Many preppers on a tight budget may be tempted to keep a stock of instant Ramen noodles on hand for use as a quick food in emergencies.
A staple food of many broke young adults through their college and early independent living years, instant Ramen noodles are known more for being cheap and filling than for their nutritional value (to say the least).
Since they are so abundant, easy to prepare, cheap and filling, does this make a good choice for prepper storage?
Well… we guess that depends on what we mean by “good choice”…
First, let’s do an overview… what are instant Ramen noodles?
On the off chance you’ve never seen instant Ramen noodles, they are quick-dried fully-cooked noodles packaged generally in a small, square package although they also are commonly packed in a cup.
You can generally find them on sale at grocery and other stores for anywhere from twenty cents per package to three-for-a-dollar. I’m sure there are places out there that sell them at a higher price, but that’s what I commonly see them at.
To cook them, simply place them in boiling water or microwave them for 3 minutes, stir in the package of seasoning and “vegetables” and bob’s-your-uncle you’ve got a “meal”. Of course, you can make your meal much more nutritionally relevant by adding extra vegetables and proteins, but that’s another story.
Let’s do a quick PrepperBuster on instant Ramen noodles right now
No, instant Ramen noodles do not contain a petroleum by-product as a preservative. Bare with me, this one involves just a bit of chemistry.
No, Tertiary-butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ) is not a petroleum product; it does not come from an oil or a gas well. True, it’s not particularly good for you, but your government (and virtually every other government in the world) think’s it’s safe to eat in the doses that humans consume it in.
One thing to keep in mind in this discussion: “butyl” and “butane” are NOT the same thing, they any more than ethanol (drinking alcohol) and methanol (makes you blind if you drink it wood alcohol) are.
If you were to search “are Ramen noodles healthy,” you’ll be offered all sorts of information about how this “petroleum” food preservative is going to make you sick and die.
I’d like to thank author Michael Pollan for spreading a lot of misinformation about TBHQ in his book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. In the past week, I did a post about how to do some fact checking, and this is a PERFECT example of why a prepper needs to do this for him or herself.
There is, apparently, somebody who either has an agenda against Ramen noodles for some reason or, more likely, is using fear to generate clicks to their website when talking about Ramen and TBHQ.
Let’s borrow an expert for this one…
In an article on BestFoodFacts,org, the website Dr. Sean O’Keefe, a food science professor at Virginia Tech, spills the beans on the the TBHQ controversy.
Dr. O’Keefe writes that THBQ “is a synthetic antioxidant that is added to foods to prevent or delay oxidation. Oxidation causes food to lose flavor quality, color and can even cause foods to become toxic. In addition, oxidation causes vitamins to break down, causing food to lose some of its nutritional value.
TBHQ, which stands for tertiary butylhydroquinone, is commonly used in foods such as crackers, microwave popcorn, butter and chicken nuggets. Dr. O’Keefe explains, “It is not made from butane, it does not contain butane but it does contain a tertiary butyl group.”
Wait, WHAT? We are talking about crackers, butter, popcorn & chicken nuggets as well? Whoa!
Ya still with us? Good. This whole “finding the facts” thing is a bit of work, isn’t it?
Yes, we are talking about a whole bunch of foods you are probably already eating without thinking about it… not just Ramen noodles.
So why haven’t you heard about this in association with your bag of microwave popcorn, but it’s all over the net when talking about Ramen noodles?
That, my friends, is a very good question… remember above when I was talking about clickbaiting and agenda-based information?
So I ate at McDonalds last night and had McNuggets, is TBHQ going to kill me?
Well, no, it’s not, but you might want to rethink your meal choice for more than just the TBHQ reason.
Dr. O’Keefe again: “When discussing toxicity, you need to look at the dose. Ethanol (which is found in alcoholic drinks) is toxic at high levels and can easily kill you by depressing respiration, but a glass of wine or two helps with relaxation”.
