Often I’m asked ‘do you know of any kind of healthy noodles out there?’ Yes I do – and these be them. These are full of protein, low in sodium, and have 25% of all your vitamins and minerals. Sound good? Let’s take a look!
A few months ago I did a Meet The Manufacturer series on Vite Ramen, but the packs I tried were prototypes and not this, the finished product for version 1.0 (version 1.1 will be coming soon and I’ll be giving that a try when it comes out). It’s a neat concept brought to life by Tim & Tom Zheng.
A lot of people found the idea of a healthy instant noodle very compelling – so much so that they netted a quarter of a million dollars on their Kickstarter campaign. What we have here is the culmination of lots of work by them.
These packs have a myriad of benefits, including lots of vitamins and minerals, 30g of protein, low sodium, low fat, and is an excellent source of fiber.
It also has something that’s hard for people to get – potassium. You can a decent amount in a banana, but eating enough bananas to meet the goal of potassium intake per day is going to have some side affects aside from the amount of sugar.This pack includes 25 percent of that.
As many of you know, I’ve been on a diet. I’ve been overweight most of my life. My doctor told me on October 18th, 2018 that I had high cholesterol, and pushed me to change my diet and exercise; something I’ve been told by doctors many times before. But I guess it was just the right time to do something about it. We got a jogging stroller and I started walking my daughter Miri on days my son has all day preschool. I also started using a fitbit and the My Fitness Pal app to track my intake and calorie burn.
I started slow; trying to get my step goal and trying to stay under the recommended calories for the day. It was hard at first, but I put myself in a good mindset and pushed forward. I started at 365lbs. I go back to the doctor on April 26th, 2019 – about 6 months afterwards for another blood test and cheup to see how I’ve done, and I think my doctor is going to be shocked. I haven’t weighed myself, but I’ve gone down 6 pants sizes. I had to skip walking a couple days after last week too – Monday I walked 9.5 miles, Tuesday 10.5 miles, and Thursday I walked almost 15 miles and hit 30,000 steps. I guess I need to get some walking shoes that are better than the ones I get at Walmart in Richmond BC for $30CAD! I really jacked up my feet…
But in a couple weeks, I’ll find out how much I weigh at the doctor and report on that. I’m pretty stoked – I’m down to around 1200~1500 calories per day and it’s no problem at this point. As far as when I review, I have the tiniest amount of noodles and broth to sample – the rest goes down the drain. But I think today I’ll figure one of these packs into my regime and see how it goes. Let’s get started.
Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge). Take a look at the nutrition facts panel – it’s pretty monumental. Contains chicken. To prepare, add noodle block to 2 1/2 cups boiling water and cook 2 1/2 minutes. Add in sachet contents. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The noodle block.
A dry sachet.
The soup base.
A second dry sachet.
This is the ‘noodtrients’ powder. This is where the vitamins, minerals, and protein come into play.
A wet sachet.
Canola oil.
A clear garnish sachet.
A vegetable mixture with 8 different varieties.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added soft egg, Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts, baked chicken, black sesame seeds, and spring onion. I’m definitely seeing a difference in this from the prototype. The noodle has a nice chew and texture – a unique one which worked well. The broth is on the light side; it’s not a salty bomb, however it has a good thickness and gives a taste of actual chicken broth that I liked. Very happy with the changes in addition to all the protein, low sodium, fiber, and vitamin benefits. Innovative and fresh. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. No bar code.
Vite Ramen Soy Sauce Chicken Flavor Instant Noodle Soup
Watch me cook on Instant Noodle Recipe Time!
I’ve been working hard on weight-loss and exercise for the last 6 months. Part of that is making sure I’m getting all the right nutrients and vitamins. Well, Tim and Tom Zheng over at Vite Ramen have something really cool – a pack of instant noodles that are very different from what you’re probably used to seeing. These have vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber – even low sodium! Let’s take a look!
