(Editor’s Note: Impulsive Buy reader and starving college student, Amanda, asked me if I would be willing to review products that don’t need to be refrigerated and can be prepared by just adding water. I thought I could do a week of products of like this, but surprisingly, I couldn’t find many. Thank goodness for dried ramen.)
If I were on the game show Family Feud and the following question was asked, “What things would you typically find in a men’s college dorm room?” I would probably say the following things:
1. Textbooks that won’t be opened until midterms.
2. A computer with gigabytes of porn and illegally downloaded music and movies.
3. Enough empty beer cans to have several lanes of beer can bowling.
4. Several bongs made out of either glass, beer cans, or fruits.
5. A potpourri of free condoms from the Condom Fair on campus.
6. Cases of dried ramen.
During my freshman year in college, I ate a lot of dried ramen. However, during my sophomore year, my dried ramen consumption dramatically decreased when my friend attending the University of Arizona told me about a student there who died from malnutrition because the only thing he ate was dried ramen.
Today, I hardly ever touch the stuff. However, recently I picked up a Nissin Cup Noodles Souper Meal Chicken Flavor. Now when they say “souper,” they really mean “souper.” The styrofoam bowl is probably more than twice the size of a typical Cup Noodles bowl, which means it is probably big enough to use as a helmet for beer can bowling.
The Souper Meal may have been bigger than a typical Cup Noodles, but preparing it was the same. Just boil some water, peel back the lid, pour the boiling water into the styrofoam bowl, cover the bowl with the lid, wait for three minutes, peel back the lid again, stir, consume, and then wish you could afford some real food.
Each Souper Meal comes with three individual packets, one for the chicken flavored soup base; another for the freeze-dried vegetables, which includes corn, mushrooms, carrots, onions, and cabbage; and another for the Finishing Touch flavor packet.
Finishing Touch?
That’s something I expect from an Asian massage parlor, not from an instant Asian soup dish.
Well I tried the Souper Meal with and without the Finishing Touch flavor packet, and after trying it, I wished that it was the Asian massage parlor Finishing Touch instead, because it really didn’t add anything to the Souper Meal. Either way, it tasted and looked like a typical chicken flavored Cup Noodles.
While eating the Souper Meal, I began reading the nutritional facts on the side of the bowl and found out that the entire bowl had 2,540 milligrams of sodium, which was possibly enough to either raise my blood pressure or turn me into a human salt lick.
However, I also found out that it has four grams of dietary fiber. Although, it probably isn’t enough to negate the nine grams of saturated fat, which is 50 percent of your daily allowance.
After reading all of that, I put my fork down and dumped the rest of the Souper Meal down the drain, because dying via a sexual asphyxiation fetish is fine, but dying by the hands of dried ramen is not.
Item: Nissin Cup Noodles Souper Meal Chicken Flavor
Purchase Price: $1.49
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like regular chicken flavored Cup Noodles. More than double the size of a regular Cup Noodles. Four grams of dietary fiber in every bowl. Styrofoam bowl may make a good helmet for beer can bowling.
Cons: Helluva lot of sodium and saturated fat. Fogs up my glasses when I eat it. Not much “souper” about it. Dying by the hands of dried ramen. Finishing Touch packet wasn’t the Finishing Touch I really wanted.
Mmmm… tasy Marvo salt lick….
I’m sorry, were you saying something?
(that would be tasTy… I’m too hot and bothered to type, apparently)
“dying via a sexual asphyxiation fetish is fine, but dying by the hands of dried ramen is not”
HAHA…thats awesome! Great review Marvo….and you are very brave! You know, I’ve never tried Ramen before actually. My one friend keeps insisting I try the Shrimp Ramen….and all I can say is, what kind of shrimp meal will cost you 20 cents…. or however much ramen costs. Yea, I dunno, I think I’ll live without it!
