Ramen Dissapointment.

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Onebadhawk
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gpoehlein said:
<sigh> - this is exactly what CI and I are talking about. This is the Food Babe's tactic (if you don't know who she is, you can google her, but in this case I think ignorance is bliss) - if it has a chemical name, it has to be bad for you. This is not the case, and natural is not better in every case. Trust me, our cells can not tell the difference between a molecule that is man-made and an identical one purified from "natural" sources. A great example of this is vanillin. This is the primary flavor compound of vanilla, and is what is in artificial vanilla. It is made from a chemical process rather than extracted from vanilla beans. The molecule is the same - our cells cannot tell them apart. Does real vanilla taste better than artificial vanilla? Of course - because there are other flavor components that add to the complexity and enhance the flavor. But vanillin is not harmful to you just because it was made from coal tar.

As I said before, some people do have a sensitivity to MSG. But there are also a lot of people who think they do that are simply suffering from the placebo effect - when they know it's in there, they have symptoms. For what it is worth, MSG is a flavor enhancer - it doesn't add flavor so much as make the other flavors taste bolder. Salt does the same thing, but MSG doesn't make the food taste saltier. That's'so why MSG is in so many snack foods - it just makes them taste better. This is why there is salt in sweet foods like chocolate cake - believe it or not, up to a certain point, salt will actually make the chocolate/sugar combination taste sweeter. I have done this in the lab - it does work.

Bottom line here is that no chemical is being added to your food "just because" or for some nefarious purpose. Everything that is there has a reason for being there, whether as an anti-caking ingredient (keeps the powder from balling up and clogging the system, and from settling in the package into a solid lump), and a preservative, food coloring, or whatever. If there wasn't a good reason for something being there, it wouldn't be - more ingredients just drives up the cost of the ingredients and hurts profits. So no company is going to be adding any more of anything than they need to.

Don't just buy into Internet hype - and don't mistake cause and effect. Just because you ate that McDonalds hamburger two hours ago then got sick doesn't mean it was the "chemical laden" hamburger that did it. And remember that, a lot of the time, if someone is trying to tell you that something is bad for you, it's because they have some sort of alternative to sell you.
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Vanillin is a bad example. The source for the vanillin added to your food may be an artificial manufacturing process, but vanillin itself is a naturally occurring chemical that is present in foods that humans have eaten for thousands of years. I would make a distinction between manufactured chemicals that also occur naturally in food and artificial chemicals that do not occur naturally in food and have only been consumed in large quantities for a few decades. If humans have eaten it for a thousand generations, then we probably know if it is safe or not, even if we now manufacture the chemical instead of surce it naturally. If it is something we've only invented in the past few generations, we don't really know for sure yet how it may be affecting us.

I agree that none of the chemical ingredients added to our food are added "just because" or for nefarious purposes. But they aren't added for nutrition. They are added because they make for a more profitable product.

Sometimes, they make food taste better. But that doesn't mean the better tasting product is necessarily good for you.

Sometimes they are added to make the product have a better texture. But that doesn't mean that the product with the more pleasing texture is good for you. In fact, there is some research to suggest that certain emulsifiers are altering our gut biome and are making the protective lining of our guts more permeable to gut bacteria. The emulsifier itself may be non-toxic, but that doesn't mean it's not having a bad effect on our health.

Some chemicals are added to enhance shelf life. But that doesn't mean the longer lasting product is necessarily good for you. It could be that food is something that should be eaten fresh, and things that are prone to spoiling are better for you than things that can sit on a shelf for years and not go bad.

Anyway. I'm not a fanatic about this stuff, and I eat plenty of artificial crap. My point is that just because an artificial ingredient is added to food for a reason, does not mean that the reason is to benefit the health of the consumer. Sometimes it's just done to make money, and the manufacturer couldn't care less if it will kill you as long as you'll buy it.
 
T-Rex said:
What difference does it really make? Eat right, exercise, die anyway! Might as well enjoy what you enjoy.....
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Exactly - Even something as common as gelatin which is in lots of goodies is made by soaking animal waste products in acid. Olives are another example soaked in lye, black ones to the pit and then soaked in acid to neutralize the lye. "If it tastes good, eat it"
 
rcktnut said:
Exactly - Even something as common as gelatin which is in lots of goodies is made by soaking animal waste products in acid. Olives are another example soaked in lye, black ones to the pit and then soaked in acid to neutralize the lye. "If it tastes good, eat it"
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Yet the ingredients say "Olives, Water, Salt".:(
 
Olives, water, salt

Does not say what is in the olives...or, to the point, what process was used to prepare them.


DizWolf said:
I smoke, drink, drive fast....etc....
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But if you give all those up, you will live longer. You might wonder why you would want to live longer, however that is another discussion...
 
