Ramen May Lead to Chronic Illness Study Says

[noonespecial]

My boss, on my first job, whenever presented with any "study" of this nature would mumble:

"If you feed a rat a boxcar of anything, it'll get cancer".

Too damn right.

[Das_Bruce]

I think the cancer bit was just in there for shock value, the main point is that there is zero nutritional value to these foods.

[delackner]

Junk food may be "the cheapest option," but if you insist on eating a meal that actually provide the nutrients that the body needs, you'd have to spend a lot more money eating junk food than just cooking yourself.

Saying you just don't have enough time to cook for yourself is almost never true.

Just one meal example: Pressure cook for 6 minutes (plus ~5 getting up to pressure) a large volume of potatoes, carrots, onions, some ginger and chili pepper for flavor. Drop in some canned tomato and canned fish, and you can easily end up paying less than $1 for a totally balanced delicious meal, and you have produced in one swoop enough food to feed an adult for two full days.

[aw3c2]

And because food is what makes your body work, you better decide it is worth its money.

[brunt]

Ramen Noodles (when eaten all the time instead of a variety of fruits and vegetables) may lead to chronic illness.

The title is slightly misleading in that regard. It should be common knowledge now that too much of any one thing will kill you.

[btilly]

It should be common knowledge now that too much of any one thing will kill you

Not potatoes. You can live on nothing but potatoes and water and you'll be healthy. You'll likely get very bored of the diet, but you won't be missing anything essential.

This is true of very few foods.

(This is something that I learned when my wife was studying for general physiology.)

[briandoll]

That anyone would be shocked that packaged crap like Ramen has health risks is sad. This is not food. Of course it's going to kill you.

I always hope that when startups say "eating ramen" that they mean it symbolically, in that they are being frugal. Eating crap like this is just dumb.

[araneae]

Some of us put vegetables and eggs in our ramen.

Ramen in its true form is not just the noodles.

[PStamatiou]

  Eating crap like this is just dumb.

Well said. The last time I ate ramen without thinking of the health risks was my freshman year in college when people in my dorm hall would group-buy it by the crate. That was some 5 years ago. Haven't touched that junk since. I'm frugal on things in my apartment, furniture, and all of that, but I don't skimp on what I put in my body.

I always look forward to my Sunday afternoon trips to Trader Joes and/or Whole Foods. The latter is pricey but they have some good cuts of meat.

[dekayed]

A friend of mine has said that he thinks the biggest problem in the US is that food is cheap. It is really that food that is bad for you is cheap and food that is good for you is expensive. Cheap + full usually wins against expensive + hungry with most people.

[_ouxp]

I hope so too. pg put a footnote on his essay saying basically, don't eat just ramen with a recipe for beans & rice.

http://www.paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html#f1n

[tpryme]

"Ramen profitable" should be "oatmeal profitable." Whole grains ftw.

[aidenn0]

pg actually mentioned that "Ramen profitable" is not to be mentioned literally. I don't have the link of the top of my head, but he even included a beans & rice recipe.

[atomical]

I eat a lot of oat groats and korean barley. You can order oat groats in bulk, 50 pound bags, with a shipping cost of around $5. Woohoo.

[rdtsc]

Buckwheat and quinoa are my favorite. They both have a very good balance of amino-acids and proteins.

[barrydahlberg]

We should not call these rubbish instant noodles ramen.

What the Japanese call ramen is something very different. Fresh noodles, rich soup filled with vegetables, pork, bamboo shoots, ginger... Still, you wouldn't want to live on just one thing, that would be dumb.

[ChRoss]

Is this ramen that is usually served in Japanese restaurant, or instant noodle? I think they are very different.

[hugh3]

I assume they mean packaged ramen, which is extra-confusing because the described study was done in Australia, where nobody calls those "ramen" at all. They're called "two-minute noodles".

