NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

By Mark Ryan Raj

Raising four kids is a challenging feat, to say the least.

But doing it on your own, while suffering from thyroid cancer, seems nearly impossible.

Yet from such a challenging experience, single mom Sarifah Idris chanced upon a special vegetable-based noodle recipe which would eventually become her prized business model ― all thanks to her children’s picky eating habits.

“My kids and I prefer eating noodles over rice. But I can’t eat the noodles sold outside because it has boric acid in it and I can’t eat that because of the cancer,” said Sarifah in an interview with Malay Mail.

“So, I made my own noodles. But the idea to add veggies was because none of my kids like eating vegetables, so I just blended some vegetable extract into the noodle batter.

“It was actually just a healthy veggie noodle for my kids and me. Then I decided to sell it to other cancer patients as well because it’s a healthy alternative.”

Photo courtesy of Seika.