Ask HN: hacker culture and ramen

I don't think they're all that bad. Terribly unhealthy though. One packet is like 170% of your RDA for sodium.

I usually get the Chinese brands though (Nissin, Mama), which I think are a lot tastier than Ramen itself.

Yes, they come dried with these little powder sauce packets. Dump them into a dish with water, microwave and eat. You can have a meal for about 20 cents.

There's actually some quite healthy, cheap foods if you don't mind just a tiny, little bit of cooking. The three easiest ones that are healthy, cheap, and delicious (once acclimated!) are oatmeal, cottage cheese, and eggs. You can get all of them dirt cheap, whip it together for a meal in 5 minutes or less, and they're good. Just eat the oatmeal straightup - nobody likes it when they first start eating it since it's fairly bland, but it has a good texture and you'll learn to like it after a month or so. Dirt cheap, very healthy and filling. Cottage cheese is also not so good before you're used to it, but you acclimate. If you can get chives pre-mixed in, it's even better. And eggs - well, everyone knows eggs. I just always get surprised with how cheap eggs are when I haven't bought them for a while - you can get a dozen cheap eggs for like a dollar. A few dollar for uber-premium nicely packaged dozen eggs.

You can get ramen at all price ranges and levels of quality, even in the grocery store. The cheapest stuff in America goes for about 25 cents per person per meal, so it is well-known among college students and the like as an inexpensive way to stave off hunger.

My limited experience with it in Japan is that I prefer store-bought udon (which is generally sold fresh) to store-bought ramen (which is generally sold dried), but I'm sure if I looked at my noodle aisle more closely I could find a million permutations. Be that as it may, I can't eat ramen anymore without feeling like I'm cheating on the sweet old guy who runs the ramen shop by my old apartment.

Yes, the latter.

Thanks for the explanations! All is now clear. Yep, having to eat that would certainly make you work hard on your startup :-)

In Canada we call them Mr. Noodles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Noodles

Top Ramen is roughly equivalent to Pot Noodle.

it's known as Instant Noodle for most asians