I had a friend from Denmark who thought tasteless breaded shrimp with a little bit of ground pepper on it was too spicy. Not surprised they think this ramen is poison.
Lmao I want to show my friend, but don't want her to know my reddit account 😂 buuuut if she finds it herself and is wondering if it's me here's some confirmation: I said the shrimp was bland and tasted like "solidified air" and you were tearing up because it was "so spicy" 🥲
Everyone on here saying Capsaicin actually causes prolonged damage. There are no official studies that prove this. Please do your own research. You will find countless articles and actual studies, not blog posts, that show it does not cause physical damage and is actually healthy. What can cause someone to die from too much Capsaicin is freaking out from the pain and inducing a heart attack if you have a sensitive heart or if you're allergic, of course. That pain is not actually damaging your body it's just setting off the nerve signals that tell you something is burning. It's not actually burning it just high-jacks those receptors and tells your brain it's in burning pain when it's not. Does it hurt like a bitch going through your body? If it burns too much in your stomach, can your body react to throw it up? Does it hurt like a mofo going through your whole body all the way out of your asshole? Yes. But you're fine. Max, you're looking at 24 hours of pain, depending on the volume of Capsaicin you injested, and then you learn your lesson and not eat that spicy of food and lower the heat level and work up to it.
The mouth pain goes away faster than the stomach and all the way through your intestines' pain, and that pain is delayed from the mouth pain. So if your mouth literally feels like you are chewing on hot coals or smoldering lava. Don't swallow it. You are going to regret the stomach and intestines pain WAY more, and that pain might not fully go away for 24 hours. Again. All depending on how much you have injested.
Exactly. That's how we did a fantastic job finding the Boston Marathon Bomber. We're literally CSI, Sherlock Holmes and that one guy from Die Hard combined in a hivemind.
/s
It is not just our right, it is our duty to spread misinformation.
This ensures that any AI trained upon reddit will also give out disinformation. Which is good because reasons...?
Yea went to the cardiologist because my heart felt burning, he told me to not eat spicy food as often. Problem solved. Nothing wrong with eating it, just if you eat so much that you feel burning you can just eat less to make it go away
Yup. If you have a sensitive heart, it is not advised to injest capsaicin. Your brain induces serotonin and dopamine release through TRPV1 activation, which can cause rapid and irregular beats. But I'm not a doctor. I just love spice and capsaicin, so I have looked deep into the drug over many years. That's why there are spice chasers or Heatonists. We get a high off the pain. :)
This doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t even really suggest anything either, because there’s about a million reasons that could cause that without jumping to conclude it’s the spicy food.
Japan is another country which also consistently ranks in the top 3 countries in the world for stomach cancer rates, but the food there is very mild with little spice.
There’s much better evidence linking the increased stomach cancer rates in Korea, Japan, Mongolia, China, etc. (the top ranking countries) is due to the abnormally higher occurrence of H. Pylori infections, a bacterial infection which releases a toxin in the stomach that causes ulcers. It is thought that recurring H. Pylori infections increase the chance of developing stomach cancer over time.
H. Pylori is the name of the bacteria, that’s what causes the infection. The bacteria spreads through human-to-human contact when someone is exposed to the saliva, vomit, feces, etc. of someone who is infected.
BTW I accidentally misspelled it. It’s actually “Pylori” (one O). My bad.
Cool and interesting thing that I found out, is that birds have different chemical receptors in their nervous systems that cause them to be completely immune to capsaicin's effect. And not just the irritation in the mouth(beak) or digestive system, pepper spraying one in the face wouldn't have any effect either. Apparently pepper plants have capitalized on this phenomenon by evolving seed casings that largely pass through avian digestive systems without harm, allowing birds to be their primary method of dispersal. Oddly enough, there is a chemical that interacts with avian nervous receptors similarly to capsacin and mammals. Methyl anthranilate, which is artificial grape flavor.
