Instant noodles

Instant noodles are noodles made almost ready at the factory: their starch is pre-gelatinised and the noodles are dried by frying in oil or another method, so at home they only need hot water or a short boil. Momofuku Ando invented them in Japan in 1958, and the world now eats more than 120 billion servings a year. ¹³⁴

What the standard says. The international Codex standard CXS 249-2006 describes instant noodles as made from wheat flour, rice flour, other flours or starches with water; they may be treated with alkaline agents and may come with seasoning or dried toppings in separate sachets. The food must be called «instant noodles», or «fried noodles» or «non-fried noodles». The standard explicitly does not apply to pasta, and a halal claim must follow the Codex halal guidelines. ¹

Fried or not. For the noodle block without seasoning Codex allows at most 10 % moisture in fried noodles and 14 % in non-fried ones, and the oil in fried noodles must have an acid value of no more than 2 mg KOH/g. The difference shows in the numbers: regular dry ramen in the USDA database has 6.5 % water and 17.6 g of fat per 100 g, 8.1 g of it saturated, while a reduced-fat version has 12.1 % water and 2.5 g of fat. In Japan an oil-dried block must be listed as «fried noodles». ¹²⁷⁸

The Japanese definition. Japan's fair competition code for labelling defines instant noodles as dough from wheat or buckwheat flour with salt, kansui or other agents that make the noodles elastic; noodles made without kansui must have their starch gelatinised. They must come with seasoning or be seasoned, cook with a simple step, and frozen or chilled products are excluded. A separate «fresh type» is steamed or boiled, treated in an organic acid solution and heat-sterilised, and no name may suggest macaroni. ²

The shed in Ikeda. Ando, born in 1910, lost almost everything in 1957 when a credit union he directed went bankrupt. Remembering a long queue at a black-market ramen stall near Osaka Station, he worked alone for a year in a shed behind his house in Ikeda, sleeping about four hours a night. His goals were noodles that taste good, keep in a kitchen, cook fast, cost little and are safe. The answer came from tempura: hot oil drove the water out of the noodles and left tiny holes through which hot water later soaked back in. ³

From Chicken Ramen to Cup Noodles. Chicken Ramen went on sale on 25 August 1958 for 35 yen, when a bundle of udon cost 6 yen, and was ready two minutes after adding hot water. On a trip to the United States in 1966 Ando saw buyers break the noodles into paper cups and eat them with forks. After nearly 40 prototype containers he chose polystyrene foam and held the block in the middle of the cup by lowering the cup upside down over it; Cup Noodles came out on 18 September 1971. ³

A world food. According to the World Instant Noodles Association, the world eats more than 120 billion servings a year, most of them in China with Hong Kong, Indonesia and India. The association began in Tokyo in 1997 with Ando as its first chairman. By 2021 Cup Noodles alone had passed 50 billion servings in 100 countries, and Space Ram, developed with the Japanese space agency JAXA, flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery with astronaut Soichi Noguchi. ⁴⁶

What the label must tell. Japanese rules require protein, fat, carbohydrate and salt per serving, with salt counted as sodium × 2.54, while the EU uses sodium × 2.5. For soup noodles the salt in the noodles and toppings and the salt in the soup are shown separately. «Soba» may be stressed only with at least 30 % buckwheat flour, and a highlighted topping must make up at least 2 % of the cooked noodles; a photo of the dish must show the real contents, or carry «serving suggestion» on bag noodles. ²⁹

Why it matters to you. Regular dry ramen has 1,860 mg of sodium per 100 g, about 4.7 g of salt, while a reduced-sodium version has 1,200 mg, about 3 g; the WHO advises adults to eat less than 5 g of salt a day. The separate salt figure for the soup on Japanese packs helps if you do not drink all the broth. More on Frying and drying instant noodles, Ramyeon and Noodles. ²⁵⁷⁸