Brew: This video is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus.
Grill: Chill, we’re out of food again.
Chill: We don’t have anything?
Grill: Just instant ramen.
Chill: Uhh… That’s not really food.
Grill: Eh, it’s fine.
You know, I wonder what would happen
if all you ate was instant noodles?
Chill: Shh!
Grill, do you hear something?
Brew: A boy in Taiwan ate instant noodles every day
for 4 years, and this is what happened to his stomach!
Today’s episode concerns dietary health, and cancer research.
We’ll also be covering some prominent food myths.
And with that out of the way, let’s get into it!
A Taiwanese university student circa 2018, had
developed a habit for staying up late to study.
Beginning in middle school, he became known for his long
evening study sessions and his grades reflected that.
In order to fuel his late night studying, he
developed a habit for making quick and easy meals.
Specifically, he developed a taste for cheap instant noodles.
Grill: I’m already craving some Mint Beef with Egg.
Brew: Me too, Mr Hillside’s Instant
Noodles got me through my Masters.
Grill: Mmmm.
Brew: By the time he’d entered university, his
instant ramen habit reached a fever pitch, and
he was consuming them for almost every meal.
Soon, he became ill with nausea, bloating and a stomach ache.
His family then took him to the hospital and
there, they discovered some horrifying news.
He had developed stage 4 stomach cancer,
and his chances of survival were slim.
After a year of treatment, his battle with
gastric cancer ended with the boy passing away.
Which left his family with questions, namely,
did his instant ramen habit lead to his death.
Over the years there have been a myriad of
claims concerning the “damage” of instant noodle
consumption, but are they worth listening to?
When it comes to processed food, there is no shortage
of myths and old wive’s tales concerning how bad they
are for you, but there are still some who have doubts.
News site “Lead Stories” claims that this story
is fake news because it appears on a number of
different English speaking websites, but with
the exact same text copy-pasted over and over.
They claim that since none of these articles
source the original text, it must be made up.
We’ll get back to that but—Is it really
possible for instant noodles to give you cancer?
Back in 2000, an email chain suggested that
wax coatings on the inside of the styrofoam
bowls could coat the inside of your stomach.
The chain claims that… someone’s...
nephew ate cup noodles, and some wax
inside the foam bowl coated his stomach.
He then quote: “died when he went for an
operation to try to remove the layer”.
Chill: There was wax in his stomach?
EWIE he’s not a candle, he’s a person.
Brew: Here, Grill.
Read this next claim out for me, will you?
Grill: “instant noodles contain wax coating,
which is also used in styrofoam containers.
That is why instant noodles don’t
stick to each other when cooking.
Our body needs up to two days to clean the wax.
Make sure you stop eating a pack of noodles
for at least 3 days after a session of noodles.
A session of noodles?
This wax can cause CANCER.
SHARE if you care!”
Brew: Fortunately, according to the fact-checkers
over at Snopes, we don’t have much to worry about.
First off, they note that styrofoam
containers are specifically designed to
stand up to heat and contain hot liquids.
So adding wax wouldn’t just be
redundant, but counterproductive.
Adding a wax coating wouldn’t help it stand up
to heat, it would simply melt, and ruin the food.
But even if there was wax in the container, like those
little wax coated paper water cups you get from office water
jugs, it wouldn’t cause cancer even if you wanted it to.
Chill: No?
Brew: No.
Again, the fact-checkers over at Snopes note that
many foods we regularly consume contain wax, including
many candies like Smarties, Peeps, and Candy Corn!
Grill: Candy Corn doesn’t cause cancer, it is cancer.
Brew: How very… theatrical of you, Grill.
But aside from that, unless you have a particularly
fragile constitution, like if you have digestive
problems, or if you’re an infant, then a little bit
of food-grade wax is just going to pass through you.
Chill: So wax isn’t bad for you?
Brew: It’s not exactly good for you,
but it’s not going to give you cancer.
It’s just a myth, like many others we’ve debunked.
When it comes to learning, you want to make sure
that you’re getting clear and nuanced information.
That’s why I love resources like The Great
Courses Plus, our sponsor of this video.
It’s a subscription based lecture streaming service
with courses from experts everywhere from National
Geographic, to the Smithsonian, to Yale University.
They have a vast library of content with over
11,000 videos on subjects like science, literature,
history, and how to watch movies better.
I just watched “Medical Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths:
What We Think We Know May Be Hurting Us” because
you know I love to watch pseudoscience clap-backs.
Chill: Oh, was that what you were watching the other day?
I loved the episode “Medical Myths from around the World”, cuz
it actually went into fan deaths from Korea just like we did!
Brew: Start your own free trial of The Great Courses
Plus today by going to TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/Brew,
or by clicking the link in the description box below.
Chill: Pssh, Hey it’s like school, but there are no tests!
Brew: Who doesn’t like learning?
Others claim that the flavour enhancer Monosodium Glutamate,
or MSG, is the worst thing about this quick college meal.
Not-so-lovingly dubbed the “obesity drug”, and suggests
that consuming it can lead to brain damage and headaches.
Chill: Oh I know about MSG!
It’s like, the bad stuff that’s in takeout right?
Brew: Well, you’re half right.
