Proximate Composition and Calorie of Korean Instant Noodles

The nutritional value of commercial instant noodles produced in summer and winter seasons were investigated. Only the noodle itself was used for the analysis. The content of carbohydrate was calculated by difference. The calorie was estimated by using a conversion factor of 4.32 for protein, 9.21 for fat and 4.20 for carbohydrate. Bag-type instant noodles had higher moisture, but lower content of fat and calorie compared with bowl-type products. No seasonal variations on composition and calorie were found. The calorie was negatively correlated with moisture or carbohydrate content, and positively correlated with fat content. The calorie estimated from linear regression equation of calorie vs. moisture was similar to the value calculated using a conversion factor, which implies that the calorie of the instant noodle can be simply estimated from the moisture content. The intakes of calorie from fat accounted for 30.8% and 34.1% from bag-type and bowl-type noodles, respectively. The content of ash and fat, and calorie were significantly decreased upon cooking, which were more pronounced in the bowl-type products. At the same moisture contents the loss of calorie for bag-type products was 3.5% and for bowl-type ones was 7.7%.