An article on Livestrong puts it even more into perspective on the TBHQ toxicity issue: “The FDA has imposed a limit of up to 0.02 percent of the total oils in food to be TBHQ. Consuming 1 g of TBHQ could cause you to experience symptoms ranging from nausea to collapse, while 5 g is a lethal dose. The FDA’s limits mean that you’d have to eat more than 11 pounds of Chicken McNuggets to reach a dose of 1 gram of TBHQ — and that would have to be in one meal, since it does not build up in the body over time.”
Of course, this doesn’t mean TBHQ is actually good for you… it’s just good to know the facts.
The REAL problem with TBHQ in your prepping food
The real problem with having TBHQ in your prepping food isn’t really the preservative itself, but rather in the fact that the preservative is NEEDED to keep your high oil, high fat food from oxidizing and/or going rancid too quickly.
The truth is, high oil foods don’t age gracefully, especially non-canned ones. Ramen noodles are very high in fat, which is what makes them tasty and filling… but it also very much limits their shelf life.
Is a food with a relatively short shelf life (even one as inexpensive as Ramen) a wise choice for preppers?
We store some high-fat foods with short shelf lives ourselves, largely because we have them in regular rotation. 12 jars of peanut butter fill a row in our rotational rack, and we use about a jar a month. This means we never have peanut butter go bad. We also keep a lot of canned tuna and salmon; but again we eat through these pretty quickly.
The food most at risk of going rancid on us is olive oil, because we don’t use a lot of cooking oil and we need to have a decent supply in our preps. We do keep it inside a light-tight metal container in a room that remains cool 24/7/365 but there’s only so much a that can do.
Let’s take a look at Ramen noodles nutritionally. Hold on, folks, this is where things get a bit ugly.
Is Ramen a good choice for an emergency food nutritionally?
I can’t image that any reader out there expects us to say “yes, it is”… but let’s take a good look at exactly how bad the noodles are nutritionally, why don’t we?
OK, let’s pop up the label of a standard package of Ramen and see what we’ve got:
There are two main problems that I (Spice) see with this picture. One is balance of macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.
Specifically, you’ve got lots of highly processed carbohydrates (the white flour), coupled with a fair bit of fat, with only as much protein as falls in by accident. That kind of carb is great at provoking release of the hormone insulin, and that hormone encourages the liver to do unpleasant things with the fat.
Moreover, there’s a lot of saturated fat. They use palm oil high in saturated fat, again, to extend the shelf life a little. Saturated fat isn’t the ultimate dietary evil, but it’s the least favorable kind you’re likely to find in vegetable oil.
The second problem with ramen is the sodium. 37% in not quite a couple hundred calories of food? 74% in one package, which is how most people eat this stuff? A 20 year old with good kidneys can probably cope with it, but a lot of middle-aged and upwards folks will spike the blood pressure problems on this kind of diet. (More about the problems of sodium here.)
So what’s the verdict?
Is stocking ramen just an awful idea then? No, it still beats the heck out of not having spare food in the house; and we’ve all got to do what we can afford. It’s cheap enough to toss it if you have to after a year or two (the ‘best by’ date on a fresh package is just a year away) and replace it. It’s also an upgrade to buy these for the noodles and toss in some dehydrated veggies, TVP, and spices; or only use half the salt … er, flavor… packet. Just know what you’re getting.
It may seem like this is us talking about prepping and too much sodium, but hang in there, that much salt really is a bad idea for preppers (and every other living human being)
I eat these all the time because, well, I love them. They’re even better if you put a couple drops of hot sauce or a heaping pinch of garlic powder in the boiling water while you are cooking them. I get the part about the sodium excess and blood pressure…which is why I drain off the liquid completely before eating them. Using more than the recommended amount of water will also dilute the amount of sodium (and flavoring) absorbed by the noodles. But back to Ramen as prepping food. Yes, very cheap. You can get 6 packs aka “Soupers” for $1.00 at Kroger. Sam’s sells off brands even cheaper in bulk. IMHO they are best used as very temporary emergency foods for poorly prepared urban dwellers when a hurricane or major Winter storm is coming and the local store shelves are emptying quick. They will get you through a week or so if you are kept housebound by weather and cannot get food.
