I saw HUGE ramen displays yesterday at Safeway, including some of the less common flavors like blue (Soy Sauce, formerly "Oriental") and yellow (Creamy Chicken).
I can't find the blog post from the last major recession where people were talking about all the crazy flavors you only see when the economy is REAL bad.
I'm a fattie on a D.A.S.H. (low salt) diet, but I do buy a dozen or so Creamy Chicken ramen every year.
At WalMart, they're now 47¢ (and I swear low-30s within the past year)... which actually helped me not purchase any this last visit (too expensive for all it is).
Noodle bowls are usually pretty high in saturated fat (between 8-15 grams on average). I can't imagine eating them daily.
At the very least you should consider steaming some vegetables (also very cheap), slice them up, and mix'em in to get some moderate nutritional value from it.
Saturated fat is not the problem. Fat with carbohydrates in the same meal is.
The problem with ramen is the amount of carbs and little nutrition which only spikes your insulin and makes you hungry 2 hours later if your metabolism is not great, not saturated fat in a vacuum. I wish popular knowledge about food had moved on from the misguided research of Ancel Keys already.
We're talking about budgets here. Not health. I think everyone knows that pre-packaged ramen noodles aren't the healthiest thing for you but they aren't any worse than half the other takeout crap you can eat. At least they are low in calories and cheap.
Wheat in a watery soup flavoured with monosodium glutamate isn't very nutritious compared to rice and fresh fish. There's a reason ramen costs a dollar or two compared to sushi.
Unless you're making them yourself or at least customizing them a good bit, noodle bowls are pretty unhealthy food.
Nothing fresh in them, high sodium, freeze-dried ramen or noodle bowls were originally survival food and should be treated as such.
Not saying don't eat them, and I don't know your socioeconomic background or anything, but if you want to eat them or have to eat them, try to add a little something extra into them.
A cup of shredded cabbage and/or a few cherry tomatoes and/or a half cup of onion slices and/or an egg, things like that should be cheap and easy to add and will help dilute the sodium and add a healthy component to the meal, and your kidneys and heart will thank you for it.
I don't disagree with a lot of what you said (need to really dress up the ramen to make it even close to healthy) but FWIW ramen isn't usually freeze dried it's just fried until fully dried out.
A few years ago when I started WFH full-time I attempted to make "healthy" noodle bowls using Indomie ramen as a base. Indomie packets are smaller than Top Ramen, so they have less carbs / salt. I'd stir fry the noodles with a bunch of veggies like shredded cabbage, onions, and peppers, and toss in some protein (leftover chicken, cubed tofu, etc). Seemed pretty healthy!
Until my blood sugar (A1C) and blood pressure numbers started climbing...
> I don't know your socioeconomic background or anything
It sounds like a habit drawn from poverty, but frankly, you'd have to be really poor to reach for something like this daily (I'm talking extreme survival situations that even the homeless don't typically face). Those with low income can still get much better food at a reasonable price. They don't need to shop at Whole Foods.
I'm not sure you can even eat like this for very long either. The malnutrition is that bad. Expect high medical care costs or an early death down the line.
If they're eating a reasonable breakfast and dinner, having instant ramen for lunch isn't anything close to a death sentence, it's simply not ideal.
But, odds are, the person who eats instant ramen 5 lunches a week isn't going home to a balanced dinner and likely eats fast food or frozen dinners most nights, which is why I suggested adding a few inexpensive extras.
A cup of pre-shredded bagged cabbage would add ~$0.50 to a ramen meal. If they do 30 minutes of meal prep on a sunday they could pre-portion a full portable soup container with all of the extras for the week and be ready to go for maybe an extra dollar a day.
You don't have to spend $25, of course, and you can make lunch. But microwavable noodle bowls, especially at your price point, are terrible for your health.
Why do people cheap out on food, but spend that money on less important things? We're talking about your health here! It's even worse when people with high incomes do it.
It's not nearly as filling, but I saw a character on TV smashing up their noodles and pouring in the powder, shaking the bag, and eating them like popcorn. I've become incredibly addicted.
"Hey, I heard you like eating sushi. Have you ever tried having a bowl of par-cooked microwaved noodles, instead? It's basically the same thing!"
Edit: The last time I worked in an office building, I had a limited time for lunch. I could have brought in ramen, or purchased something from the decently-stocked break room coolers. I could have sat at my desk or gone outside or eaten in the break room.
And sometimes, I did do those things.
But what I quickly discovered was that what I wanted on my lunch break was primarily a break.
I wanted to get the hell away from that place, surround myself with something completely different, and spend time relaxing my brain before getting through the second half of the day.
So I often went out to get lunch.
But because time was limited, it had to be nearby, and my options were thus very limited.
So I ate a lot of bargain-menu Wendys and tacos from Qdoba because I could get there, and eat, and relax a bit, and be back on time.
If there were instead a sushi place right downstairs, I'd have probably hit that once or twice a week, too. It would have had a higher monetary expense, but my brain would have thanked me for the extra time to unwind and I'd have had a better and more-productive rest of my day and come home in a better mood than I might have otherwise.
I feel you man. I had a lot of lunches alone at a McDonalds walking distance from the office having a quarter pounder with a side salad streaming shows on my Windows Phone through a Slingbox back in the day. Just gotta get out and disconnect for a half hour to reset my mind from the problems of the day.
That was the same year where I was homeless while technically having a "tech" job.
Just gotta wait for the economy to get worse... I haven't really paid attention to Top Ramen before, so I don't know if the creamy chicken is new in my store, but these giant displays caught my eye.
I can't find the blog post from the last major recession where people were talking about all the crazy flavors you only see when the economy is REAL bad.