One of the best feelings comes from eating a warm bowl of noodles on a cold day. Even though the feeling is indescribable, the noodles hide a nasty secret within.
Many people do not know the instant noodle’s secret. After all, around 120 billion servings of instant noodles were consumed in 2024. Those oodles of noodles hide a lot of sodium inside, which may be a threat to the customers.
Starting with the noodles, they do not contain much nutrition.
They are often precooked, then deep fried or air dried for shelf life. This process gets rid of most of the fiber and nutrients, rendering the noodles, nutritionally speaking, useless. As a calorie-dense food with no other nutritional value, the noodles are not the best choice when it comes to eating healthy.
Moving on, the sauce packets are no better. If the noodles are just there to make one full, the sauce packets are there to make one sick. The sauce packets can contain up to 1,800 mg of sodium, and sometimes even more. In comparison, the recommended upper limit for adults is 2,300 mg and even lower than that for children. Just two packets greatly exceed the upper limit.
Sodium has many adverse effects to one’s health when consumed in excess. Consistently consuming high sodium foods can lead to hypertension, heart disease and stroke. That is not all that instant noodles have to offer though. A 2014 study published in the Journal of Nutrition linked frequent instant noodle consumption to an increased risk of metabolic syndrome, which are symptoms that are related to Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, including but not limited to abdominal obesity, high blood pressure and insulin resistance.
To summarize, high instant noodle consumption is not good for one’s health.
However, there are plenty of people who eat mountains of cup noodles, who certainly are not planning on stopping. So is there a way to make it healthier? Indeed there is.
For instance, instead of using the sauce packets, one can use chicken broth. Many noodle brands also have many low sodium versions, which are healthier than their normal counterparts. While cooking noodles, add vegetables or mushrooms to make up for the lack of nutrients. For extra protein, add an egg.
However, despite all of these solutions, one should always consume instant noodles, and many things, in moderation.
