Just Hungry

Perusing a number of links related to the food stamp budget experiments, a popular cheap food item that keeps coming up is instant ramen noodles. As I wrote yesterday, even during my very lean (budget-wise) years I didn’t try to fill up on instant ramen, since it has been ingrained for a long time in my mind, courtesy of my mother, that instant ramen is quite nutritionally horrendous. Some people erroneously think it’s healthy just because it’s Japanese. (This has been brought up here before. And yes, I know ramen is a Chinese product, but modern instant ramen was invented in Japan.)

So what makes instant ramen bad? It’s the manufacturing process. In order to create a dessicated, long-keeping noodle that cooks very fast, it’s deep-fried in oil. There are air-dried instant ramen varieties out there, but they take a bit longer to cook (though it’s only about 5 minutes), and more importantly are not the real cheap kind.

To make things worse, the instant soup mix has more fat in it, not to mention a lot of salt and mystery ingredients. Take a look at the nutritional information for Maruchan instant beef noodles for example, noting that they suggest a serving size of half a pack. When is the last time you ate just 1/2 a pack of instant ramen? A full pack, which is what most people have, is 380 calories, 126 of which are from fat, and most of the rest from white flour. Cup noodles are even worse. The rather healthy sounding Nissin Chicken Flavor with Vegetable Medley have in a real serving (I mean come on, 1/2 a cup of cup noodles?) 536 calories, which come almost exclusively from fat, white flour, and sugar. And really, how satisfying is a cup noodle?
(Note: The label reproduced on Calorie Count seems to be wrong, as it indicates a serving is “1/2”. If you go by this label reproduced on The Daily Plate, 1 cup is 1 serving, which contains 300 calories. Still, it contains 13 grams of fat (9 g saturated fat), 1060mg of sodium and the carbohydrates come from refined white flour. If you want to consider this a healthy snack, go ahead.)

That’s not to say that instant ramen has to be avoided at all costs. I like it myself sometimes. But it really should be delegated to the same category as potato chips and Twinkies, and never be used as the main carb component of a main meal. Pass this along to your college kids! :)