Instant ramen noodles have long been a staple for students and others with tight budgets and little free time. And for many, a piping-hot serving of the salty, savory dish meant listening for the distinctive ping of a microwave.

And so when Cup Noodles, the Nissin Foods brand particularly popular because it comes in its own serving vessel, recently announced that it was changing its long-standing packaging to be microwave-safe, many fans might have paused mid-slurp. For ages, ramen eaters have been going rogue — many without even realizing it — blithely nuking their Cup Noodles with water, glibly ignoring the instructions that called for boiling water separately (like we all have kettles just sitting around?), then pouring it into the foam container, then waiting for the noodles to soften. Such a rigmarole — there’s the extra time needed, not to mention the dishes — seems unthinkable for the busiest/laziest of us.

Is the Cheesecake Factory a first date spot? It contains multitudes.

Part of the appeal of the Cup Noodles, as opposed to those plastic-wrapped packages with the little aluminum seasoning pouches, was their portability and no-fuss prep — you could throw one in your bag to eat in the break room at work or make one in the dorm, late-night.

Advertisement

Nissin said that its decision to switch from a polystyrene cup to a paper one was partly an environmental one. The new cups will be made of 40 percent recycled fiber and will no longer be wrapped in plastic. “This updated packaging and the new paper cup marks an important milestone for Cup Noodles and a key step in our environmental commitment,” Michael Price, president and chief executive of the company’s U.S. arm, said in a news release.

In the announcement, the company also touted the “new” convenience of the format, too. “For the first time ever, Cup Noodles will be microwaveable, no longer requiring boiling water, thus significantly reducing cooking time,” it boasted.

First time? Not for many of its longtime fans. Some representative tweets: “I was today years old when I found out you’re not supposed to microwave cup noodles,” and “This whole time cup noodles wasn’t supposed to go in the microwave???” Even before the switch-over, there was a subgenre on TikTok of people surprised to learn that they weren’t actually supposed to be nuking their cups. “So I’ve been cooking these things wrong the entire time and no one ever told me?” said a woman named Reba Lasha in a video from earlier this year in which she customizes the dish by dumping a bag of Cheetos into it. (Another popular social media trope is hacking ramen with all kinds of add-ins, from eggs to ice cream bars.)

The Popeyes truffle chicken sandwich wants to be fancy. It’s a flop.

Others, of course, chided the blissfully unaware among them. “They literally print the instructions on the side of the cup!” one wrote. Others, apparently, knew but didn’t care.

Advertisement

Aware or not, noodle-nukers have been living on the edge this whole time: Microwaving the old packaging carried potential safety and health risks. Polystyrene contains a chemical called styrene, which the government has classified as a “reasonably anticipated human carcinogen” that can leach out during the microwaving process and into food. Experts say, though, that the danger isn’t in occasionally warming up takeout in foam containers, but rather, an accumulation over time.

And look out for splattered microwaves — or worse. Heating the foam cups in the microwave could “can also compromise the container’s structural integrity,” causing the contents to leak or spill on your appliance, or on you while you’re removing it. A number of states have passed bans on the use of polystyrene containers for food and other uses, mostly citing environmental concerns, since those tons of plates and clamshells can’t be recycled.

While those drawbacks might have been real, back in the dim days of the pandemic, a (false!) urban legend about the Cup Noodles and other ramen brands took hold. “Instant noodles contain wax coating which is also used in Styrofoam containers,” read a 2016 Facebook post that began making the rounds. “That is why instant noodles don’t stick to each other while cooking.”

While fact-checkers beat that one back, the noodles do have some well-earned criticism about their danger. Many packaged brands are crazy-high in sodium (though some come in reduced-sodium versions), including Cup Noodles, with a single serving of its classic chicken variety clocking in at 1,160 milligrams, or about half the recommended daily intake for an adult.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLOwu8NoaWlqY2R%2BcnuPbGacraBiu7C7w6WcrGWRp7Juus6wZKahk6e8uK3VnmSsmZaaerS7jK2fnrFdrLKzsc2tZJqkopqupcWO