Ramen Noodles

What I had today was Ramen Noodles, specifically the one that is called Daily Instant Noodles TomYum Shrimp Flavor. This is something that I like to eat when there is nothing else at my house or something that I just crave.  Ramen noodles or instant noodles is something that I eat once or twice a week.  This food item is popular among Asian cultures as well as other cultures in the United States.  I know that being a college student this is a very affordable food item.  Ramen noodles, especially the one in a cup is less than $1 so stacking up on these noodles would be something that most college students would do if they didn't have much of a budget to spend out eating at a restaurant or something.  What I do mostly is to buy the whole box and that could last me about three months or so.  Besides instant noodles being cheap, they come in a wide variety of flavor so that is another thing to look forward to when buying this product.  It is cheap and it has all these different flavors to choose from.  Other than this item being cheap and flavorful, I would have to say that these are not the healthiest meal a person could consume.  Eating these about once or twice a week, in my opinion is not good at all.  So it is good if it was consumed about once every two weeks.   

Nutrition Facts:

Calories: 417 Kcal

Total Fat: 16.4g

Saturated Fat: 9.6g

Trans Fat: 0.9mg

Cholesterol: 0.0mg

Sodium: 1,512.0mg

Carbohydrate: 59.0g

Dietary Fiber: 0.0g

Sugar: 7.0g

Protein: 8.3g

 Looking at the nutrition facts, this bag is 417 calories which is not that bad if someone would base their diet on a calorie count basis but what I am mostly concerned about is the sodium intake from these ramen noodle packets.  Ramen noodles are mostly talked about how bad they are for a person to consume cause it has so much sodium.  This particular package contains 1,512 mg of sodium but converted to grams, it is 1.512 grams, which is more than a person should consume on a 2,000 calorie based diet.  Another ingredient that could cause this meal to be bad is the ingredient called MSG, which stands for monosodium glutamate, which enhances the flavor a lot.  This ingredient usually comes in a packet mixed with other ingredients to give flavor to the noodle and broth.  Too much consumption of MSG could lead to some side effects including headaches and chest pain.  Psychologically, to make this meal a little healthier is to eat this about once every two weeks which I should be doing but other than that if someone wanted to still eat this meal I would recommend to leave out the seasonings that come with the instant noodles and make their own broth for the noodles.  Another way I like to eat it is without the broth as well.  I would cook the noodles first with hot water and then drain out the water, to that I would add my own Asian vinaigrette.