I Had Ramen Every Day for a Week, Here's What Happened

Title correction: the author ate three servings of instant cup ramen per day, and nothing else.

One of the mentioned products was Shin Ramyun, which according to its website[0] has 510 calories per package (of which ~65% is carbs). Times three is only about 1500 calories a day[1], which will make any adult feel lethargic and cranky.

The thing about cup ramen is that it's a base, a starting point, a Minimum Viable Noodles. You want to be adding stuff to it -- for example mixing in some eggs, or cheap veggies (bean sprouts), or meat (left-over ground beef works well).

Perhaps the next article will be how they ate nothing but sandwiches (= 2 slices of bread) and felt tired.

[0] https://nongshimusa.com/homev2/our-products/shin-brand/shin-...

[1] The author writes "I actually ended up losing four pounds (despite the alarming amount of carbs and calories I was consuming)", which makes me think they're bad at reading nutrition labels and biology.

Articles like this are just bizarre - there's this whole genre of "I did this very mildly unhealthy thing for a week and experienced these totally real and definitely not-a-placebo health effects even though the negative effects usually take half a lifetime to manifest" that try to reinforce the idea that there's some perfect right clean way to eat that will ensure excellent health forever.

This one is that, doubly so - it seemed to be mostly concerned with the effects of sodium, when there's not much evidence for any downside to high sodium consumption except for some sodium-sensitive individuals, and it's not clear that the author actually exceeded recommended values for daily consumption or even really increased their sodium intake all that much.

"The site owner may have set restrictions that prevent you from accessing the site. Contact the site owner for access or try loading the page again."

I predecided that I would feel terrible after eating ramen for a week and guess what? I felt terrible after eating ramen for a week. Did I do any real science or measurements? Of course not.

"I am a starving wannabe journalist writing a linkspam article per week until I die. (If you’re in the mood for Mexican, try these 15 easy Mexican appetizers at home.)"

(The second half of that is an actual quote from the article, which is absolutely littered with linkspam.)

I stopped drinking and stopped smoking tobacco, but I got the same kind of "hangover" I used to get after a night of binge drinking on basically nothing but really salt heavy foods.

(Some were salty, then doubly sugary to cover it up, which is so very American)

It spiked my anxiety to 11, probably as an effect of an elevated heart rate?

I used to be much less healthy, but I also often made a lot of decisions I wouldn't make if I could have bought the foods folks told me were healthy with the same ease as a Wendy's hamburger.

I hope one day to go back to Japan, at leas there for about the equivalent of five dollars you could eat a non fancy, but healthy meal, even if you didn't know enough Japanese to navigate some of the more complex dishes -- I forget the name, but they had these hockey puck or triangular things that were rice, seaweed, and a soft boiled egg or something that weren't exactly "low carb" but relatively low glycemic).

Maybe we should find a way to tax overly salty stuff like some places do sugary drinks, so stuff like a rice ball surrounding a hard boiled egg become a stereotypical budget food for students or bloggers or whatever.

A big factor is age.

When I was a poor college student, I would eat ramen noodles every day (every meal) during the weeks leading up to midterms or finals. I don't remember suffering any ill effects at the time. When you're in your 20s, and if you're fairly healthy, you can abuse your body in all kinds of ways with almost no consequences.

Now that I'm much older, I can't do it anymore. The sodium and carbs do a number on my blood pressure.

That said, the creator of instant ramen (Momofuku Ando) claimed to have eaten 1 ramen a day almost all of his adult life and he lived till the age of 96. I guess some people just have good genes.

I think it's an exaggeration to think that eating 2 days of ramen and that it wijld have an significant effect on your sodium or energy levels. If anything, I think it's moetly the possibly low caloric value that I would attribute to feeling lethargic.

I've myself eaten a soylent type drink for a month straight, at 1200kcal daily intake and I've had nothing bad to say. My basic metabolic rate is somewhere around 3500kcal and even with a huge deficit, I haven't been tired or anything.

Instant noodle gives me pretty bad reactive hypoglycemia so I avoid it as much as possible. And when I have to eat one, often after coming home at night after a long trip, I often eat it with a eggs, a lot of frozen vegetables or wakame. That seems to fix the low sugar blood problem afterward.

The trick with instant noodles is to discard the terrible “flavour packet” and use “Better Than Bouillon” brand bouillon and whatever veggies & whatnot strike your fancy. “BTB” is essentially a chef’s-grade bouillon, reduced to a thick paste; a little goes a long way.