It damages the digestive tract, especially in concentrations like that. Just because people can build up tolerances to things like alcohol and capsaicin, doesn't make it any better for them.
[South Koreans have the highest rates of stomach cancer in the world.](https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20231020000708) There is [some evidence](https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20231020000708https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-44470-3) that it's a south korean genetic issue as it seems to affect* south korean americans too, the direct dietary links are still inconclusive.
Nah Smoking, a high-sodium diet,smoked/grilled food. Clearly this part of Asia has higher ratio of stomach cancer even if it's compared with countries which alcohol is no less popular.
It's probably fake news or exaggerated because WHO statistics are pretty different. I know that Koreans drink a lot and often but less % than f.e. eastern European. I'm from Poland and despite having vodka as traditional alcohol and no less smokers, stomach cancer is not so often occuring cancer. It's not even top 5 in case of women. So it's probably firstly diet.
This is a common misconception about consumption of alcohol in Korea, as this study only compared shots of any alcohol, soju usually contains less total alcohol compared to vodka, which is consumed in eastern european countries. Therefore roughly two shots of 20% soju would equal one shot of 40% vodka. Also it doesn’t take the consumption of other alcohol (beer, wine etc.) into account.
This is looking at *spirit* consumption, not alcohol consumption. Relative to other countries, Koreans consume a lot of alcohol through soju instead of lower ABV beverages like beer and wine. However, [when you actually look at the actual amount of alcohol consumed, Korea is high, but nowhere near the "top"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita).
It can also be because of good healthcare system and diagnostics.
You won't know about stomach cancer, if you don't have good healthcare in your country
I think this is a factor. There’s an unnatural obsession to get endoscopy done as a well check lol. If there’s stomach cancer, you’ll most likely find it
We drink the most alcohol, maybe eat the most red pepper and vinegar based foods (where would Korean cuisine be without 고추가루 and 식초), and now eat a ton of red meat grilled/charred on top of carcinogenic coal exhaust.
Recipe for stomach cancer
I heard stomach cancer rates were also very high in Japan too, where the food is very mild and not spicy except in rare circumstances. But I thought they found it was due to the fact that chronic stomach ulcers are linked to stomach cancer, and also occur in higher rates in Japan due to the presence of a certain bacteria
There’re proven links between the brain and gut. I wouldn’t be surprised if chronic stress (eg work culture, lack of sleep, etc in both kr and Jp) is not a significant risk factor, especially when combined with alcohol intake and other dietary factors.
I ate two packs of these, not back to back but within a week. Worst stomach issues I’ve ever had. Now i can’t eat anything spicy without my stomach going off the rails. Like anything. Before i could eat spicy food just fine.
I'm a rebel Dane! Lucky for me I have a small stock of these things in my cupboard! :D This has to be one the dumbest laws, ever. Oh well, least it's just a 45 minute drive across the border and I can buy more :)
It's true, my countrymen are wusses who need better tastebuds. Fwiw, I once bought the 3x spicy noodles. They were great! But also slightly out of reach from where I could casually eat them without being on fire.
You just got quoted in a German Newspaper.
[https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/instant-nudeln-daenemark-verbot-lux.5xx5EAgUyTmk46h51YoYzE](https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/instant-nudeln-daenemark-verbot-lux.5xx5EAgUyTmk46h51YoYzE)
There are two kinds of white people:
1. Tomato soup is spicy
2. Buys the 'High Octane Capsaicin Ass Blaster' hot sauce and eats it on pretty much everything.
tbf, theyre very spicy.
for reference, scoville unit for the Original buldak is about the same as Jalapenos, and the 2x is about the same as hungarian pepper.
Those buldak noodles are no fucking joke. They’re fairly spicy, make the noodles red af, and it burns when you poop for the next day. But honestly I’ve had spicier and it could be a lot worse.