Thanks for the review, a lot of work y-all put into this sort of article.
I tried Top Ramen about 50 years ago… enough said on that particular brand.
I DO stock the deep pantry with several cases of a Brand called “MAMA’ from Thailand, very tasty and a lot different than the America counterpart. (Caution, they are a bit Spicy) They have em over on Amazon for around 49¢, but the cost difference is worth the cost.
Lastly I believe no mater what one stores, Just Do It, get some food stored away for “If/When” As above, even Top Ramen will get you by for a few weeks if that’s all you have.
PS; do you have a way to cook them if the Lights go Out?
Thanks NRP, perhaps we’ll try the MAMA for comparison. Or Salty will; I haven’t had Ramen since I got past ‘searching couch cushions poor’ myself. Kelly Kettles are the most fuel-efficient answer I know for cooking the things; with the patio gas grill also being workable. But please folks — outside only for those methods.
How to cook them when the lights go out? Glad you asked!
Cooking during a power outage
The Kelly Kettle, A Review
Spice & Salty;
That was a rhetorical question for the readers, I’m figuring you two have the cooking Noddle’s down pat… HAHAHA
I get that, but never miss a chance to link articles 🙂
When I eat the ramen noodles I throw out the flavor packet and add onion and garlic powder, italian seasoning and some hot sauce.
My question is then, are the bad bits of the ramen noodles in the noodle or the seasoning packet?
A WHOLE lot of the sodium is, yes… not the fat, but a large part of the problem with Ramen is the sodium, so doing what you are doing is very much better health-wise than using the packets.
Thank you, Uncle George for presenting that option. Thank you, Salty for the clarification. Thank you, Spice for the THOROUGH explanation.
Food is still my most difficult and costly prep. Mostly I prepare my own food. The store bought stuff is ridiculously high in sodium. It is TOUGH to go through all the information. When I find something that works, I buy it.
Merman,
Know what you mean, i hate box mixes, and buy very little store food.
An offshoot of prepper food. Did you know you can dehydrate cooked rice? Don’t make it often, always make too much. Spread it out on a cookie sheet if you don’t have a dehydrator. What you end up with is “Instant Rice” since you started with real, you know what is in it. This is 1:1 to rehydrate, as the “instant” directions.
While you’re at it, you can dehydrate uncooked eggs; again 1:1 to make omelets or cook. Check into dehydrating already cooked meals. No, I don’t own a harvest right but do can. Nice skill to know.
You can purchase a generic packet of Mac N Cheese for nearly the same cost. Open the box, pour the noodles and cheese pack into a mylar bag with an O2 absorber and seal it up. It will keep for 10+ years. Get it all on Amazon delivered to the house. It’s cheaper than you would think and much better than instant ramen Noodles. Check a few youtube video’s on how to use Mylar bags. It’s really – really – easy. You can fill a good size plastic tub from Wal-Mart for well under $100.00. Rice, Instant Rice, Macaroni Noodles, Beans, drink mixes (water bottle flavoring), hard candies, etc. etc. etc. I promise, it’s cheaper and easier than ramen in the long run. And, once you start sealing mylar bags you’ll get addicted to what you can put up.
Don’t worry about “butter and milk” to make your mac and cheese. Water will be fine if you are hungry. Be sure you have a way to heat water or soak your noodles and beans….Just my two cents.
Thanks the thoughts, John Boy. Have you tried 5 yr old or longer cheese sauce mixes that started out as ‘normal’ commercial mixes but were stored this way? We had some that were air-tight sealed from the company but not oxygen absorbed, and they degraded to a disappointing degree. Not toxic, but Yuck. Most of the other stuff you mention we’ve had good success with. Not the drink mixes though; they too turned nasty. We didn’t pop their seals to put them in a low-oxygen environment. (It’s one part of an old MRE I usually won’t eat either, due to degraded tasete.)