With the wide and varied food offerings now available across Auckland City, instant noodles have become the unlikely heroes in the CBD culinary scene.
Two recent openings at MidCity Mall - That Noodle Place and Ramyun Lab - stocks a wide variety of Asian instant noodles that allows customers to cook, eat them and add on ingredients.
Prices are affordable, with noodle packets starting from upwards of $2 and for a dollar or more, you can add-on ingredients such as fish cake, meat, egg and seafood. At Ramyun Lab there’s even free onions and cabbage .
Since the two noodle stores opened, hundreds of customers, many of them young students, head there to have noodles from South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong.
These noodles are quick, tasty and comforting and the attraction for customers, besides the novelty of being able to cook their own noodle meal, are the low prices.
Instant noodles are incredibly popular, especially across Asian countries but health experts have warned against eating too much because they are highly processed and are lacking in key nutrients.
A Korean study found a link between high noodle consumption and metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, and type two diabetes.
High noodle intake is linked to a higher risk of metabolic syndrome and its components.
The research, published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, analysed data from 10,505 Korean adults gathered through the 2012-2016 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Findings showed that those in the highest noodle intake group had 48 per cent higher odds of developing metabolic syndrome compared to those in the lowest intake group across all noodle types.
The study also revealed that high noodle consumers had a 38 per cent higher risk of hypertriglyceridemia and greater abdominal obesity.
Factors that make noodles contribute to health risks are that most noodles are made from white wheat flour, which is low in fibre and micronutrients. The carbohydrates are digested quickly, causing blood sugar spikes and higher insulin demand.
The instant-broth also has high sodium content; a meta-analysis of 17 studies involving 66,274 people found that individuals with the highest sodium levels were 37 per cent more likely to have metabolic syndrome. High salt intake is also tied to obesity, which drives insulin resistance, a key factor in metabolic syndrome.
But small steps can make your instant noodle dining experience a little healthier.
Don’t use the entire seasoning or sauce that comes with your instant noodles to reduce salt intake, and look out for whole-grain noodles which have lower GI and higher fibre.
The vegetables are free, so add more of them to your noodle order.
These small choices means you can continue to enjoy dining at instant noodle cafes - but do it with moderation.
RAMYUN LAB G15/239 Queen Street, MidCity Mall, Auckland CBD.
THAT NOODLE PLACE G16/239 Queen Street, Auckland CBD.