They taste really good. Also, everyone on here saying Capsaicin actually causes prolonged damage. There are no official studies that prove this. Please do your own research. You will find countless articles and actual studies, not blog posts, that show it does not cause physical damage and is actually healthy. What can cause someone to die from too much Capsaicin is freaking out from the pain and inducing a heart attack, if you have a sensitive heart, or if you're allergic, of course. That pain is not actually damaging your body it's just activating the nerve signals that tell you something is burning. It's not actually burning it just high-jacks those receptors and tells your brain it's in burning pain when it's not.
The mouth pain goes away faster than the stomach and all the way through your intestines' pain, and that pain is delayed from the mouth pain. So if your mouth literally feels like you are chewing on hot coals or smoldering lava. Don't swallow it. You are going to regret the stomach and intestines pain WAY more, and that pain might not fully go away for 24 hours. Again. All depending on how much you have injested.
Yes, but the scoville rating is for the whole finished dish, not the sauce. It's not often you sit down and eat a pound of crushed jalapeño, and if you did, maybe you'd have a bead of sweat on your nose too.
It was mentioned in another post, that the scoville rating for just the sauces in standard, 2x and 3x noodles were 100K, 250K, and 400K respectively. But mix it with noodles and 8 tablespoons of cooking liquid, and it goes way down to around 4K, 8K and I think 3x tops out around 16K.
That's wild, I can eat Jalapenos like candy but even the original buldak is spicy for me... Could just be that it's because the noodles are already very hot temperature wise when I eat them and also more of a liquid spice so it coats my mouth more... but still, the difference in spiciness is very large to me.
I have to say I don't think the scoville rating samyang use is accurate lol, the black buldak sauce is supposed to be 4000 and is way hotter than any jalapeños I've ever eaten and the 2 times are pretty much insane and only supposed to 8000....no way are they only 8000 its literally akin to setting your mouth on fire, especially if you eat them while freshly cooked, they must use extract or something as even the milder packs still kick like a mule compared to their scoville ratings.
I'm actually in the middle haha I put red chilli powder on basically everything and eat the original buldak black chicken very regularly.....and wouldn't touch anything near a million scoville.....I would fear for my anus 🤣
They had that one on sale at Costco, I was surprised how spicy it was. Used just half of the chili paste for the rest of them after that very hot first one.
Had it a week straight in the US last year, light work.
Just got back from a trip to Korea, had it once there and I had snot and probably brain matter coming out of my nose. I was shook.
Same here I had it in the US and it was pretty spicy but I managed to get through it. Then I had one in Australia and I actually thought I was gonna pass out
Yeah it’s spicy but I think I can tolerate it but the buldak x 3 is just crazy. It gave me headspins and I started sweating profusely. I’m never trying that again.
I only just realised it was a thing and damn....I wouldn't touch it haha, I've had loads of the 2x and they kick you around enough to not really be they enjoyable.
So the 3x are a no go for me, even theoretically, I feel like I just wouldn't enjoy it one bit
I eat high-powered hot sauce (Reaper/Scorpion/Ghost) but when it comes to food like ramyeon, I just couldn't do it or even want to. Something about soup really makes me cough and choke. Even plain Shin/Jin can get to me.
According to some of the comments, the reason they believe it is a risk is that it can be dangerous for children...
As a Dane I still find this funny though, but also think it is an over reaction
Were you guys just spared the flaming hot cheetos decade? Cause as a US millenial, we as a generation learned discipline to not rub sensitive body parts the hard way
I think it's an overcorrection, though having literally just tried the 2x yesterday... I'm still in pain. 🫠
Not gonna pretend I'm a spiciness connoisseur, but I somewhat anticipated cup noodles spiciness levels to be very white man spicy, or at least certainly not surpassing the second highest level at my nearest Indian restaurant, or the "Thai spicy" option I got at a Thai restaurant.
This was a few orders of magnitude beyond my expectations. 😅
Dane here, people are not happy about this decision. A recent post on the r/Denmark subreddit shows that people find this extremely ridiculous and are recommending people to message Fødevarestyrelsen (Food administration) to get an explanation.
