A general picture of 30 kinds of instant noodles for my experiment, edited by Photoshop
Time has elapsed so fast, and it’s the time to say good-bye for my 30-day experiment. Yesterday, June 2 2010 is my last day for my experiment, but when I recall the past 30 days, I always have a feeling like the beginning of my experiment.
My purpose is as clear as the blog title that I want to change the mind of instant noodles that most people think instant noodles is a kind of harmful food. I want to tell people that instant noodles can be healthy food and prove it to people especially my mum, who thinks that eating instant noodles can lead to cancer, via my practical experiment. I remember the first week of my experiment that I felt it’s easy to handle, but I felt scared later. It is not because I am bored by eating instant noodles, but I feared that I can’t find 30 kinds of instant noodles. However, finally, I found that it’s unnecessary for my worrying, actually there’re various kinds of instant noodles.
Before my experiment, I was the person who didn’t care about the nutrition fact of the food or drink I had, and I just cared about whether it tasted good or not. Since I run my experiment, I start to consider how much calories, fat and other part of nutrition I absorbed or may absorb. When I am wandering in the supermarket, I spontaneously glance at the nutrition fact at the back of the food or drink I pick up. The nutrition fact becomes a part of my judgment on buying food. Also, I found a big mistake I did and I only knew a little about fats in the past. I misunderstood the different types of Fats that I thought trans fat is as same as unsaturated fat. Now I know more that there are three major kinds of fats including saturated fats, trans fats and unsaturated fats when I was finding source for my blog. We should avoid Saturated fats as much as possible because they are bad that would raise total and LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. Trans fats are actually unsaturated fats but have a little different that they can raise total and LDL(bad) cholesterol levels while also lowering HDL(good) cholesterol levels. Unsaturated fats can divide into two categories of monounsaturated fats which can actually lower LDL(bad) cholesterol and maintain HDL(good) cholesterol, and polyunsaturated fats which can lower LDL(bad) cholesterol but also can lower HDL(good) cholesterol when too much of them. I found that saturated fat and trans fat are usually related to Total fat part and noticed on the nutrition facts of different kind of instant noodles with other parts such as Calories, Cholesterol, Total Carbohydrate including Dietary Fiber and Sugars, Protein, Vitamins such as A and C, and Minerals such as Sodium, Calcium and Iron. And I found that the most considerable parts of nutrition fact of instant noodles are its amount of calories from fat, cholesterol and sodium because they are usually reaching high level. After the experiment, I know more about the history and information of instant noodles. For example, I know more about Ando, the father of instant noodles and how he creating the instant noodles industry. Also, I found some interesting thing such as The Instant Ramen Museum where people can handmake their own cup noodles and design the cup.
By the experiment, I learnt what the best way for cooking a bowl of delicious instant noodles is to mix the cooked instant noodles and boiling water with uncooked seasonings. Also, I can feel how convenient and how cheap instant noodles is since it save quite much of time to cook and spent not more than $20 USD for my 30 meals. To run this experiment, I spent total $17.22 USD to buy these 30 kinds of different instant noodles including bag instant noodles, bowl noodles and cup noodles from different countries such as America, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Moreover, I think the Nissin brand instant noodles are well developed in America, Japan and Hong Kong, but there are differences among their packaging and tastes. Nissin is the most brands appeared in my experiment that it occupied fourteen-thirtieths of instant noodles I tried for 30 days. However, the amount of calories, fat and sodium of Nissin brand are the highest one. For consideration three parts of taste, price and health which used for evaluating instant noodles, I prefer the Unif TUNG-I Instant Bean Vermicelli Chinese Spices Tong Tsai Flavor (Bean Thread) is the best one because it’s worthy, tasty and healthy. However, for the same brand, Unif TUNG-I Instant Spicy Beef Flavor Noodles is the worst one because it tastes disgusting even its nutrition fact is acceptable.
For the last 30 days, I found out some ideas of people that why they think instant noodles are harmful for health just like my mum thinks instant noodles can lead to cancer. And I proved their thoughts are wrong by doing research and running my practical experiment. For instance, Styrofoam used for packaging of instant noodles is the ringleader of cancer but not the instant noodles itself. The actual material on the surface of the instant noodles is palm oil, but some people misunderstand it for a layer of wax. Since that, I realize that in the society, there are so many people have biases on the artificial food which are harmful for health and cause cancer. However, these people just hear and believe slanders from others but they never try to probe for whether it is true or not. Actually, Instant noodles can be healthy food too. The first real experiment in my college life became my valuable memory, and I am still enjoying the pleasure it gave me, and I’ve learnt a lot from the experiment. After consuming 30-day instant noodles, I can tell my mum, your daughter, I am still clever, healthy and alive!