Today I review the last of the three Vite Ramen varieties. The first two were quite good and actually quite fascinating! Definitely something different – and good different. Let’s check out the third variety from Vite Ramen – Soy Sauce Chicken.
Here’s the information panel (click to enlarge). Note this was furnished by the company and not on the obverse side of the package shown above. Contains chicken. To prepare, add noodles to 2 1/2 cups boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Add vegetables, seasonings and oil sachets and stir. Let soup cool to 160ºF (71ºC) then add the ‘Noodtrient packet’ for optimal nutrition. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The noodle block.
The soup base sachet.
Lots of powder.
A liquid sachet.
Canola oil.
A dry sachet.
Noodtrients!
The vegetables sachet.
A nice mixture.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added spring onion, Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts, soft egg, and baked chicken with Salt For Life. The noodles again were very soft. What was disappointing this time around though was how bland things went with the broth. I should stress again that this is a prototype, so changes can always be made. 2.0 out of 5.0 stars. No bar code.
Becoming Vegan: The Complete Reference to Plant-Based Nutrition (Comprehensive Edition)
Watch me cook this one up!
Two things I really enjoy are pork and garlic. Two more are curry and bacon. But hey – today it’s garlic and pork and I’m pretty happy about that. Now the question is: can a product made to have lots of protein and vitamins and be made to be healthy taste good. I’m really hoping so! Every once in a while there are game changing products in the instant noodle world and this could very well be one of those. But no way to find out until it gets a taste. Well, let’s hit it!
Here’s the information panel (click to enlarge). Note this was furnished by the company and not on the obverse side of the package shown above. Contains pork. To prepare, add noodles to 2 1/2 cups boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Add vegetables, seasonings and oil sachets and stir. Let soup cool to 160ºF (71ºC) then add the ‘Noodtrient packet’ for optimal nutrition. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The non-fried noodle block.
The soup base sachet.
Fluffy stuff!
The ‘Noodtrient’ sachet.
A light powder.
The vegetables sachet.
A nice amount of vegetables!
A liquid sachet.
Canola oil.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts, nanami togarashi, spring onion, umemaki, soft egg and chashu pork. Noodles are flat and very soft – but have a very hearty tooth without being gritty. The broth was very light but had a decent taste to it. Vegetables included cabbage which was great. Was surprised also as with the last review how filling these are for being on the lighter and healthier side of the coin. 4.5 out of 5.0 stars. No bar code.
Watch me cook this one up!
Today we kick things off on this interesting Meet The Manufacturer series with Vite Ramen’s Vegan option. If you didn’t know, there are three varieties from Vite Ramen – at least initially. Also, just so you know at the outset of this and the following reviews, these are prototypes. From what I’ve been told, this is what you’ll be getting, however the sachets in the final iteration will look different. So let’s give this first one a try!
Here’s the information panel (click to enlarge). Note this was furnished by the company and not on the obverse side of the package shown above. Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, add noodles to 2 1/2 cups boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Add vegetables, seasonings and oil sachets and stir. Let soup cool to 160ºF (71ºC) then add the ‘Noodtrient packet’ for optimal nutrition. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The non-fried noodle block.
The soup base sachet.
A fluffy powder.
The ‘Noodtrient’ sachet.
A light powder.
The vegetables sachet.
A nice quantity.
A liquid sachet.
Canola oil.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts, tofu puff, kizami shoga, scallions, fried onion and nanami togarashi. The noodles are very soft, however they have this curious homemade kind of tooth to them I found pleasant. They have a kind of hearty flavor as well – but not gritty in the least. The broth isn’t extremely salty, and had a kind of chicken mushroom stew feel to it. Bits of cabbage and other vegetables were here and there and of good quality. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. No bar code.
Becoming Vegan: The Complete Reference to Plant-Based Nutrition (Comprehensive Edition)
Watch me cook this one up!
As a company who got a lot of backing from Kickstarter, they had to come up with a perk for folks who contributed. This special bowl is a really neat perk that has really cool proprties! What are they? Watch and find out!
