Many people believe that one should avoid ramen while dieting. However, if you only eat the noodles, it won’t pose a significant problem to your diet.
Ramen can be considered a comfort food for Koreans. The smell of ramen, especially when dieting, can be hard to resist. If you give in and pick up the chopsticks, the satisfaction is fleeting, quickly replaced by guilt for ruining your diet.
But eating ramen doesn’t necessarily ruin your diet. If you avoid the broth and only eat the noodles, the calorie count is lower than you might think.
It was revealed that a pack of Samyang Ramen (500ml or about 16.9 fl oz) is composed of 475ml or about 16.05 fl oz of noodles and 25ml or about 0.85 fl oz of soup. However, this is when the ramen is uncooked.
According to the YouTube channel Korean Diet Gosu, run by oriental medicine doctor Kim Hee Jun, if you cook a pack of Nongshim’s Shin Ramen (500ml or about 16.9 fl oz) and only eat the noodles, you consume about 350ml or about 11.8 fl oz.
This is because the palm oil used to fry the noodles seeps into the broth during cooking. Because the melting point of this palm oil is around 35 degrees Celsius (or about 95 degrees Fahrenheit), when you boil the ramen, the palm oil melts into the broth. As a result, the oil content ends up in the broth, not the noodles.
Therefore, if you’re craving ramen, you can indulge without significantly damaging your diet by eating only noodles. If you’re still concerned by calorie intake, pre-boil the noodles in water before cooking the ramen with the rest of its content.
However, one should be aware that a pack of ramen contains a high amount of sodium, which can cause temporary swelling after consumption.
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