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gpoehlein said:
As I said before, some people do have a sensitivity to MSG. But there are also a lot of people who think they do that are simply suffering from the placebo effect - when they know it's in there, they have symptoms. For what it is worth, MSG is a flavor enhancer - it doesn't add flavor so much as make the other flavors taste bolder. Salt does the same thing, but MSG doesn't make the food taste saltier. That's'so why MSG is in so many snack foods - it just makes them taste better. This is why there is salt in sweet foods like chocolate cake - believe it or not, up to a certain point, salt will actually make the chocolate/sugar combination taste sweeter. I have done this in the lab - it does work.

Bottom line here is that no chemical is being added to your food "just because" or for some nefarious purpose. Everything that is there has a reason for being there, whether as an anti-caking ingredient (keeps the powder from balling up and clogging the system, and from settling in the package into a solid lump), and a preservative, food coloring, or whatever. If there wasn't a good reason for something being there, it wouldn't be - more ingredients just drives up the cost of the ingredients and hurts profits. So no company is going to be adding any more of anything than they need to.
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A health inspector once told me we shouldn't use MSG on our pizzas because it was known to cause cancer. No internet back in those days. No hype except for TV and radio. And no one said they were putting chemicals in our food for a bad reason. Sure, there's a reason or 10, but it's not necessarily in our favor that they do. Just because something taste better, doesn't mean it any good for you. We all know that junk food got that name for a reason. There's really nothing in it good for you. That's why it's called "junk food"!!

I rarely eat snacks like that anymore and choose healthier alternatives. Once in a while I'll break my rule and dive into a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos or some Crunchy Cheetos KNOWING I really shouldn't, and I find myself mindlessly munching away non stop. It's hard to quit eating the damn things. Flavor enhancers indeed! All that MSG and whatever else is being used to create that marvelous flavor...oh yeah.....THAT'S GOTTA BE REAL GOOD FOR YOU! I'm certain beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they want you to eat them that way. Get you addicted to their crunchy junk and make the big ole bucks. They certainly aren't making them for any healthy reasons.
 
Try one of these tasty entrees. Totally chemical free and guaranteed safe by Uncle Sam. Yum!

MREs.jpg
 
tmacklin said:
Try one of these tasty entrees. Totally chemical free and guaranteed safe by Uncle Sam. Yum!
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At the time when I had to eat those I learned to love them since it was usually all we had.:)
Even after getting out of the Army I used to keep a case of them in the back of my Jeep to snack on from time to time. Then, all these stupid "Survivalists" started buying the crap out of them and they went from like $50 a case at the local Army/Navy to like $70-$80 so I stopped keeping them around.
 
ThirstyBarbarian said:
The Japanese have declared total war on all things natural. They are the inventors of he cube-shaped watermelon.

fa3d92d87a31403589d3ced9a7e75244.jpg


That could be a good screen name --- CubeShapedWatermelon.
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I prefer elliptical.
 
TopRamen said:
I took the screen name TopRamen just because it came to mind when I signed up, but it's not like I eat a lot of Ramen Noodles.
When I do partake of them however, I enjoy them greatly and from time to time will have a pack just because they are tasty.
Sometimes I ditch the flavoring packet and use spaghetti sauce, or I add frozen vegetables and chicken or beef bouillon cubes.
Recently, I read about the stuff that goes into them, and it ruins them for me.
I already knew they had Monosodium Glutamate and were a full days worth of Sodium in every flavoring pack, but I could live with that since I only eat them occasionally.
The Article I read did'nt say if the Noodles were full of the bad stuff like the flavor packet.
Now I find out that they also contain Propylene Glycol, and that just kills it for me.:(:cry:
Had I the resources and funding available, I would seize the opportunity that is available right now to cash in on making a healthier Ramen Noodle.
Someone out there is likely working on a recipe as I type this.
I certainly hope they are, because until i can get my hands on an anti-freeze free version of my beloved snack, I'm done with the Noodles.:(
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The packets, sure, but have you tried a nice restaurant version? It can be an outstanding food with all kinds of dimensions.

For something in between, use your store noodles, toss out the flavor packet, and make some nice additions from fresh supplies.
 
MSG is a naturally occurring substance that was isolated and synthesized in 1909. the greeks were using msg long ago.
Rex
 
Also, genetics are probably a bigger factor in how long you live than what you eat.

https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrit...dits-dr-pepper-with-keeping-her-young-2015203

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Burns

I could go on. The trick, as with everything else, is moderation. Too much of anything (yes, even water...overhydration is a real thing) can seriously harm or kill you.

You can go through life being afraid of everything because it MIGHT hurt you, or you can strive for a balance and enjoy it.

FC
 
I'm going to go see what is in the noodles, as I do like to use just them for other things.
 
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TopRamen said:
I'm going to go see what is in the noodles, as I do like to use just them for other things.
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Well, that was a fools errand. It is easy to see what is in the flavor packet, but the Noodles themselves are still a mystery.
Like I said earlier, I like just the noodles with spaghetti sauce or vegetables and spices.
 
tmacklin said:
Try one of these tasty entrees. Totally chemical free and guaranteed safe by Uncle Sam. Yum!
Click to expand...

