Noodles
The only instant noodle product that met all our criteria was Maggi Extra Delicious 2 Minute Noodles Chicken Flavour.
Unlike most instant noodles (which are fried), Maggi Extra Delicious Noodles are baked – so they’re lower in fat. One serving contains 1.9g of fat (less than 1g of this is saturated) and 970mg of sodium. That’s considerably less than the 14g of fat (of which 6.5g is saturated) and 1630mg of sodium in regular Maggi 2 Minute Noodles. If you choose Maggi, make sure you pick the right one off the shelf – go for the “extra delicious” version.
To see how instant noodles stacked up against another quick and convenient hunger-buster, we bought a Big Ben Classic Mince & Cheese Pie and compared the nutrition information.
We were surprised to find that Fantastic 2 Minute Noodles Oriental Flavour had much the same amount of energy, fat and saturated fat as the Big Ben pie. A serving of these noodles contributes 1600kJ to your energy intake – and it contains 15.4g of fat (7.4g of this is saturated).
But Fantastic 2 Minute Noodles wasn’t the highest-fat product we found. The worst offenders were Trident Hot & Spicy 2 Minute Noodles and Nissin Instant Noodle with Soup Base Spicy Flavour. Both contained 21g of fat – and more than half of the fat in the Trident product was saturated.
For average adults, saturated fat should contribute less than 10 percent towards total daily energy intake. This equates to no more than 23g of saturated fat.
Rice and pasta snacks
Five of the rice and pasta snacks met our nutrition criteria for fat, saturated fat and sodium. They were:
- Sun Rice Quick Cups Chicken Rice
- Kraft Easy Mac Cheese
- Maggi Snack on Pasta Sour Cream & Chives
- Naked Panda Sweet Thai Chilli Chicken with Noodles
- San Remo La Pasta Carbonara Flavour.
Sun Rice, Kraft, Maggi, Naked Panda and San Remo may have other flavours that meet our criteria – check the product’s nutrition information panel to find out.
Products meeting our criteria
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