MSG is in some kinds of Chinese food served in North
America, however MSG exists in fast-food restaurants
like KFC and Chick-Fil-A, chips brands like Doritos
and Pringles, many different frozen dinners, tons
of sauces like salad dressing, and ketchup, and we
can’t forget flavour packs in instant noodles too.
Fortunately for all of you buffet enthusiasts,
most of the literature that linked MSG to
headaches has been superseded by newer studies.
A literature review by Yoko Obayashi and Yoichi
Nagamura for the Journal of Headache and Pain,
found that a cause and effect relationship
between MSG and headaches was tenuous at best.
They saw that most studies that sought to clarify this
relationship had little by the way of blind tests.
In regards to MSG’s “addictiveness”, and its reputation
as an “obesity drug”, any connection between MSG
and weight gain is confounded by other environmental
factors, and controlled studies found MSG had no
effect on body weight in human and animal trials.
Chill: So MSG isn’t even really that bad.
Brew: It’s not good for you, but it’s
not as bad as people think it is.
Other sources also claim that since instant
ramen sits in your intestines for so long, it
prolongs your exposure to “toxic” preservatives.
Researchers out of the United States conducted
an experiment in which two subjects ate instant
ramen, and homemade ramen noodles, to see the
difference in the digestive process between the two.
The instant ramen took significantly longer than
the homemade product, lending credence to fears
that preservatives could leak into one’s body.
Some take this as proof that the additive TBHQ,
or Tertiary butylhydroquinone, is behind any
health scares we might see from instant ramen.
Manufacturers use this additive in crackers, frozen foods,
and allowed in higher concentrations in fish products.
According to the Centers for Science in the
Public Interest, consumers should avoid TBHQ.
They cite a study which found that adding
TBHQ to lab rats’ drinking water significantly
increased the development of tumors.
Grill: So that’s it!
Was it TBHQ that caused cancer?
Brew: Yes and no.
The dosage given to the rats were very high, but the
FDA is all over studies like these, and whenever there
might be any negative health effects, they’re already
thinking about how much is safe to allow in our food.
In this case, the FDA only allows a maximum of
0.02% TBHQ of the total oils in any given product.
And according to a study out of the University of Alberta,
chronic exposure to TBHQ can lead to carcinogenicity.
So it’s possible that if one were to eat
instant ramen and only instant ramen, they could
have an increased risk of developing cancer.
Although, there are many other foods that have TBHQ in it,
so any diet high in processed food could leave you at risk.
That being said, just because processed food takes
more time to digest than handmade food, doesn’t
necessarily mean you’ll be exposed to more substances.
While fresh, unprocessed foods are healthier, eating
only one batch of instant ramen isn’t going to
expose you to any dangerous levels of anything, no
matter how long your body takes to break it down.
Eating it every day on the other hand?
That’s a different can of worms altogether.
The flavouring powder in instant ramen is also high
in sodium, which, in high enough amounts can lead
to high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke.
Not only that, but diets high in
sodium are also a major cancer risk.
A study from Gastroenterology Research and Practice
reviewed a number of studies and meta-analyses,
and found a positive association between “dietary
salt exposure and gastric intestinal metaplasia”.
Metaplasia meaning an abnormal change
in tissue structure, aka, cancer.
The researchers suggest a few
possible ways that this could work.
The main mechanism that they believe would cause this
association is that high salt concentration in the
stomach can erode away at the mucosal barrier leading
to inflammation and damage to the stomach lining.
This could lead to an increase in cellular replication,
which increases the risk of developing cancer cells.
The mucosal barrier protects the body from many things
including malevolent bacteria, like Helicobacter pylori, which
in some people can lead to the development of cancer as well.
In addition to that, damage to the stomach’s
mucosal barrier leaves us vulnerable to other
carcinogens that exist in our regular lives.
Grill: And, what does that mean?
Brew: A diet high in salt can leave you more vulnerable to the
development of cancer cells in your gastrointestinal system.
Those who shout “fake news” do so because the shortened
English language translations of an article simply copy-paste
one another, which they argue is proof that this story
is fake, however those attempting to “debunk” it, didn’t
bother, or could not, find or translate the original.
The original article from Apple Daily News that
presented this case, after undergoing translation by
one of the members of the Brew crew, notes that doctor
Yan Jiarui treated the case, and even said that there
isn’t a direct link between instant noodles and cancer
Here are other reports of the story in the news.
Brew: However, high sodium diets can break
down the mucosal barrier in the stomach,
making one more liable to develop cancer.
I don’t want anyone to get scared that eating
instant noodles is going to give them cancer.
In the case of the young man, his diet, aside from the
enormous amount of instant noodles, was also filled
with other processed foods, like sausages and jerky,
which are all high in sodium and could have made
him more susceptible to the development of cancer.
In addition to that, he had a family history of colorectal
cancer that might have contributed to his situation.
Substances like TBHQ and sodium have links to
cancer risks, but like most things, they’re
only really bad for you in large doses.
Clinical trials researchers perform on substances like these
are to see at what point we start to see negative effects,
so that the food regulatory board making decisions for your
country can limit the legal amount of those substances.
These limits are set so we never
actually run into problems like this.
That is, if we practice a varied diet, and try to eat healthy.
If you take one thing from this video,
practice moderation in all parts of life.
If you’re worried about the flavour packets in cup noodles
containing too much sodium, you can skip it, or just use half.
We can’t avoid every single bad
thing, and we all have our vices.