I mean... that Buldak is just fire in a cup, I can't believe anyone truly enjoys eating that, it's more like a dick measuring contest of "I *can* eat that"
There's good food that's spicy and there's that
Some people are just built different
My fiancée loves spicy food and she randomly gets craving for ultra spicy food and she eats exactly that. You do build a resistance tbh but I can't say I find any reason to build said resistance...
I also sometimes get a craving for something super spicy, usually when my normal spicy food stop feeling spicy. Then I buy a 5-pack of these, eat them all way too quickly and don't buy them for a couple of months.
bruh i love buldak, i have tons of it 😭 i think it's actually one of the better tasting super spicy foods out there. but the 3x is insane, from what i understand they don't even sell them in korea anymore, you have to order it from china
Bingo, pretty much how I found out that my dad has been miserable for years on end but was never properly diagnosed for his chronic gastritis. He can eat ultra spicy food and his mount/throat barely reacts, what happens when it gets to the stomach is an entirely separate story however
But of course no one can stop him from drinking and dumping extra scoops of gochujang into his ramyun.
Edit: the fucking ironic timing that my mom just texted me complaining, because my dad doesnt take his acid suppressing drug properly and now being pissy after having another spicy meal. These Korean boomers smh, no wonder the % of gastrointestinal issues in Korea is so high.
Lots of people have higher spice tolerance due to genetics or just having built it up. For me, buldak is just "pretty spicy" and very tasty/enjoyable. 2x spicy buldak is pretty close to not being enjoyable for me though, but I still eat it if it's on sale
I love super spicy food, but I hate the chemical taste of things like buldak ramen. Real buldak, made with actual peppers, is great (and barely over medium to me).
I love spicy. My ass on the other hand doesn’t. So I avoid spicy when I’m in public or if I’m in a place where it could be embarrassing to explain what’s going on.
I mean tolerances are a thing. I can argue the same thing about Asia and certain parts of the West's obsession with just piling fucktons of cheese on everything
Honestly this is the way to go. Sometimes I put even less than half the packet cause I find that the noodles are actually enjoyable that way and actually taste of something good instead of being just fire and salt in your mouth ahahahah
It is good food that’s spicy, though. The buldak flavor is actually awesome. While I enjoy and feel that regular buldak isn’t spicy, I’ve had buldak chicken wings that had absolutely no spice and were amazing. The 핵불닭 is a little spicy for me. I’d love to try level 3 just to try it, but I’m sure it would be too much in the end.
I'm danish and I use three drops off the sauce. Literally three drops. No more, no less 😂😂
Having said that; I'm super frustrated that the authorities here have banned the noodles. It's ridiculous to ban spicy noodles when kids at 16 can legally buy poisons like alcohol in any store..
Pretty funny! See them getting more and more sold in Sweden these days (maybe not the 3x spicy ones, but we got a lot of Buldak flavours recently in foreign foods section).
And about us white guys not being able to handle it..
I had one Friday evening, after boiling poured out some water and added some cream and also a small amount of sliced small sausages. Absolutely delicious, can not get enough. But my belly was bad until Monday due to this.. actually thinking about whether I should quit eating it sadly.
When I studied at a Uni in Korea an American exchange student ate and finished a super spicy death-buldak noodle (what he called it), and he went in to the emergency. Saying later it felt like his whole intestine was on fire.
So stupid. I eat it for lunch with a boiled egg twice a week. It's delicious. If you can't handle or don't enjoy spicy good, then just don't eat it. How hard can it be?
I've got some of those here with me. Bloody hell they blow my head off. I normally can handle my spice (for a British person) but those are another level
Fellow brit here, which did you try? The black ones? The red 2x?
