DISCLAIMER: I paid out of my own pocket for this food and Ramen Bae did not sponsor this review article in any way.
Some folks love Ramen, but others say if you eat it you’ll die a horrible, painful death. Well, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch; bottom line is that as food it’s not the same as say a prime rib dinner. But then it doesn’t need you to take out a second mortgage to buy, either.
After all the years I’ve eaten food that some might call questionable, ramen isn’t anywhere near the top of the list in dangerous. It’s just noodles that you heat up in hot water. I have eaten them that way, just to see what it tastes like; tastes just like pasta in hot water, only not like chicken.
Recently I challenged myself to find as much sustainable food as I could buy at the grocery store and be able to live on for months if it were TEOTWAWKI and the barge didn’t make it to (Los) Anchorage on Monday, by Wednesday the food shelves will start to empty out, folks will see the “run out” and start to panic and buy whatever is left on the shelves. I should add we live at the end of the supply chain up here in the interior of Alaska, so the scenario I just described isn’t that far-fetched. (Pun intended for any snowflakes out there.)
There is one highway up here from the docks in Anchorage where 90% or more of all goods shipped into the interior arrive at with the rest coming in from Whittier at the docks located there and then transferred to Anchorage by rail, and the Parks Highway. The road has some major rivers to cross and a big hill of rocks we call Denali. From the Canadian direction that same road is called the ALCAN highway, and the Richardson Highway, as it transits through Fairbanks on the Williams Highway. Same road, different names. Oh, and there is also a bridge across the Nenana River just east of North Pole and the other bridge in Nenana west of Fairbanks; take out those two bridges and there is no highway access to the interior. From the east out of Canada you’d have to take the Tok cutoff all the way down to Valdez and try coming up that same highway (The Richardson) and come into the interior that way. Should that path be closed due to avalanche, snow drifts, ice, earthquake damage, or flooding from glacial melt. Then it’s air-cargo supply time.
The interior of Alaska (Fairbanks and the North Star Borough) is landlocked and at the end of the line of supplies coming in. Weather, remoteness, and earthquakes are the biggest threats to our survival.
So, having a good stock of long-term food storage is essential just because every day up here is one bridge, one road, one earthquake or glacial flood away from no roads and no food. We have invested in our 25-year food storage program and are adequately prepared for almost any emergency we could have. We have massive forest fires in the short intense summers, snow beyond comprehension to those living south of the Mason-Dixon line. And throw in an earthquake or two and that’s when the fun begins.
We lose our power for weeks at a time due to these sort of events. So again, a source of inexpensive food that can be stored for at least a year or more and not go rancid, doesn’t harm it if you freeze it, and is nutritious which is a necessity. Ramen noodles fill that bill, and is by far, the most inexpensive food available off the grocery shelves. It’s also utterly without any sustenance in vegetables. Not much protein either …what to do?
This is where the Ramen Bae company comes into the picture. I first saw their advertising on Facebook and ignored it for some time. But I did find that I could buy enough Ramen at the grocery store to really fill a niche in our food stores at home. So, I “invested” in a good amount of that stuff and put it on the shelves for our use. One day as I was heading out to work, I spotted a box of the mix and thought why not take one to work and see just how it tastes and if it fills me up? (That’s 12 meal packets in a box for the lofty price of $6.00.) It had been at least 40+ years since I had even had any of those noodles. And back then, they did have at least a smattering of veggies in the mix. Not anymore. I fixed a bowl of the mix just as I had bought it and ate it for lunch that day. Well, it did fill me up; a bit tasteless and lacking but at least the chicken flavoring made it palatable and probably wouldn’t be hard to live on if needed. But it sure was bland.
Now I began to pay more attention to the Ramen Bae ads and wondering if maybe that could be used to spice up the noodles a bit. Yes, I had cut up fresh veggies and added them, and that is nice if you have the veggies. Up here one can get sticker shock form the price of good fresh veggies: especially at the farmer’s market. Okay, so I told myself it doesn’t cost anything to look at the ad and see what that stuff cost. Now you must understand that anyone who has lived in the arctic for a year or longer is starting to become inoculated against sticker shock … it is what it is. But this stuff did tickle my WTH button at $25 per bag. Man, it better be good for that kind of money. But I decided that in the spirit of scientific testing, and culinary curiosity, that I should order a bag of it and check it out.
