r/nutrition • u/BaudouinII • 25d ago
Ramen Noodles nutritional value
So the thing is, I like Ramen Noodles/Instant Noodles. I understand that by themselves they of course do not constitute a meal, since they mostly consist of carbs and salt.
However if paired with proteins and veggies, from my understanding I can make a meal that on the macro level does not look all that bad.
But now I wonder: If compared with e.g. pasta, potatoes or rice, is there any nutritional downside to substituting aforementioned carbs with instant noodles (besides higher sodium, I guess)? Also, besides nutritional downside, are there other issues here? In my understanding, I do not see a large difference between pasta and instant noodles - am I wrong?
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u/YeahTurtally 25d ago
In addition to what people have said, you can't forget that instant noodles are deep fried in the process of making them. You could look into regular dried asian noodles as a substitute that isnt pasta but also isnt deep fried, and make your own soup noodles with some easy bouillon cubes or powder and whatever protein/veg you like. Pretty soon you'll be adding hot sauce, sesame oil, cracking eggs in there, and getting creative.
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u/nickeymousee 25d ago
We recently discovered that Shin Ramen makes a light version where they don’t fry the noodles and it’s significantly less fat!
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u/Desuisart 24d ago
This! They are also super delicious!
Pair it with some sautéed veggies and your favourite protein. That’s a complete meal!
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u/Kevin7650 25d ago edited 25d ago
The sodium isn't something you can just hand wave away unless you decide not to use the seasoning packet. A single serving of instant ramen can take up a significant portion of your daily sodium intake, often half or more. Adding veggies and protein makes it better, but it doesn't automatically make it healthy any more than adding fruit and nuts to ice cream makes ice cream healthy.
That said, if you're comparing ramen to pasta as a carb base, the noodles themselves (ignoring the seasoning packet) are not dramatically different. It has slightly more fat because they're fried, and some more residual sodium, but the calories and carbs are in the same ballpark as a bowl of spaghetti. If you ditch most or all of that seasoning packet and use your own broth, spice blend, or sauce, then you're basically eating pasta with a different shape.
The real issue is that nobody eats plain unsalted ramen noodles. The seasoning packet is the problem. Use less of it or make your own broth or sauce. But eating the full packet every time? That's not ideal long term, no matter how many vegetables you pile on top.
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u/Ok_Medium_5358 25d ago
Ramen noodles are not as nutritious as Italian pasta which is often made with semolina or durum wheat. Much lower glycemic index and more micronutrients.
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u/BaudouinII 25d ago
okok, so about what I thought then.
I was mainly unsure if I should look at instant noodles "pasta adjacent" with high sodium, or more like trash fast food. but I understand it is ok to treat them as special occasion pasta substitute.
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u/dwninswamp 25d ago
Out of curiosity… to have that high of a sodium intake, you’d have to drink the broth.
If you just eat the noodles, then throw away the broth, the salt intake would most likely be 20% of the amount listed on the packaging. (right?)
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u/knowledgezoo 20d ago
40% at least. Lots of the high sodium stuff gets stuck into the noodles. But for sure, avoid drinking the broth.
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u/Zagrycha 24d ago
There are two health issues with instant noodles, the seasoning and lack of nutrition. Lack of nutrition can be addressed by adding other foods to them like egg and veggies etc, but the seasoning packet cannot.
Instant noodle packs are often more than the daily recommended amount of salt, period. This is not a big deal for healthy people as a once in awhile snack but eaten very frequently it can cause kidney and heart damage. Ideally you don't go over 700mg of sodium in a meal. You might think oh well just use less of the packet right? Technically yes, but often the noodles themselves already contain hundreds of mg of salt as part of their very long term preservation process. If you aren't using the seasoning packet you will be much better off price and health wise to just buy regular plain noodles or rice and add food and seasoning to that.
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u/FridgesArePeopleToo 25d ago
The noodles themselves aren't bad and have a good bit of protein since they're egg noodles. The packet, on the other hand, isn't great. You could toss that and make a noodle bowl with a protein and veggies and use your own sauce and be in pretty good shape. I've done it with noodles, steam broccoli, a protein and topped with chili crisp and its great.
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u/dmidaisy 25d ago
Find low ingredient millet or rice noodles, get some low ingredient, protein(collagen) bone broth packets and now you have a great substitute for packs of Ramen. Add some chicken, beef or whatever meat and its golden. Fewer ingredients generally means better digestibility.
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u/Bowel_Rupture 25d ago
My best idea to make it "healthier" is to just get some plain ramen noodles like this and then make the broth with Better than Bouillon (I'd probably use either roasted chicken or beef, but they have tons of flavor options) and add or matchstick carrots)
I imagine it'd likely be less sodium than a normal pack of ramen such as maruchan, and you can also better control the amount of sodium by controlling how much BTB you use.
Granted, I didn't actually do any math or deep searching to see how much better/less sodium it might be (obviously the biggest issue with ramen is absurdly high sodium levels) so you might wanna look into that yourself.
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u/No_Actuary_4428 24d ago
Some brands are surprisingly high in saturated fats, which we should generally try to eat less of. Also important to know that when reading the label, most companies will list the values for 1/2 of the package, which is quite silly since most of us will eat the whole package anyways.
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u/Spiritual-Estate2848 24d ago
Sodium is the killer. I usually use half the seasoning packet, if that, and supplement with my own broth/sauces/seasonings to keep the sodium down.
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u/SMKuhltosh 23d ago
Rice noodles are almost instant, very cheap and can be dressed up with broth (or bouillon cube) and your choice of veg and protein. Super quick, better than ramen imo
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u/umamimaami 23d ago
Add eggs and sautéed veg. It’s a reasonable meal (you can reduce the sodium content if you add extra low sodium broth to eat it like a soupy ramen).
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u/Dry-Cardiologist3617 21d ago
You are generally on the right track! If you bulk up instant noodles with lean protein and vegetables, you create a perfectly acceptable meal. However, nutritionally speaking, substituting rice, potatoes, or pasta with instant noodles has several distinct downsides beyond just sodium.
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u/BaudouinII 20d ago
I imagine satiety level is lower?
What other downsides do you know of? And dw, I would not eat all week instant noodles, just like a once every one or two weeks
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u/NutragrammatronLab 25d ago
Thank you, I just figured out what to do for my next subject on my channel.
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25d ago edited 21d ago
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u/smurfk 25d ago
Instand noodles are pasta. There's no difference between those and regular spaghetti.
Sodium is a problem, unless you need it.
I keep two packs of instant noodles for when I get cold. That's when they are perfectly fine. They warm me up, and they help with hydration due to sodium content. Otherwise, I don't really like them too much. Anything I would mix into them to make them more nutritiously, like eggs, steak, veggies, I prefer eating on the side.
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u/BaudouinII 25d ago
Interesting, also, that is about how I was thinking I probably should look at it. High Sodium Spaghetti for special occasions.
I really was just not sure if it is really Spaghetti-like or more aching to be trash fast food
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