What makes ramen unhealthy

As Spoon University points out, real ramen is made with hand-pulled wheat noodles, while stuff like Top Ramen is simply mass-produced dehydrated noodles that are full of preservatives.

According to Healthline , while instant ramen may be low in calories, and the noodles themselves do have some nutrients like such as iron, they lack a lot of key nutrients your body needs. Instant ramen noodles are a poor source of protein, fiber, potassium, calcium, and vitamins A, C, and B They may fill you up for a short period of time, but their nutritional offerings are going to be a real letdown for your body.

Aside from a bowl of empty calories, the real health culprit here is that packet of seasoning that gives noodles their flavoring. Sure, it makes them tasty enough for you to choke them down, but that little seasoning packet is one big sodium bomb.

While we know that it is typical for Asian countries to consume any type of noodles on a regular basis, the students wanted to know what this does to a person's health.

They found that people who ate instant noodles more than twice a week tended to suffer a condition called metabolic syndrome. According to the National Institute of Health, metabolic syndrome names a group of risk factors that increase the risk of a person for developing a heart disease, diabetes, or a stroke.

The risk factors include traits, conditions, or habits that increase your chance of developing a disease, such as eating instant noodles more than twice a week. Here's the other thing about this: it did not matter what other foods the people studied ate, whether they had the healthiest or most unhealthy diet out of the group. Aside from the instant noodles, nothing else raised their risk of developing metabolic syndrome. That's right, the study includes all types of instant noodles.

But before you go defending Ramen and say it was lumped into a larger group, let's dive deeper into the macro and micronutrients that make up these noodles and ask 'is Ramen healthy? Ramen is particularly unhealthy because of a food additive found in them called Tertiary-butyl hydroquinone.

TBHQ is a preservative that is a petroleum industry byproduct - not something you would typically want in the food that you eat. Ramen is also very, very high in sodium, calories, and saturated fat, and is considered damaging to your heart. Not only are the actual noodles bad for you, but the packaging that they are placed in is also detrimental to your health. But what exactly makes instant noodles so unhealthy?

TBHQ has been linked to vision disturbances in individuals who were exposed to the chemical. So, if you're eating ramen a couple times per week, consider this your motivation to toss out those cheap little packets, and turn to something healthier—here are 12 healthy lunches anyone on a budget can make.

And if you're just a fan of ramen, try this Miso-Ginger Noodle Bowl.