There are several types of veggie mixes that are offered, and since I love vegetables, I decided on the pure veggie mix as a first try. Each bag weighs 14 ounces (397 grams) and is resealable. Yes, it is a product of China, all the political bovine fecal content (BFC) aside I personally would prefer to be in a friendly relationship with 1.5 billion Chinese than to be at war with them … I do wonder how it is that our former best allies in WWII suddenly become our enemy? But that’s beyond the scope of this review.
First bag: just vegetables.
This mix has cabbage, bean curd, carrots, broccoli, Bok choy, corn (whole kernels) shitake mushrooms, white mushrooms, celery, green onions sliced nice and round, and roasted garlic. Also, soybean water and soy powder.
I found that using my favorite blue mug cup and one cake of ramen noodles broken up into four chunks that fit nicely into the mug and add one bottled water (16 liquid ounces) was sufficient to make the mix. Well, hey, I’m a veggie lover and if the mix called for one heaping teaspoon of the veggie mix … then three ought to be a good amount of the mix; what could go wrong?
Did I mention that these vegetables are freeze-dried? When your boil them in water they kind of grow. That they are really quite good at soaking up that water. Yeah, I re-learned an old lesson that LRRP rations taught me when I ate the bag of dehydrated fruit cocktail mix dry right out of the LRRP pouch … these veggies are huge pieces when rehydrated. They are nice and firm, in kind of an “al dente” way and let me tell you they are tasty. I could taste the individual flavors of the onions, the garlic, the crunchy celery and the sweetness of the corn. The cabbage is chewy as well; all the various vegetables are as favorable as they were when they were flash frozen.
This mix made a really flavorful meal of the ramen noodle mix that otherwise was just a bland meal that filled a hole. The bullion chicken mix adds the flavor, and it is okay; but Ramen Bae also makes a “spicy veggie mix” as well and that takes this meal to a whole new level.
Needless to say, I was quite pleased with what I bought — so much so that I bought three more bags. The seafood mix, the beef mix, and the spicy veggie mix. Then, because I still add extra veggies in my meals, I bought another plain veggie mix since I was running out of the original bag I had bought.
The company offers a discount if you buy in bulk, so I am in the process of putting together an order for 12 more bags in different combinations. You must ask to get the discount, but they are very good at communication and are prompt to reply.
One may wonder if they are worth the cost when shipping is factored in; for us the answer is a very definite yes. I could buy vegetables in bulk if I ordered them from the produce manager or find them at the farmers market during our very short summer. I could dehydrate them after processing them. But anyone who has lived here long enough knows that this is going to be expensive, and there will be a lot of spoilage when the product arrives.
Then there’s the cost of electricity to dehydrate that amount of veggies; we have extremely expensive electrical costs up here because the green nazi’s determined that burning our own Alaska mined coal, the cleanest coal in the nation, is bad juju … so we extract our oil, send it out to the lower 48 (the outside) and have it processed, then ship it back and burn it to generate our electricity. Talk about the essence of stupidity and political BFC. Even with the cost of shipping which I should add is very fast and surprisingly cheap, this methodology of stocking great vegetable mixes to our food pantry is well worth the cost.
I have put some of the mix into mason jars and vacuum sealed it with the jar sealer I reviewed in another article earlier, the product comes in zip lock bags and will keep the food fresh when opened. My problem is that once the bag is opened, I find the food to be air soluble, and my veggies disappear … guess my wife likes them too. I am convinced that for long-term storage and ease of use this is a good purchase.
There are many other uses for the mixes as well. Just ask yourself what do you use vegetables in when you cook? Added to meat loaf it really gives it a kick and if you use the spicy mix a nice zing. Moose-loaf never tasted better in a meatloaf with that spicy mix in it. When added to caribou stew it really livens it up.
If you’re looking for a mix of vegetable additives for your food pantry, either for long term storage you’ve placed into mason jars, or as something you’ll use on a regular basis and buy more often, this product can fill the bill.
As for nutrition, I’m not in any way qualified to say this is a nutritious food. These are vegetables that have been freeze-dried, which can be rehydrated and consumed. The beef mix has chunks of chewy beef that taste as beef should and have the same texture of beef that wasn’t dehydrated. The big takeaway here is how one could integrate this into a lot of different meal selections. I did make a bowl of just the veggie shrimp mix with no noodles, and it was a great soup. I suppose one could do the same with the beef mix and add some thickener like corn starch and have a beef stew meal. Now, if you already have some moose on the shelf, you get the idea.
I do hope this report is useful for someone reading this blog, and that it will work as well for you as it does for us. Your use is limited to your willingness to experiment with the product, and Ramen Bae seems to come out with many new mix variations so keep looking into their website. And, as they say in Italy: Mangia!
Read the full article here