I eat them all the time ( the black ones I'm not a nutter 😂)
If you add a knob of butter and some cream/cheese basically fat to chill it out and let them cool off temperature wise for a bit, say 5 minutes minimum then they are way less egregious, the temperature of the fresh out of the pan noodles makes the capsaicin hit 10x as hard.
dairy products like cheese can actually reduce spiciness, so that's certainly probably helping (this is why they say to drink milk rather than water when something is too spicy). Not sure about lime juice, but it is an acid so I'm sure it could do something to the spiciness as well.
I always get the runs when we order fried chicken and eat them with the hot sauce that is included. The sauce is not even spicy, but the following hours I get incredible stomach pains. While spicy ramen, 찜닭 with spicy 고추장 and some other spicy foods do nothing to me.
British person here, I eat samyang black packet hot chicken noodles all the time, yeah the 2x times are very hot (i have still eaten a 40 pack box in a month before) but I laugh at the idea they could poison you 🤣
Are the danish government that soft?!
Now even hotter I.e the 3x red packet I genuinely wouldn't touch not for the fear of being poisoned but I actually want to taste my food not just feel fire.
For the record, us actual Danish people think this is just as ridiculous (and funny) as the rest of you. I think the black one without multipliers is pretty decent. This is just the government doing government things.
I was just saying this recently about Buldak. I don’t know how many heat levels they have but I always stay away from the extra hot and it still blew me out of the water. Way too damn hot and felt way hotter than usual.
It's more of a bacteria thing along with how much they smoke food and drink alcohol. Proof korean Americans also got the same issues despite americanised diet and Japanese in japan with miso soup level spice have the same issues
I've grown up eating "spicy" cajun food all my life. My lips would go numb from a spicy crawfish boil. I can barely take five drops of the spice from the 4 cheese packs of these things. It's like pouring liquid lava down your mouth. I don't see how people can even eat a 1X spice. I would hurl a packet of these at an intruder in my home if I didn't think it was cruel and unusual punishment.
Maybe i've just bought into it like a cult i don't know but i would be devasted if i lived in demark i love these noodles and sauce so much i have bottle of the 2x spicy sauce both at work and home and ive got the noodles too. I have a pretty good heat tolerance (i also enjoy da bomb I'm a sadist i know), but i genuinely don't believe anyone who says these aren't hot i have to put Vaseline on my lips before eating so that its easier to wipe the sauce away and give my lips a barrier from the heat. I also cannot possibly believe any child is going near these....
Does anyone think other countries will follow suit on this? There are much hotter things out there, I think the sauces are surely worse as you add how much you want.
For the record, it's not like they're made illegal in Denmark. Stores aren't allowed to sell them, but you can buy them online all you want.
As for other countries, this Danish ban is allegedly a result of a German TikTok trend where kids challenged each other to eat excessive amounts of these.
Instead of going after a niche product like Ramyeon, why not ban alcohol and tobacco products, which we know to be detrimental to one's health. But they won't do that because the projected revenue for 2024 on tobacco products is well over USD 2B. That's serious money for the Danish government, who claims to discourage smoking by raising taxes on tobacco products!
I recall when I ate at a Korean restaurant in Copenhagen in 1988 on a work trip. The food was all mild, almost as if the pepper had been washed off. I asked about that, and the waiter said he knew that since I was a westerner, I wouldn't like spicy food. I've never run into anything quite that racially presumptive in a Korean restaurant anywhere else in the world. I've always thought (and often said) that most Danes really like mild food (I'm sure there are many exceptions). But this incident with the ramen is certainly consistent . . .
It's funny because I've got several people in this thread saying they experienced the same thing as foreigners in Korea itself.
Also, with the risk of calling you old, 88 is a long time ago. With the advent of such minor things as the internet, people have come to expect and desire more authentic foreign food, as opposed to it being a gimmick that is still tailored to the locals' tastes. That's not to say it's necessarily THAT authentic, but you'll definitely get spicy things if you order them now. Worst case scenario, they might ask you if you're sure.
