Instant noodles sold worldwide in a year could stretch beyond Pluto into space, totaling 6.2 billion kilometers.
Despite health concerns, the global demand for instant noodles is rising, with sales hitting a record 121 billion servings in 2022.
Instant noodles have replaced cigarettes as currency in US prisons due to their affordability and availability.
However, sales also reveal a darker economic undertone:
In wealthier countries like the US, there’s a trend of “food product down-trading,” where households opt for cheaper food options like instant noodles.
US households are bulk-buying instant noodles to hedge against rising food prices, reflecting sensitivity to economic strain.
I love instant noodles as they are so quick to make and tasty. I do wonder if there’s a way to consume them in a healthier way. I already only put a tiny bit of the flavour packet in to avoid the huge amounts of salt/MSG in there.
I like them too. In fact I had a duck flavoured bowl of instant noodles for breakfast.
Of corse I pimp them out a bit. A handful of frozen wok-mix… a dash of soy sauce and an egg also depending on the mood I nuke them with a splurt of Siracha.
Haven’t eaten a pot noodle in decades, but it was always only with addition of extra seasonings that they were ever edible, in my view. Removing the flavour packet surely means you could just put some bouillon powder in a pan with some water and boil up non-instant noodles for ten minutes or so, That’s how to make them healthier.
But wait, there is more…. Unlike as described in the cooking manual I keep the broth and as long as you don’t actually look into the bowl the noodly slurry is quite tasty. A few slices of buttered bread to dunk and you carb intake is done for the day.
Irony here is that instant noodles are not cheap when compared to cheap pasta.
I have not checked prices in Switzerland, but usually 1 personal portion of noodles = 1+ kg of pasta. So, if there’s really economic strain, go for pasta or rice. A can of mashed tomatoes is healthier than any of the “flavors”.
Yes, I guess you could get Barilla spaghetti for $4 per kilo versus $13/kg for Nongshim Shin Ramyun Noodle Soup. Even if you add $4 for a jar of pesto, you still come out cheaper with the spaghetti.
The Fusilli I buy in Coop is around 1 franc per kilo, probably cheaper somewhere else.
Then consider the instant noodles cup has around 100g grams of dry content. So, you need to buy 10 cups to have the same amount of pasta. In my maths, 6.90 is larger than 1. Just add salt to the pasta to have the same nutrition values as the instant noodles.
Of course, to make the pasta nice you need to make some sauce for your kilo of pasta. 2 cans of tomatoes (1 CHF ), onions+garlic+salt (0.5 CHF per sauce), some 4-5 CHF in Grana Padano. So (1+1+0.5+4)/10 = 0.75 francs for a real pasta with real cheese around the same price as noodles. Want it cheaper than the noodles? Use cheaper cheese.
Second irony here is that lower income people is time rich. So, no issues for cooking.
I’ve never understood why people have a problem with MSG. There is no evidence that it is harmful short or long term and it’s found naturally in tomatoes and cheeses.
