Instant Noodles
Maggi's 2015 recall rattled Indian households for about six months. Then it came back, and so did the habit, except by then it had stopped being a snack. It was dinner, or a quick lunch between school and tuition, or what a working parent put together at 9 p.m. The NOVA food classification system, developed by Carlos Monteiro and colleagues at the University of São Paulo and published in Public Health Nutrition in 2019, places instant noodles firmly in Group 4: ultra-processed. The defining feature is not any single ingredient but the combination of refined flour, flavour enhancers (typically disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate), hydrogenated fat, and sodium levels that can hit 900 mg per serving, nearly 40% of the WHO's recommended daily limit in one bowl. The masala packet is the problem. The noodle block is just the vehicle.
