It’s a half-baked conclusion, say befuddled bakers

PETALING JAYA: Befuddled bakers are reacting to the sudden poppy seed issue with surprise, with most saying this is the first they are hearing of any caution against the seeds.

An orange poppy seed cake has been on baker Coleen Yap’s product list for a while now, and no questions has been raised about it before.

“On their own, poppy seeds do not have much flavour or fragrance but are used to add crunch to the food.

“I buy them from baking stores, it’s not like I have to go to a dealer or anything,” she said.

“In one nine-inch cake, which is about 900g, I am only using about 30g of seeds, so in order to get high you would probably have to eat at least four cakes at one go!”

Demand for the orange poppy seed cake is only about 20% of her monthly orders, according to Yap.

“I’ve never had anybody say that they were ‘happy’ from eating my cake – other than because it was nice,” she said.

However, if it was true that ingesting poppy seeds could cause a false positive result on a drug test, Yap said she would consider putting a disclaimer on this cake to let people know.

Business owner Debbie Lee also had an orange poppy seed cake on the menu of her popular bakery chain in Kuala Lumpur, but recently replaced poppy seeds with chia seeds.

“That was solely because we wanted to introduce a new cake to the menu. It was actually a cake that just a select few liked,” she said.