I kind of like Ramen noodles, once in a great while. They do have enough sodium to make your blood pressure rise just by looking at the label, though, and the flavor gets old quickly if that’s all you’re eating.
When I was about 15 years old, I went on a 50-mile backpacking trip for a week in the mountains in California with a boy scout troop. We ate a lot of those 10-cent packages of Ramen noodles, because they were both cheap and very, very light to carry in our packs. Since that trip all those years ago (OK, only like 12 years ago), I haven’t been able to eat anything Ramen-like. Call it negative association, or call it an irrational neurosis, but there it is.
i like the nissin instant noodles (so ghetto) and the rice noodles from “fook” brand (it’s a chinese character….). and when i was younger and less concerned with nutrition, i would happily drink all the broth. now i have to will myself to throw away the broth after enjoying the noddles as most of the sodium and fat is in there.
“Finishing Touch”? What the hell was in that, considering it didn’t taste different with or without it? Mind control crystals? Cyanide? A virility potion? Please let us know if you are compelled to join a ramen militia, you die, or you get a 3-day hard-on. Actually, just if you die. If you join a ramen militia we’ll probably know it when you come to our houses to force us to eat ramen, and quite frankly, I don’t want to know about the hard-on. Then again, how can you tell us if you are dead? Who knew that the “Finishing Touch” could raise such philosophical questions? Maybe all that’s in the “Finishing Touch” is all the sodium which, in turn, could also kill you, leading us back to the question of how would we know if it did. I’ve had too much coffee this morning.
This “finishing touch” you speak of…
is this a lucrative business?
You say “asian massage parlor” but do I have to be asian to work at one or own one?
and if I wear the styrofoam helmet when I’m finishing the finishing touch, do I get more money?
there has to be a way to exploit this! It’s just a money-making opportunity WAITING to happen!!
I think that “my friend knows a guy who died from malnutrition because of ramen” is an urban legend, though my Irish friend tells it as “my roommate knew a guy who died from scurvy because he only drank Guinness.” I think the preservatives would kill someone long before the fact that it has little actual…well, FOOD, in it.
one time, inthe middle of the night, i decided it would be a wonderful idea to put butter on my brothless(but with flavoring) ramen. the smell made me sick and now every time i try to eat ramen i get nauseous.
damn you, marvo!
i’m ALREADY living off of dried ramen noodles
….and now you tell me they’re going to lead to my premature death?>?
::cries::
Hehehe Marvo….I’m a freshman in college and my dad bought me two crates of Ramen…..I’ve eaten 5 packages.
I can’t eat this at college, cause I ate it as an after school snack at home, and if I can’t make it right with a stove and all, it tastes wrong to me. However, the “Bowl Appetite” line of “add hot water and microwave” products is not too bad. We have high class ramen here in Miami called “Simply Asian”, you could maybe look into that, it seems a little healthier and lot more expensive.
That’s a lot of soduim. Just last week I ate that same stuff and also ate it with and without the finishing touch. The finishing touch tasted like a beef cube.
I have a case of the Top Ramen in the pantry, but none of them have any “Happy Finish packets” or whatever. With these all-in-one cup o noodles types you can’t do this – but it helps tons if you boil the noodles for 1/2 the time required, then dump the water and rinse the noodles like you would spaghetti. Then put it in a bowl, add soup packet, cover with fresh hot water and nuke it for 2 minutes or so. But yeah don’t drink the soup.
Marvo there is a high end dried ramen you should try called “Myojo Chukazanmai” that has a “happy finish” type packet as well. This rocks ass over most other instant ramen i’ve tried. I think the brand is actually Myojo Foods… not Cheap Eats though.
The ramen packages where you add your preferred amount of seasoning (from an enclosed pouch) are fine, but the prepackaged “cup o whatever” typically contains an unhealthy amount of sodium. Lesson here: reduce the amount of powdered seasoning and you should be okay, as long as you eat other healthy stuff. A fun thing to do is read the amount of grams of whatever (fat, sodium, etc.) and compare it to the entier mass of the food product. I had a bag of Sun Chips where the fat was only 9 grams (~14% of the recommended RDA), but the entire bag was 28 grams, so the fat was nearly 1/3 of the chips themselves. Sneaky statistics!
