "They’ll say: 'Oh well, there are many ways to die'.
"But I cannot accept this answer."
Topics: Food and Drink, Health, World News
Britt Jones