"Instant soup", "instant soup" or "Chinese soup" - these are the well-known terms of a popular food product that can be consumed almost immediately after pouring hot water over it. They are probably known to everyone and evoke great emotions.
How is it that some people hate them and others love them? What are the pros and cons of consuming instant soups? You will find out in a moment.
Where did it come from?
The term "Chinese soup" evokes associations not only with mass, fast and low-quality production, but also with the country of origin. The adjective "Chinese" is very misleading here, because yes, instant soups come from Asia, but their creator was a Japanese - Momoduku Ando, who created them through work to provide an easily available food product, supporting the fight against food shortage.
The prototype of instant soups was the Japanese ramen soup - it was chicken ramen, it was the first "powdered soup" to be poured with boiling water, which appeared on the Japanese market in 1958.
What is today in the composition of "Chinese soups"? First of all, it is well-dried pasta that has been previously cooked or fried. In Asia it is dried by frying it briefly in hot fat, in Europe and the USA it is dried with hot air. In addition, we will certainly find wheat flour, fat, salt and various aromas and spices.
Who hates them?
There are no shortage of opponents of instant soups, especially nowadays, when conscious and balanced nutrition, a healthy lifestyle and natural production and processing of products have become fashionable. You could even say that for conscious eating fanatics, "Chinese soups" have become enemy number one.
What is the reason for this? First of all, the form itself is not associated with something "real" and healthy. How can you compare powdered soup with dried noodles to real, homemade broth soup? Well… it's difficult.
Secondly, it has been proved that the organism digestes dried noodles from soups much slower than normal noodles, served immediately after cooking. Among the objections of the opponents of instant soups is also the presence of flavor enhancers. Unfortunately, this is a disadvantage of the product.
In addition to the presence of improvers, we also have the presence of artificial colors, which also deters many gourmets. What are they added for? The ingredients lose their natural color during the drying and pulverization process. And although the soup would taste similar - it would not look appetizing enough. Nevertheless, these dyes added today are substances that occur naturally in plants that are in no way harmful to us.
Opponents of soups often refer to the high calorific value of processed products and the high presence of various "E" in the composition. The truth is that instant soups may or may not be caloric - there are also "Chinese soups" intended for people on a diet. As for "E", not all chemical components mean - it's best to learn to get acquainted with the ingredients and check what exactly is a substance marked.
The soups are also accused of the high presence of preservatives and the low presence of vitamins. These characteristics could be attributed to the pastes of powders, nevertheless, today's advanced food technology partially improves the production processes. As for preservatives, there aren't many of them in "Chinese soups": the drying process itself and properly sealed packaging allow for long-lasting freshness without the need to add preservatives.
As for vitamins, unfortunately the drying process makes many of the nutrients contained in the products disappear - especially valuable vitamins B and C. Some producers try to enrich their products with additional nutrients (vitamins or mineral salts). There are also more advanced drying methods (e.g. freeze-drying) that allow the maximum preservation of the food value of the product (such a solution is often used in the production of expedition food or military food rations), however, high-quality freeze-dried products are not the cheapest, but one serving of a freeze-dried lunch is the equivalent of a good meal in a restaurant.
Love beyond divisions
Since Chinese soups have so many opponents and raise such doubts, is their existence on the market justified at all? Certainly in Polish, because despite health trends and unfavorable opinions, Poles eat them up. This is shown by statistics - in 2015, Poles ate 310 million packages of dried soups, thanks to which they landed at the forefront of EU countries and the honorable entry into the "soup cultures of the world".
In terms of consumption of powdered dishes with noodles, Poles are ahead of only Asian countries, the USA (high consumption among Asian immigrants), and in the European Union - only the United Kingdom, where soups are slightly more, ie 370 million packages.
If they can be harmful, are artificially colored and sometimes lack vitamins - why do some people love them? First of all, they are cheap and quick to prepare, which allows you to eat a meal without spending money, time and effort. But does this mean that there are so many lazy people in the world who do not want to prepare a wholesome meal?
Not necessarily. There are situations in which such a soup may turn out to be a godsend, or at least make life much easier - even when traveling (it is not without reason that in Russia powdered soups are the most popular in long-distance trains). They are cheap, light, small, their preparation requires nothing but a cup, teaspoon and a little boiling water. Therefore, they can be poured almost anywhere, carried in a backpack or in a pocket, and apart from the fact that they are low cost, take up little space and weigh little, they can be a complete substitute for a warm meal.
Similarly, during a race at work or late in the evening, at the very end of an ultra-exhausting day, when we fall off our feet and our stomach demands something warm, Chinese soup can be a godsend.
What do Poles still love soups for? And for the fact that some of them taste really good. Producers try to outdo each other in ideas - we will find various Far Eastern proposals (to make the "Chinese" soup truly Chinese), but as statistics show, Poles also eagerly reach for traditional, native flavors, associated more with Sunday lunch at their mother's. This issue was picked up by, for example, Amino or Knorr brands, offering cheese soup with croutons, chicken broth, goulash soup, sour rye soup or tomato soup. Of course, everything is instant, closed in a small, sealed sachet.
So how is it with these soups?
Although instant soups are certainly difficult to call wholesome food or compare with "real" soup, nevertheless, one should refrain from over-demonizing them. Firstly, because producers, being aware of the current "health" trends, make every effort to improve their products, and secondly because in some situations we can simply afford to consume them.
Although, of course, they should not be the basis of our diet, sometimes, during an extremely busy day or just on the road, instant soup can become a salutary thing for us. For everything that is reasonably consumed and eaten in moderation is for people.
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