I was going to ask &#8220;Are those leftovers from your Y2k Survivalist stash?&#8221; :wink: but, those are the newer MRE&#8217;s&#8230;should I be stocking up for some other forthcoming catastrophe?

Nice to see that there is now a veggie burger MRE!
 
One of the combustion bi-products associated with APCP is HCL (hydrogen chloride) which forms hydrochloric acid (AKA muriatic acid) when it mixes with atmospheric moisture. When the wind blows just right, one can often get an unhealthy whiff of this toxic gas. Burning black powder also produces some unpleasant sulfur compounds as well as carbon dioxide. Since everything material in the known universe is made up of chemicals, including us, using common sense usually works well until the government and their cheerleaders embark on a new witch hunt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_perchlorate_composite_propellant
 
This reminds me a bit of something that happened during a nutrition class. The topic was having at least something to eat for breakfast (even if just an orange or piece of toast).

One person said they didn't have time to cook a breakfast. The discussion shifted to using a microwave for a couple of minutes rather than spending a lot of time cooking (as the issue of taking too long to cook sounded like an excuse).

Here is where it went off the rails. The person who said they didn't have time to cook breakfast refuses to use microwaves because of the "radiation". They think that microwaves causes food to become radioactive. I pointed to a ceiling light and said the light is putting out "radiation", but it's not the same thing as radioactive. But nobody could convince them them that microwaves did not equal nuclear energy and radioactivity.

I wish I'd asked them if they used a cell phone……and pointed out the "radio waves" their cell phone uses, and microwave ovens have much in common. :)

Of course a potential result, is that they might have gotten rid of their cell phone and not let anyone with a cell phone get near them. :(

- George Gassaway
 
georgegassaway said:
This reminds me a bit of something that happened during a nutrition class. ..(snip). The person who said they didn't have time to cook breakfast refuses to use microwaves because of the "radiation". They think that microwaves causes food to become radioactive. I pointed to a ceiling light and said the light is putting out "radiation", but it's not the same thing as radioactive. But nobody could convince them them that microwaves did not equal nuclear energy and radioactivity.

I wish I'd asked them if they used a cell phone……and pointed out the "radio waves" their cell phone uses, and microwave ovens have much in common. :) (snip)

- George Gassaway
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Then, after they get rid of their cell phone, tell them that the microwave radiation is just a bit different in frequency from radio and TV signals. And that you can't really get away from those...

The person would probably head for the hills... to get away from the transmitters.

Then remind them that the satellite TV emitters in orbit blanket the earth with signals... no refuge, other than deep underground.
 
The_Lone_Beagle said:
I was going to ask &#8220;Are those leftovers from your Y2k Survivalist stash?&#8221; :wink: but, those are the newer MRE&#8217;s&#8230;should I be stocking up for some other forthcoming catastrophe?

Nice to see that there is now a veggie burger MRE!
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Nah. I'm marking them up and selling them on Ebay under fishing lures! :wink:
 
TopRamen said:
Well, that was a fools errand. It is easy to see what is in the flavor packet, but the Noodles themselves are still a mystery.
Like I said earlier, I like just the noodles with spaghetti sauce or vegetables and spices.
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The noodles are pretty basic, wheat flour, water, salt, and Kansui = potassium carbonate or lye. It's the lye, I mean potassium carbonate, I mean Kansui that give Ramens their texture.
 
Folks, I got suspicious of some of the foods I had been buying after I made my first batch of homemade sausage. For years, Jimmy Dean Hot was the brand of choice. To me, it was the best tasting sausage out there. I found some spin-off recipes online and compared them to what was available on the JD package, and came up with a really great tastin&#8217; sausage. Here&#8217;s the catch.

I used to could cut off about a 2 oz portion of JD and stick it in a dry frying pan. It made its own leftover grease. When I did that with my homemade version, not only did it dry fry, but I had to add a little oil to the pan so it browned nicely. That&#8217;s when I did that Mr. Spock eyebrow thing and started reviewing my methods and recipe. I had it all right, but why did this JD make its own grease and mine didn&#8217;t?

I upped the fat content in my next batch and got the same result, but with less pork flavor and too much fat. Now I&#8217;m scratching my head wondering, are they really listing everything they put in this sausage? Many months went by as I enjoyed my recipe, then come a time I decided to use JD instead of my own in another recipe. Didn&#8217;t want to use up all that I had made. Sausage is a bit of a chore to make. I couldn&#8217;t believe how nasty it was. I had gotten so used to it, that I didn&#8217;t think twice about eating it.

There&#8217;s a bottom line here. You can always pick and choose what you want to eat. But be knowing, what you can make from scratch, is so much better than what&#8217;s available on the market. OH, might ought to add, JD does put MSG in its sausage. And I really don&#8217;t understand that. Great sausage can taste wonderful without it.

The dark part of my mind said, &#8220;They&#8217;re using dead people instead of pork&#8221;
 
Mixed a can of chicken, can of mushrooms and some ramen for dinner late night. Makes up quick and easy in the hotel microwave....
 

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