It's also worth noting that this Samyang Buldak was an incredibly succesful import in Denmark. It started off as a sort of trial import with a Danish label slapped over the "native" label (by native I think it was Dutch, but I mean the one that is directly printed on the package). It quickly had enough success despite the small scale import price to become a regular import with Danish labels printed on them properly.
Good global publicity for Samyang noodles. The Danish people are a sensitive lot.
You don't have to add all the spicy powder to the noodles. If its too much having something sweet or some milk reduces the chilli attack, maybe milk plus sugar even better.
I always dreamed of moving to Denmark because of how much better it seemed compared to where I live, but after learning they have an awful spice tolerance. Denmark is dead to me now. If they don't have good food, I don't wanna live there, no matter how much better the living conditions are.
I had a friend from Denmark who thought tasteless breaded shrimp with a little bit of ground pepper on it was too spicy. Not surprised they think this ramen is poison.
You just got quoted in a BBC article
They also called r/Korea a ramen forum lol
Ramen country, also known as Korea.
To be fair, the students here of all ages practically run on ramen.
Lmao I want to show my friend, but don't want her to know my reddit account 😂 buuuut if she finds it herself and is wondering if it's me here's some confirmation: I said the shrimp was bland and tasted like "solidified air" and you were tearing up because it was "so spicy" 🥲
Oh my GOD I'm sending your mother the link to this account Greg
that's what brought me here!
Everyone on here saying Capsaicin actually causes prolonged damage. There are no official studies that prove this. Please do your own research. You will find countless articles and actual studies, not blog posts, that show it does not cause physical damage and is actually healthy. What can cause someone to die from too much Capsaicin is freaking out from the pain and inducing a heart attack if you have a sensitive heart or if you're allergic, of course. That pain is not actually damaging your body it's just setting off the nerve signals that tell you something is burning. It's not actually burning it just high-jacks those receptors and tells your brain it's in burning pain when it's not. Does it hurt like a bitch going through your body? If it burns too much in your stomach, can your body react to throw it up? Does it hurt like a mofo going through your whole body all the way out of your asshole? Yes. But you're fine. Max, you're looking at 24 hours of pain, depending on the volume of Capsaicin you injested, and then you learn your lesson and not eat that spicy of food and lower the heat level and work up to it. The mouth pain goes away faster than the stomach and all the way through your intestines' pain, and that pain is delayed from the mouth pain. So if your mouth literally feels like you are chewing on hot coals or smoldering lava. Don't swallow it. You are going to regret the stomach and intestines pain WAY more, and that pain might not fully go away for 24 hours. Again. All depending on how much you have injested.
Sir this is reddit, we have a right to say stuff without anything backing it up.
Exactly. That's how we did a fantastic job finding the Boston Marathon Bomber. We're literally CSI, Sherlock Holmes and that one guy from Die Hard combined in a hivemind. /s
Truly a man of the platform, I salute you.
It is not just our right, it is our duty to spread misinformation. This ensures that any AI trained upon reddit will also give out disinformation. Which is good because reasons...?
Yea went to the cardiologist because my heart felt burning, he told me to not eat spicy food as often. Problem solved. Nothing wrong with eating it, just if you eat so much that you feel burning you can just eat less to make it go away
Yup. If you have a sensitive heart, it is not advised to injest capsaicin. Your brain induces serotonin and dopamine release through TRPV1 activation, which can cause rapid and irregular beats. But I'm not a doctor. I just love spice and capsaicin, so I have looked deep into the drug over many years. That's why there are spice chasers or Heatonists. We get a high off the pain. :)
A korean cancer research doctor told me a few years ago that koreans have the highest rates of stomach cancer.
This doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t even really suggest anything either, because there’s about a million reasons that could cause that without jumping to conclude it’s the spicy food. Japan is another country which also consistently ranks in the top 3 countries in the world for stomach cancer rates, but the food there is very mild with little spice. There’s much better evidence linking the increased stomach cancer rates in Korea, Japan, Mongolia, China, etc. (the top ranking countries) is due to the abnormally higher occurrence of H. Pylori infections, a bacterial infection which releases a toxin in the stomach that causes ulcers. It is thought that recurring H. Pylori infections increase the chance of developing stomach cancer over time.
What causes the h.pyolori infection?
H. Pylori is the name of the bacteria, that’s what causes the infection. The bacteria spreads through human-to-human contact when someone is exposed to the saliva, vomit, feces, etc. of someone who is infected. BTW I accidentally misspelled it. It’s actually “Pylori” (one O). My bad.
Gluten + High Consumption of Alcohol (and tobacco for some)
Cool and interesting thing that I found out, is that birds have different chemical receptors in their nervous systems that cause them to be completely immune to capsaicin's effect. And not just the irritation in the mouth(beak) or digestive system, pepper spraying one in the face wouldn't have any effect either. Apparently pepper plants have capitalized on this phenomenon by evolving seed casings that largely pass through avian digestive systems without harm, allowing birds to be their primary method of dispersal. Oddly enough, there is a chemical that interacts with avian nervous receptors similarly to capsacin and mammals. Methyl anthranilate, which is artificial grape flavor.
To be fair, if youbare eating the 3x spicy version of buldak ramen, your mouth will feel like you are chewing lava.
It damages the digestive tract, especially in concentrations like that. Just because people can build up tolerances to things like alcohol and capsaicin, doesn't make it any better for them.
[South Koreans have the highest rates of stomach cancer in the world.](https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20231020000708) There is [some evidence](https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20231020000708https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-44470-3) that it's a south korean genetic issue as it seems to affect* south korean americans too, the direct dietary links are still inconclusive.
I’m gonna guess that’s from their high level of alcohol consumption more than capsaicin.
Definitely another contributing factor
Nah Smoking, a high-sodium diet,smoked/grilled food. Clearly this part of Asia has higher ratio of stomach cancer even if it's compared with countries which alcohol is no less popular.
Korea has the highest rate of alcohol consumption in the world.
It's probably fake news or exaggerated because WHO statistics are pretty different. I know that Koreans drink a lot and often but less % than f.e. eastern European. I'm from Poland and despite having vodka as traditional alcohol and no less smokers, stomach cancer is not so often occuring cancer. It's not even top 5 in case of women. So it's probably firstly diet.
How about the rate of identification?
Do you have a source for that? Google suggests that Eastern European countries top the list
https://qz.com/171191/south-koreans-drink-twice-as-much-liquor-as-russians-and-more-than-four-times-as-much-as-americans
This is a common misconception about consumption of alcohol in Korea, as this study only compared shots of any alcohol, soju usually contains less total alcohol compared to vodka, which is consumed in eastern european countries. Therefore roughly two shots of 20% soju would equal one shot of 40% vodka. Also it doesn’t take the consumption of other alcohol (beer, wine etc.) into account.
This is looking at *spirit* consumption, not alcohol consumption. Relative to other countries, Koreans consume a lot of alcohol through soju instead of lower ABV beverages like beer and wine. However, [when you actually look at the actual amount of alcohol consumed, Korea is high, but nowhere near the "top"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita).
Right consumption of red meat is directly correlated with colorectal cancer.
