Ramen down your throat
Ramrod was a legendary crew member of the Grateful Dead. Jack Merritt, star of the 1922 University of North Carolina football team, was nicknamed "The Battering Ram" and inspired the adoption of Rameses the ram as the school mascot. But when it comes to serious ramin', nothing beats the 100 billion units of instant ramen noodles that were sold worldwide in 2012. That's a lot of ramen down your throat!
Unfortunately, this meal-in-a-minute fuels a roster of health problems from metabolic syndrome to digestive woes. A recent Harvard study found that women who ate instant noodles at least twice a week had a 68 percent higher risk of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of maladies including obesity and high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar.
Earlier studies by Dr. Braden Kuo, director of the GI Motility Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, may reveal why. He put a tiny camera in the stomach of noodle-eating volunteers and could see the stomach contracting back and forth as it struggled to digest the noodles - it took hours! A synthetic preservative called TBHQ in ramen may be the culprit, though highly processed carbs and sodium in the noodle also contribute to metabolic syndrome. TBHQ is used to prevent discoloration, and flavor and odor changes, and to extend shelf life. And if TBHQ weren't bad enough, ramen noodles are "dried" in saturated fat.
So we say stay away from instant ramen and check packaged food labels for TBHQ. It's in everything from frozen waffles to croutons, sweet snacks and commercial cooking oil.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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