Looking for a quick ramen bedtime story to celebrate the birthday of instant ramen? NPR’s (National Public Radio) All Things Considered has a special commentary on the 50th anniversary of instant ramen by Andy Raskin, author of the forthcoming book THE RAMEN KING AND I (How the Inventor of Instant Noodles Fixed My Love Life).
Share ThisWe recently received this email asking for ramen help.
Meredith wrote:
I hope you can help! My friend has a 16-year-old son who has been diagnosed
with heart failure, he is waiting for a transplant and they expect it will go well. Part of his treatment is that he has to be on a low-sodium diet for the rest of his life. This kid LOVES ramen, he was eating 4 or 5 cups a day at first because the hospital doctors said his sodium was very low. Now it’s normal, and he has to cut back almost entirely. They were willing to give him 1 a week but he’s trying to bargain for more often! I figured I’d help by researching low-sodium ramen. Surely such a thing exists, and I figured you guys would know about it! Is it out there anywhere in the world? I can use Craigslist to recruit somebody to send it to me, wherever it could be found!
Well, Meredith, our hearts go out to your friend and her son! To start with, I was about to post a link to this article, so you’re timing is perfect. The article has tips on how to reduce the sodium in instant ramen. The tip about not using the entire seasoning packet is a quick and easy way to reduce the amount of salt in instant ramen. I’m not sure that “washing” the brick ramen will help much, but “washing” Cup Noodles should help immensely, since the seasoning is already mixed in with the noodles.
I’ve also looked through my pantry, and did some research, and you’re in luck. Nissin has a new Choice Ramen that’s low in fat and sodium. I bought a few packs recently that I haven’t gotten around to review yet, but according to the info on the back, one brick is 2 servings, and each serving has 400mg of sodium (that’s for the beef flavor. The chicken flavor has 480mg). That might still be high for your young friend, but if you cut back on the seasoning packet, that’ll reduce the salt content even more. I bought mine at a local Albertson’s so I imagine they should be pretty easy to find. For something more exotic, it looks likeKorean ramen makers are also getting into the low sodium act.
So now I want to open this up to all our readers. Can anyone else help Meredith out? Are there other low-sodium instant ramen out there? Please post a comment below and help out a worthy ramen fan!
(Also, for anyone who’s concerned about wax in instant ramen (gee, like sodium isn’t bad enough)…don’t worry. It’s a false alarm!)
Share ThisMental Floss has some ramen trivia. How much do you know?
Craving ramen in the Bay area? Check out Melanie Wong’s prolific posts on the Bay Area ramen scene
I’m just a sucker for a cute ramen girl.
Speaking of Ramen Girl, meet the “Ramen Boy“.
And to finish off this batch of links…are you ready for the “perfect ramen”? Rameniac gives Ramen Jiro in Tokyo a perfect score! Ramen Tokyo also has an in depth guide.
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Chikin Ramen (and yes, that is the correct “Japanese” spelling) went on sale today, 50 years ago, in 1958. Chikin Ramen was the brainchild of Momofuku Ando, inventor of instant ramen and founder of Nissin Foods (maker of Cup Noodles). A moment of inspiration struck when Ando-san watched people lining up to buy black-market ramen during food shortages after World War II and he set out to create a food that would be easily accessible to everyone. After months of development, he sucessfully created and marketed Chikin Ramen, the world’s first “instant ramen.” Momofuku Ando, who passed away at the ripe old age of 96 last year in January, believed that “Peace will come to the world when the people have enough to eat.” Mr. Ando claimed to have eaten Chikin Ramen almost every day.
A few months ago, I tried and reviewed Marutai’s shoyu tonkotsu stick ramen. The next day, I tried this goma shoyu version. No, you didn’t wander into a time warp. This is simply laziness at work. On to the review! Read the rest of this entry →
While economists still debate about whether or not we’re in a recession, the White House claims that we’ve avoided a recession (yay! if it’s coming from the White House, it must be true!). Regardless of who you believe, things are tough all over and most, if not all of you have probably had to make some sacrifices. How are you getting by? Take the poll and tell us what you think in the comments below.
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