Over the years, I am surprised I haven’t written about this. I saw the question posed elsewhere and thought I would take a few minutes to write about it… Countless other blogs have talked about this, but this is really the first time I am sitting down to think or write about it…
After years of prepping, I just started adding Ramen Noodles to my preps, just like I’ve started adding Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Firstly, because Suburban has a three-year-old that cannot live without Kraft Mac & Cheese. Secondly, once upon a time when I was at my financial low point in life, I would buy Ramen Noodles, chicken bullion cubes, frozen vegetables such as mixed peas, corn, carrots, beans, etc, and eggs. and this would be part of lunch. I would discard the sodium/chicken packet that came with it and throw in a bouillon cube or two when cooking… Less sodium and more of chicken soup flavor. I’d also crack an egg in the finished hot pot of water, noodles, and vegetables to ensure there was a little protein, and stir so the egg whites & yolk cooked in the water as I stirred. So, with that, I had carbs, protein, vegetables, flavor, and water in one meal.
It didn’t taste like the best meal I had ever had, but it filled the hole, filled me up, and gave me what I needed to keep going throughout my day…
Today I dehydrate those vegetables and store them in sealed mylar with o2 absorbers, and drop the mylar bag into a 5‑gallon plastic bucket. I know some of the nutritional value is shot through dehydration, but it would be very easy to throw vegetables into the boiling water with the ramen, with some chicken, beef, port, an egg, etc. to get a better-balanced meal.
The other side to this is that if you’re on the go, camping, hiking, bugging out on foot, or in your BOL, it’s a lightweight, fast cooking way to fill your belly, just like carrying some bannock mix in a plastic sandwich bag.
Where to get Ramen Noodles? Just about any grocery store, Dollar Store, Walmart, Target, Amazon, Costco, BJ’s, etc. They’re historically not expensive. However, I will tell you they disappeared like toilet paper when the first shutdown and pandemic was announced. You couldn’t find them anywhere. I see them back in stock at our Costco and local grocery chain and just started picking up a bulk pack or two for preps.
They will have to be transferred to five-gallon mylar storage bags and then into storage bins to keep the humidity from getting to them. I am pretty sure I can get a couple of large packages per bin, add bullion cubes to the container, and a handful of dehydrated packages of vegetables, and maybe a #10 can of powdered eggs, to complete the meal package. Label it, and put it on the shelf…
Let me know what you think about Ramen in your preps.
Re Ramen as a survival/emergency food.….I stored Ramen for several years, had a couple of buckets with just Ramen, others with Ramen added. During a check/rotation drill. I opened the bucket of just Ramen, I thought I was going to puke! The Ramen was rancid, big time! It had been stored in a food-grade plastic bucket, in a plastic bag. The bag/bucket was purged with C)2 and an O2 inhibitor was added before sealing! I threw the mess out, wound up throwing the bucket away because I couldn’t get the smell out. I checked the buckets with Ramen and other stuff, the same thing. Everything was ruined, bucket included! I still have a few packs of Ramen, stored on a shelf by itself! Anyone else have any issues with it?
I actually don’t store the ramen in buckets. I keep it on the shelf. I have often thought about putting it in buckets, but this is interesting to me. I’m wondering if you had your buckets stored in a humid space, or if there was humidity in the ramen when you stored them? I try to store everything in mylar bags and then seal the sealed mylar in a bucket. It might be time to open a bucket or two, just to examine and reseal if it is good…