‘Pastizzi May Be the Death of Us’: Malta’s Favourite Snack Faces a Heart-Stopping Health Warning

“Pastizzi may be the death of us”
By Luke Calleja, Hot Malta

Valletta – The warning came from a cardiologist in Gżira, not a lifestyle blogger in Berlin, and that’s why everyone listened. “Pastizzi may be the death of us,” Dr. Miriam Azzopardi told listeners of Radju Malta’s morning phone-in last week, after new Health Ministry figures showed Maltese cardiovascular deaths up 14 % in five years. Within minutes the clip was racing through WhatsApp groups faster than a tray of ricotta pastizzi at 7 a.m. outside Serkin. By lunchtime, #pastizzigate was trending, and half the island felt personally attacked.

Because you don’t mess with pastizzi in Malta. The diamond-shaped flaky parcels—ricotta or mushy-pea, 60 ¢ a pop, 350 calories a throw—are not mere street food; they are edible patriotism. Mention pastizzi to any diaspora Maltese and watch Skype pixels blur with homesick drool. They are the first solid food we sneak past nanniet who insist “a tiny piece won’t hurt”, the 3 a.m. taxi-driver dinner, the office bribe that arrives in greasy brown paper and vanishes in 90 seconds flat. “If we ban pastizzi we might as well ban the cross on the flag,” one commenter fumed under Lovin Malta’s Facebook post. Another replied with a selfie brandishing two steaming ricotta bombs like pistols: “Come and take them.”

Yet the numbers are hard to swallow. A single pastizz delivers roughly a fifth of the daily saturated-fat allowance recommended by the EU. Pair it with a can of Kinnie and a cigarette—the classic “hobż-biż-żejt à la Malta” breakfast many claim keeps them human—and you’ve ticked the hypertension trifecta before the 8 o’clock bell. Dr. Azzopardi’s department estimates that treating diet-related heart disease costs Malta €42 million annually, almost exactly what islanders spend on pastizzi, imqaret and qassatat combined. “We are literally eating our own hospital budget,” she says.

Still, the pastry has defenders in high places. Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo rushed to call pastizzi “a cultural asset” worth protecting, while Economy Minister Silvio Schembri pointed out that 1,200 jobs—bakers, delivery drivers, pastizzeria owners—depend on cheap carbs and hot oil. In Tarxien, third-generation baker Ċensu Falzon, 68, flips 4,000 pastizzi a day and sees any health warning as “a class attack on workers who can’t afford €5 sourdough”. His rival across the road, vegan entrepreneur Kim Borg, sells baked whole-wheat “guilt-free” versions for €1.20. Sales are steady, she says, “but people still queue next door for the real thing. It’s identity, not hunger.”

The clash is spilling into policy. Opposition MP and gastroenterologist Mario Mallia this week tabled a Private Member’s Bill proposing a 20 % “fat tax” on pastries exceeding set saturated-fat limits, with proceeds earmarked for cardiac rehabilitation wards. The Chamber of SMEs immediately warned of “pastizzi poverty”—black-market ricotta traded behind closed doors. Meanwhile, Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela favours gentler nudging: calorie counts on glass cabinets, air-fryer subsidies for vendors, and a media campaign fronted by 92-year-old marathon runner Joe Grima, who attributes his longevity to “one ricotta pastizz every Sunday, no more, no less”.

On the streets, citizens are split but not panicked. Outside Crystal Palace in Rabat, Swedish tourist Lukas, 27, bites into his first pea pastizz and declares it “better than IKEA”. Local pensioner Doris, waiting for her bus, shrugs: “My nanna lived to 94 on bread, oil and pastizzi. It’s the stress that kills you, not the ricotta.” Yet 19-year-old psychology student Maria has deleted the snack from her MyFitnessPal after her father’s stent operation last month. “I told my dad I’m not ready to lose him for 60 ¢,” she says, voice cracking.

What no statistic captures is the social glue each pastizz represents: the shared bench outside Is-Serkin where teenagers debate football, the 5 a.m. workers bonding over paper bags before the shift whistle, the language of “two rikotta, one piselli” that needs no translation. Remove the pastry and you don’t just cut calories—you sever conversation threads woven through generations.

Conclusion
Health experts are right to sound the alarm; Malta’s heart can only take so much butter and lard. But policy makers must tread carefully—because a nation that cannot break flaky pastry together may find its own solidarity crumbling. The answer is probably not prohibition but moderation: smaller sizes, healthier defaults, honest labelling, and a public conversation that treats citizens like adults capable of counting both calories and memories. Eat your pastizz—just don’t let it eat your future. After all, the only thing more Maltese than a ricotta pastizz is arguing about it, very loudly, over a cup of tea that’s mostly sugar. Let the debate continue, but let it be accompanied by the gentle rustle of grease-proof paper, not the flat-line beep of a cardiac monitor.