(Editor’s Note: Impulsive Buy reader and starving college student, Amanda, asked me if I would be willing to review products that don’t need to be refrigerated and can be prepared by just adding water. I thought I could do a week of products of like this, but surprisingly, I couldn’t find many. Thank goodness for dried ramen.)
If I were on the game show Family Feud and the following question was asked, “What things would you typically find in a men’s college dorm room?” I would probably say the following things:
1. Textbooks that won’t be opened until midterms.
2. A computer with gigabytes of porn and illegally downloaded music and movies.
3. Enough empty beer cans to have several lanes of beer can bowling.
4. Several bongs made out of either glass, beer cans, or fruits.
5. A potpourri of free condoms from the Condom Fair on campus.
6. Cases of dried ramen.
During my freshman year in college, I ate a lot of dried ramen. However, during my sophomore year, my dried ramen consumption dramatically decreased when my friend attending the University of Arizona told me about a student there who died from malnutrition because the only thing he ate was dried ramen.
Today, I hardly ever touch the stuff. However, recently I picked up a Nissin Cup Noodles Souper Meal Chicken Flavor. Now when they say “souper,” they really mean “souper.” The styrofoam bowl is probably more than twice the size of a typical Cup Noodles bowl, which means it is probably big enough to use as a helmet for beer can bowling.
The Souper Meal may have been bigger than a typical Cup Noodles, but preparing it was the same. Just boil some water, peel back the lid, pour the boiling water into the styrofoam bowl, cover the bowl with the lid, wait for three minutes, peel back the lid again, stir, consume, and then wish you could afford some real food.
Each Souper Meal comes with three individual packets, one for the chicken flavored soup base; another for the freeze-dried vegetables, which includes corn, mushrooms, carrots, onions, and cabbage; and another for the Finishing Touch flavor packet.
Finishing Touch?
That’s something I expect from an Asian massage parlor, not from an instant Asian soup dish.
Well I tried the Souper Meal with and without the Finishing Touch flavor packet, and after trying it, I wished that it was the Asian massage parlor Finishing Touch instead, because it really didn’t add anything to the Souper Meal. Either way, it tasted and looked like a typical chicken flavored Cup Noodles.
While eating the Souper Meal, I began reading the nutritional facts on the side of the bowl and found out that the entire bowl had 2,540 milligrams of sodium, which was possibly enough to either raise my blood pressure or turn me into a human salt lick.
However, I also found out that it has four grams of dietary fiber. Although, it probably isn’t enough to negate the nine grams of saturated fat, which is 50 percent of your daily allowance.
After reading all of that, I put my fork down and dumped the rest of the Souper Meal down the drain, because dying via a sexual asphyxiation fetish is fine, but dying by the hands of dried ramen is not.
Item: Nissin Cup Noodles Souper Meal Chicken Flavor
Purchase Price: $1.49
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like regular chicken flavored Cup Noodles. More than double the size of a regular Cup Noodles. Four grams of dietary fiber in every bowl. Styrofoam bowl may make a good helmet for beer can bowling.
Cons: Helluva lot of sodium and saturated fat. Fogs up my glasses when I eat it. Not much “souper” about it. Dying by the hands of dried ramen. Finishing Touch packet wasn’t the Finishing Touch I really wanted.