In order to do reviews, we need some samples. This was really exciting – prototypes! I don’t often get prototypes, so it was a great honor to be one of the very first to try these new products during the development process. Let’s take a look!
Interview With Vite Ramen * Product Samples From Vite Ramen (1 of 2) * Product Samples From Vite Ramen (2 of 2) * Vite Ramen Vegan Mushroom Shio * Vite Ramen Garlic Pork * Vite Ramen Soy Sauce Chicken
I remember seeing an article in my news feeds about Vite Ramen and their Kickstarter campaign a while back. I thought it sounded interesting; a really healthy instant noodle product that is completely different from anything I’d heard of up to this point. I reached out to the company and they were very interested in talking. Well, now we have a Meet The Manufacturer series! I should note that when I did these review, it was a while back. A lot of R&D went on and it sounds like they’ve got flavors more refined. I’ll be trying them again soon, but these should be noted are prototypes. Here’s my interview with Tim Tom Zheng. founders of Vite Ramen.
THE RAMEN RATER> Thank you for agreeing to this interview! To start, can you tell my readers about the history of Vite Ramen?
VITE RAMEN> We came up with the idea two years ago in college, when Tim was subsisting off a majority instant noodle diet (although with great variety, thanks to your reviews!), and I was plowing through finals on a 100% Soylent diet (the meal replacement shake, not the people). After some weeks of our respective diets, we were looking a little into each other’s plates: Tim was feeling the bloating and lethargy that came with the sodium and low nutritional content of the noodles, and my mouth was watering and seriously craving some savory, solid food.
We looked looked online and couldn’t find any instant noodles that satisfied all our requirements. Tim was a culinary school/Michelin Star trained cook, and I was finishing up my clinical nutrition degree, so we decided hey, why not take a shot at it ourselves?
The first year was spent iterating recipe after recipe in our tiny apartment kitchen; balancing taste, texture and macronutrients. We did a lot of reading into heat degradation of vitamins and dozens (hundreds?) of iterations of our soup and noodles. After the recipe was nearly finalized, we made the big leap to rent out a facility, spruce it up, and invest into our instant ramen making machines!
Since then we’ve run a Kickstarter that’s exceeded all our expectations, garnering 60,000+ packets of preorders! As of writing, we’ve finalized our purchase orders and have begun production of the final noodles!
Tom
TRR> Why the name Vite Ramen?
VITE RAMEN> Tim came up with the name; it sounds like an abbreviation of “vitamin”, and the root “vit” from Latin means “life” or “living”– In fact, that’s why vitamins have “vit” in the beginning of the word. So basically a play on “Vitamin Ramen”!
Tom
TRR> What was the first product you produced?
VITE RAMEN> Vite Ramen is our first product. It’ll be great to expand to other things in the future, but right now noodles are our game!
Tim
TRR> Your products definitely lean towards those looking for a healthier ramen option – what is different about your products compared to a standard instant?
VITE RAMEN> We started by adding the things that we thought were missing from most instant ramen: protein, fiber, and vitamins. We also took out the things we didn’t want: the deep frying, high sodium, and artificial preservatives. Our ramen has 25% DV (or more!) of every single vitamin and mineral your body needs, with at least 27 grams of complete protein per packet, 7 grams of fiber and minus all the junk in standard instant ramen!
Tim
TRR> Your company is located in the United States. Can you tell us a little about your locale?
VITE RAMEN> We’re currently stationed in Davis, California, with our manufacturing facility in Vacaville a couple towns away. Davis is a cute little college town with just about anything you’d need (read: good food), and Vacaville’s a bigger city with a mix of industrial areas, outlets and suburbs. They’re both pretty great though!
Tom
TRR> Can you tell us about the varieties of noodles you make?