[daimyoyo]

I've never posted any comments here before but I feel compelled to do so for this link. It is lamenting the fact that people who eat ramen frequently aren't buying fruits and vegetables instead. I've basically lived on ramen for the better part of a year and the truth is that if I could eat healthier I would without a moments hesitation. But a ramen packet costs 15¢ each. So I can be reasonably full for around 30¢ a day. What kind of fruit can I buy for 30¢? A single apple? One banana? The author of this article needs to get off his high horse and try to live off the diet he's saying is such a bad choice.

[briandoll]

The true cost of eating nothing but packaged "ramen", at 30¢ a day, is seriously the value of your own life. This crap will kill you. It is not food.

Garbage in, garbage out. You may not feel it yet, but it is costing you your life.

While I can't know what your financial situation is, you are posting to an internet forum, so it appears as though you're not working two double-shifts to survive until tomorrow. Quality food is an investment into your life. To put your budget in perspective, your suggesting to spend $110 per YEAR feeding yourself. Is that all your health is worth?

[techiferous]

In times of famine people ate bark and shoe leather. So these are appropriate dietary choices if there are no alternatives. Same with Ramen. Ramen is appropriate as a staple food only if there is no other alternative.

[stjohn]

The article's title is misleading. The study doesn't actually pinpoint ramen noodles as a cause of chronic illness, but rather nutritional deficits, which of course could result from eating nothing but ramen.

"Those who relied on instant noodles and other cheap food with little nutritional content were at greater risk of chronic diseases including cancer, diabetes and heart disease, the researchers found."

The article title could just as easily have been Spaghetti May Lead... or McDonalds May Lead... Of course, it should be Poor Nutrition May Lead..., but then no one would care.

[noodle]

[Eating practically nothing but] Ramen May Lead to Chronic Illness Study Says

[EvanK]

Correlation != causation. Despite the title submitted here, what the article actually says is that people are trying to subsist almost entirely on ramen, foregoing other nutrition that they need like fruits and veggies.

I eat ramen every once in a while, when I'm too busy or too tired to fix any better kind of meal for myself, but that doesn't put me at any kind of risk because I don't do it every day for every meal. If you live entirely on ANY one kind of food (ramen, hot pockets, tuna sandwiches, etc), you're going to have health problems because you're simply not getting the different kinds of nutrition your body needs.

[terra_t]

white flour, poor quality fat, sodium, and a massive wallop of MSG. practically no protein.

my partner was busy last night, so I fed the family. I cooked whole-wheat cous-cous, mixed it with fried peppers and onions, and steamed a package of frozen "Italian Vegetables" (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and more.) I put this into bowls, half of each of the kind of stuff, and flavored with a dash of salt, pepper and earth balance natural margarine.

i didn't want a lot of protein in that meal because we cooked a chicken last night and i've been eating mass quantities of whey protein powder.

[csytan]

Why choose protein powder instead of natural protein?

[techiferous]

"healthy but less-filling fruits and vegetables"

This is not true. Fruits and vegetables have more fiber which makes you feel full. Ramen noodles and other fast food products can be hunger-promoting.

[patrickgzill]

Completely anecdotal (not data) point: guy I know from one forum, young guy in his 20s, lived on ramen noodles for 18 months to 2 years. Got colon cancer, which usually hits people who are older.

(I am trying to learn enough good recipes to eat well at home instead of eating out, have bought a few decent cookbooks and surprisingly, have found it enjoyable though time consuming to cook from scratch.)

[bialecki]

One more data point: My brother eats Ramen pretty much every day and has for the last 2-3 years (he's in college now). He hasn't been to the doctor in at least 5 years even for a physical. However, he eats the Ramen without cooking it and just putting the spices or flavoring on it and then crunching through it. To be honest, it makes me sick watching it, so maybe that counts?

[petrilli]

<prepackaged food> may lead to chronic illness. Seems sane. The problem is that ramen isn't JUST crappy salty over-processed 100% artificially flavored desiccated food. In Japan, ramen is a real food.

[dinkumthinkum]

Yeah, but it's cheap. It's also not bad with some crackers. :)

[Chris_Morrell]

I have a friend who uses the noodles and chucks the flavoring packet. He then adds veggies, some protein and a soy sauce based stock. It's pretty delicious and I imagine still decently cheap.