Maggi Noodles – Everyone loves them. Tasty, filling with only some hot water needed to prepare they are the perfect instant food. Now they claim to be healthy as well with “Taste Bhi, Health Bhi.”
Maggi noodles are however highly calorific, and contain an obscene amount of fat. For 100grams which is a bit more than a small Maggipacket(85 grams) there is 407 calories. So if you eat one packet of Maggi then you are eating about 345 calories. There is a whopping 14.4 grams of fat. Any product above 8grams of fat for every 100grams is a fattening product and this includes these favourite noodles.
Let’s examine the ingredients:
Noodles: Wheat flour, Edible vegetable oil, Salt, Wheat gluten, Mineral(170i) and Guar gum
Chicken Tastemaker: Sugar, Salt, Onion powder, Noodle Powder(Wheat powder, edible vegetable oil, salth, wheat gluten, mineral(170i), and guar gum), Hydrolysed groundnut protein, Garlic powder, mixed spices, Chicken fat(2.0%), Mineral (508), Chicken powder(1.5%), Edible vegetable oil, Acidifying agent, (330), Flavour enhancer(635), Milk solids & Egg powder(.01%)
A few items to be noted:
• Wheat flour is maida. It is not whole wheat which is what chapattis are made from.
• Which edible vegetable oil is being used? Why isn’t it specified? Most likely it is inexpensive palm oil which is the worst type of oil for health as it is all saturated fat. The hydrogenated transfats that have been banned are being replaced by palm oils which are not much better.
• Why do noodles have so much oil anyway? The homemade recipe for noodles does not call for any oil! It is only flour, water, eggs and salt.
• Lots of different powders are used for the seasoning as well as more ‘edible vegetable oil.’ Sugar and salt are first on the list. Maggi noodles, like most processed foods, have a high sodium content. The sodium content is not written on the package but after a bit of research I found that there is upwards of 1200 grams of sodium for 100grams of Maggi. The RDA(Recommended Daily Allowance) is 2400mg. SO one packet of Maggie provides you almost half of the salt you should can safely take per day. It may not taste very salty but sodium is also a preservative and that is why it can be found in most processed foods.
• Too much fat, and that too, unhealthy fat.
Bottom Line: In the end everyone still wants Maggi. Eat it occassionaly and add plenty of vegetables like sling onions, peas, carrots, and cabbage. Add an egg or some tofu/paneer for protein making it a complete meal.
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