VITE RAMEN> We currently make 3 flavors: Garlic Pork, Vegan Mushroom Shio, and Soy Sauce Chicken! All three of them are nutritionally balanced, with slight variations due to the soup base, but they’re all pretty delicious! They’re inspired by the classic tonkotsu, shio and shoyu ramen types respectively, but with our own variations.
The noodles themselves are the same across all of our flavors; they’re a primarily a mix of quinoa, wheat flour, vital wheat gluten and kansui for a high protein noodle that retains the taste and texture of a classic instant noodle!
Tim
TRR> How many noodle products do you produce every year?
VITE RAMEN> It’s a fairly small operation right now, and our production is currently limited to a couple thousand a day. It sounds like a lot, but that’s barely enough to keep up with the Kickstarter orders! We’ve started the process of expanding the production capability though, so hopefully we’ll be able to punch that up by several magnitudes in a couple months!
Tim
TRR> How does your noodle making process differ from other instant noodle manufacturers?
VITE RAMEN> Whereas most other instant noodles use deep frying, steam, or air drying in order to dehydrate their noodles, we use microwave dehydration! It’s a much faster process which actually preserves more nutrients, since they’re not heated for as long. And don’t worry, microwaves work by essentially vibrating water molecules very quickly; it’s not harmful in any way! [Note to Hans: Insert link to American Cancer Society article about microwaves if you feel it’s needed – https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/radiation-exposure/radiofrequency-radiation.html]
We also make our noodles with traditional alkaline water (also known as kansui); the yellow color of our noodles comes from the dough reacting with the high pH, not food coloring!
Tim
TRR> Apart from noodles, are there other products you produce?
VITE RAMEN> Nope! We’re focusing on making our noods the best we can for now!
Tim
TRR> Can you suggest pairings for your products, like meats or vegetables?
VITE RAMEN> Chasu pork or pork belly and fresh green onion works wonderfully for the Garlic Pork, as well as extra roasted garlic if you really dislike vampires! The Vegan Mushroom Shio goes beautifully with roasted maitake mushrooms and bok choy, and the soy sauce chicken goes really well with an extra dash of sesame oil and thinly sliced leek!
Tim
TRR> A lot of people are concerned with their sodium intake. How would you recommend people enjoy your product as part of a healthy meal?
VITE RAMEN> We’re very aware that sodium is one of the primary sticking points of standard instant ramen; it’s one of the big reasons we try to limit intake ourselves! Because of that, we’ve made sure that none of our flavors exceed 25% DV sodium (575mg), in line with the other minerals. So if you’re not particularly sodium sensitive, there’s no need to worry!
Tom
TRR> Are you involved in in your local community or participate in charities?
VITE RAMEN> Once things settle down from Kickstarter, we’d love to be involved! We don’t have any specific plans yet but it’s absolutely something we want to do. If your readers have any ideas we’d love to hear them.
Tom
TRR> Are there any new products coming soon?
VITE RAMEN> We’re thinking of making a very spicy version (scorpion pepper anyone?) as one of the special editions coming up! We’re huge fans of superhot sauces ourselves, so it’d definitely be cool to do a collab with a local sauce maker!
Tom
TRR> In what countries are your products popular? Do people enjoy them differently in different places?
VITE RAMEN> We’re currently US only for the time being, but we’ve got a huge amount of support from Canada and the EU (especially Germany!) We’ve certainly heard of some creative ways that people are getting our noodles outside of the US, haha. We’re hoping to expand sooner than later to countries outside the US though!
Tom
TRR> When you make noodles for yourself, what do you like to add to them to make them extra special?
VITE RAMEN> Tim and I are both big fans of doing very simple, hearty dishes. One of our favorites is to boil off the noodles and add a bit of soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, green onion and hot sauce to the dry noodles!
Tom
THE RAMEN RATER> Thank you very much for this opportunity to learn about Vite Ramen and your products!
© Hans Lienesch and The Ramen Rater, 2002-2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used non-commercially, provided that full and clear credit is given to Hans Lienesch and The Ramen Rater with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Products reviewed are copyrighted by their respective owners.
