Very Unofficial Study Concludes Ramen Noodles Best and Worst College Food Ever Made

Ramen should be treated with caution and reverence – to do otherwise would be suicidal. This is a food product that is ready to eat in 3 minutes, can be cooked in a microwave, coffeepot, hotpot, or heated boot and has a disturbingly high calorie-to-size ratio. If you’re feeling daring, you can even use one of the long noodles to impress the ladies by holding on to one end of the noodle, snorting the rest of it up your nose and then magically pulling the other end out of your mouth. You’re welcome.

Oh, and by the way – it’s pronounced “Rah-men“. I don’t care if Iron Chef Morimoto himself told you it was “ray-man” – he’s wrong.

ra·men [rah-muhn]
–noun, Japanese Cookery.
1. a bowl of clear soup containing noodles, vegetables, and often bits of meat.

That’s from Dictionary.com, which I trust to settle most literary arguments. (I also reserve the right to disavow any support of Dictionary.com the instant it no longer supports my current argument, obviously.)

You might think I’m over exaggerating Ramen’s awesomeness, but, according to Wikipedia, instant Ramen was “named the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century in a Japanese poll.” Well, I believe it; who cares about other 20th century inventions like the television, the microprocessor, the Internet or the personal computer. I’m pretty sure any invention pales in comparison to our eloquently simple Ramen Noodles. Has the television nourished millions of college students worldwide for pennies per serving?!? I think not!

You can even eat it without cooking it if you’re in a jam. You may cringe now, but you just wait until you come home Saturday night and are craving some MSG and 1560mg of sodium but don’t trust yourself to operate a stove. Have no fear! Rip that delectable block of squiggly goodness out of its package, generously sprinkle on some seasoning, and devour it like someone’s going to take it away from you. The satisfying crunch of the dry noodles coupled with the undiluted seasoning is really something to behold. I wouldn’t recommend the aforementioned nose/mouth party trick at this point though, unless you want to marinate noodle shards in your lungs or sinus cavity.

So why is Ramen bittersweet, you ask? Well, the fact that 1 packet of Ramen sells for about 2-10 cents (and there’s 2 servings in each pack!), you’ll be tempted to eat these carbtastic treats for every meal. This is fine if you’re looking to gain 10-30 pounds of pure jiggly in 2 months. You may also acquir the superpower of insecticidal urine, due to the potent cocktail of chemical preservatives and monosodium glutamate coursing through your body.

Possibly the bittersweetiest part of this whole situation, however, is that you now spend all of your leftover food money on rounds of drinks at the bar, or you develop a habit of buying a jug of vodka every week, which you can never really remember drinking but your liver pays for anyway. But look on the bright side – all the preservatives you ingested from the Ramen has probably coated your insides in something resembling latex, so your organs should be protected from aging or breaking down (…or functioning for that matter, but that’s irrelevant).

So until Ramen is categorized as an addictive substance, which I fully support, I urge you to be cognizant of how Ramen’s powers can be used for good as well as evil. A good way to assess whether or not you’re addicted is to write down the last 5 Ramen flavors you had; if Shrimp or Pork flavored Ramen is on the list, you’re obviously desperate and are eating any kind of Ramen you can regardless of taste. You’re addicted and the relapse rate is just about 100%, so my only advice at this point would be to invest in various colors and styles of pants with elastic waistbands – you’ll be needing them.

Tags: college food, college-diet, diet, eating, eating at college, live-on-ramen, ramen, ramen noodles, rayman, rayman noodles