Okayyyy … for starters, I knew that eating ramen noodles would be very bad for my glucose! But how bad? Inquiring minds want to know.
So to find out how bad ramen noodles really are on the diabetes, I decided to eat HALF a bowl of ramen (called “ramyeon” [라면] in Korea).
The dry chunk of noodles that I bought weighed in at 90g, so I broke it in half and ate roughly 40-45g.
And holy shit! I was expecting a pretty big glucose hit, but not THIS big. From HALF a bowl of ramen.
Blood sugar reading before eating: 91
This reading of 91 was on a Saturday afternoon, pretty much right when I woke up. I hadn’t taken my Diabex/Metformin yet.
Blood sugar reading after eating: 236
This reading was about an hour after I finished my half bowl of ramen noodles.
91 → 236 is INSANE!!!! That’s an increase of 145 from ~45g of crappy ramen noodles. And yes, I also dumped in roughly half of that little packet of “flavor powder.”
So WHY did I get this massive blood sugar spike? If you look at the nutrition info down below, I think it’s pretty obvious. This ramen packs a massive 74g of carbs, which means that I ate 37g. Not good. Not good at all!
The moral of the story here is pretty clear: DON’T EAT RAMEN NOODLES IF YOU HAVE DIABETES!
The ramen noodles you might get at your local store will probably be different from what I ate here, but don’t expect them to be dramatically different in substance.
And honestly, ramen noodles are garbage anyway. Cheap, delicious garbage. Even “healthy” people shouldn’t eat them. But if you have goddam diabetes, it’s really important to avoid this particular junk food at all costs.
Oh, and if you live in Korea, beware of certain dishes where ramen noodles get included. I know it sounds weird, but it’s very common for budae jjigae (부대찌개) to have some ramen thrown in. And maybe some other stew-type things that I just can’t think of right now.
Ramen was another big thing that I miss after being diagnosed. Almost every morning I’d have a container of Maruchan Yakisoba noodles and after I was diagnosed, i just put them all in a grocery bag and gave them to a neighbor.. First of all it was 500 calories (they say it’s two servings of 250 calories but no one actually saves the other half of noodles to eat later, and that same half serving had 630mg of sodium.
no wonder I ended up with diabetes, eating like that. 😀
Want to find out if I can eat certain noodles ramen noodles whatever so that it won’t make my blood sugar go up I usually don’t use those packs of salt that come with the ramen noodles and sometimes I eat half of package of just plain noodles with butter
Hi Barbara! Thanks for commenting. All I know is what I experienced here with this half-package of ramen noodles. And based on that, I would strongly suggest you NOT eat them if you’re diabetic.
But I guess you’re gonna eat what you’re gonna eat … so if you must, I think a good approach would be to eat a very small amount and do the before/after glucose tests. Instead of half, maybe try 1/4 of the package? And be sure to look at the nutrition info to see what the carb content is. These noodles are really, really bad for you. I love ’em too, but I don’t eat them anymore.
If you look some of the Maruchan Ramen noodles has as low as 27G of carbs. so does that is make them bad for you? Yes salt is high granted. but most diabetics can have 45G of carbs per meal.
I see on the pack of ramen noodles is 26 grams dried spaghetti is 40 so I don’t understand why ramen is so bad
As the author said,it was the first/ only thing they had eaten that day and hadn’t taken their meds yet. The whole article is kind of pointless
Hi Loria, you’re entitled to your opinion … but I’m not sure what you think is pointless. The point is actually very clear: ramen noodles are bad for the glucose. I do these tests without the help of any meds so that the results aren’t influenced by the drugs. That’s how you do science.
Ummm everyone’s different. Ramen may spike you bad not someone else. When will this “definitively diabetics should never eat this and that” end? Thought diabetics would have realized this by now.
Apologies, Joel! Enjoy your ramen!