There was this kid on my floor my first year of college who ate nothing but chips and packaged donuts (you know those 5 or 6 donuts where you can fit a whole one in your mouth) and finished it off with a Centrum tablet, which he claimed gave him all the nutrients he was missing. I’m sure the lack of fiber hit him every four days.
Ah man, how many times has ramen been there to save my life? Too many times to count.
i actually like a nice bowl of Ramen every so often. It’s not really bad considering it’s only like 10 cents a bag. another trick is to only use half of the seasoning packet because that’s where all of the sodium comes from.
The last time I ate Cup Ramen was in 1996, Freshman year of college. One day I made some ramen in the microwave and was nonchalantly reading the “nutrition” value (as if there is any) on the cup. I almost choked when I saw that it had like 600 grams of sodium. I threw the rest of it away and have not touched that nasty shit ever since.
I also stopped eating ramen when I found out the fat grams. I would rather eat food with that actually has something in it if I’m going to have all that fat.
You Think These Are Bad….Try Pot Noodles!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_noodle
Mir – I don’t know if you would want to lick me, because licking me might cause a hairball.
Ultimate Best Vamp Ever – Just to let you know, the shrimp in shrimp ramen are very shrimpy.
Chuck – I always have some around, just in case I’m sick and too poor to buy the slightly more expensive Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup.
Bottom Feeder – Wow, in my old Boy Scout troop we ate waaaay better than you did. We figured it would be heavy carrying it at the beginning of the trip, but by the end of the trip it would be all gone, making our packs much lighter.
wyn – When I was little I used the drink the broth as well. I’m surprised my tiny little heart didn’t explode.
Pel – Thank goodness, no 3-day-hard-on, but if I get my hands on some Viagra, I can’t guarantee that there won’t be any 3-day-hard-ons.
KT – I believe Asian massage parlors are a lucrative business because I’ve seen several of them here. Heck, I think there’s one down the street from me. I think it’s called Moonlight Massage. I don’t think you have to be Asian to work at one, but I don’t know if Asian massage parlors are equal opportunity employers. As for the styrofoam helmet, I’m sure some guy would pay extra for that.
Aarika – Damn urban legends! I’m so mad that I’m going into the bathroom, turn off the lights, and say “Bloody Mary” thirteen times.
caitlin – Oh man, just the thought of it makes me sick. It’s like when the workers at the movie theater but waaay too much butter on top of the popcorn.
amanda – Might I suggest stealing fruit from a farmer’s market? It’s cheap and healthy.
DeAndre’ – Just remember…Moderation or else high blood pressure inflation.
Genny From the Burbs – I’ve never seen or heard of high-class dried ramen. Usually, if I want high class ramen, I just walk to one of the ramen restaurants down the street.
Lucy – That’s what it tasted like. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but you solved the mystery for me. Thanks!
Bryan – Holy crap! Instant ramen that isn’t Cheap Eats? It better be damn good instant ramen.
klew – Mmm…Donuts.
Ken – I guess ramen for you is like bowl-to-mouth resuscitation.
Webmiztris – I once was asked to eat a whole ramen packet for a dollar. I declined.
Toni – I actually do crave dried ramen once in a while, when my roommate makes some, but by the time he finishes the two packs he’s eaten in one sitting, my craving is gone.
missy – Like chocolate cream puffs…Mmmm.
Damon – Dang! They come in a fajita flavor! Those must be nasty. I must find some!
So, it’s neither “super” or a “meal.” 2540 mg of sodium?? MAN! I can feel my BP rising just reading that count…
nat – Yes, I can now add two things that could significantly raise my blood pressure, the Souper Meal and M. Diddy trying to rap.