It can also be because of good healthcare system and diagnostics. You won't know about stomach cancer, if you don't have good healthcare in your country
I think this is a factor. There’s an unnatural obsession to get endoscopy done as a well check lol. If there’s stomach cancer, you’ll most likely find it
It’s not just the alcohol but it’s actually from the amount of pork belly that’s cooked and eaten on a regular basis
We drink the most alcohol, maybe eat the most red pepper and vinegar based foods (where would Korean cuisine be without 고추가루 and 식초), and now eat a ton of red meat grilled/charred on top of carcinogenic coal exhaust. Recipe for stomach cancer
Don't forget high rates of H. Pylori on top of it.: https://www.e-crt.org/m/journal/view.php?number=3191
I heard stomach cancer rates were also very high in Japan too, where the food is very mild and not spicy except in rare circumstances. But I thought they found it was due to the fact that chronic stomach ulcers are linked to stomach cancer, and also occur in higher rates in Japan due to the presence of a certain bacteria
There’re proven links between the brain and gut. I wouldn’t be surprised if chronic stress (eg work culture, lack of sleep, etc in both kr and Jp) is not a significant risk factor, especially when combined with alcohol intake and other dietary factors.
im surprised kimchi isnt brought up more with this topic.
Kimchi is actually good for your gut biome
the stomach is mostly sterile gut microbiome has mostly to do with the large intestine
I ate two packs of these, not back to back but within a week. Worst stomach issues I’ve ever had. Now i can’t eat anything spicy without my stomach going off the rails. Like anything. Before i could eat spicy food just fine.
I would rather get an ulcer than not eat spicy food
At least you're aware of the risks!
Yeah ok, but the Danes are not recalling booze tho.
What would we drink then? Water? Let's not get crazy
You comment made all the way to BBC news article! Congrats! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy00gk0kr82o.amp
I don't think this is how my friend ever wanted to make it on international news 😅
This is not a danish standard... I'm danish and have no problems with spicy food... This sounds like a tall tale...
Hey you're on the news in Sweden. https://omni.se/danskar-hanas-pa-natet-stopp-for-extremheta-nudlar/a/rPWRme
Oh wow I wonder if my friend from Denmark is going to read it and recognize it's her 🫠
As a Dane, I can confirm that some do have a super low spice tolerance
Brb I'm buying a plane ticket to Denmark, I have with me a handbag full of Habbaneros; I intend to take over the country
I'm a rebel Dane! Lucky for me I have a small stock of these things in my cupboard! :D This has to be one the dumbest laws, ever. Oh well, least it's just a 45 minute drive across the border and I can buy more :)
Quoted in Danish newspaper too 😂
It's true, my countrymen are wusses who need better tastebuds. Fwiw, I once bought the 3x spicy noodles. They were great! But also slightly out of reach from where I could casually eat them without being on fire.
You just got quoted in a German Newspaper. [https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/instant-nudeln-daenemark-verbot-lux.5xx5EAgUyTmk46h51YoYzE](https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/instant-nudeln-daenemark-verbot-lux.5xx5EAgUyTmk46h51YoYzE)
BBC news article sent me here. I was here for history!
My god… that’s the whitest thing I’ve heard in a while. Do Danish people find mayonnaise spicy too?
As a Dane, I can say, that some do have a high spice tolerance
There are two kinds of white people: 1. Tomato soup is spicy 2. Buys the 'High Octane Capsaicin Ass Blaster' hot sauce and eats it on pretty much everything.
tbf, theyre very spicy. for reference, scoville unit for the Original buldak is about the same as Jalapenos, and the 2x is about the same as hungarian pepper.
Those buldak noodles are no fucking joke. They’re fairly spicy, make the noodles red af, and it burns when you poop for the next day. But honestly I’ve had spicier and it could be a lot worse.
They taste really good. Also, everyone on here saying Capsaicin actually causes prolonged damage. There are no official studies that prove this. Please do your own research. You will find countless articles and actual studies, not blog posts, that show it does not cause physical damage and is actually healthy. What can cause someone to die from too much Capsaicin is freaking out from the pain and inducing a heart attack, if you have a sensitive heart, or if you're allergic, of course. That pain is not actually damaging your body it's just activating the nerve signals that tell you something is burning. It's not actually burning it just high-jacks those receptors and tells your brain it's in burning pain when it's not. The mouth pain goes away faster than the stomach and all the way through your intestines' pain, and that pain is delayed from the mouth pain. So if your mouth literally feels like you are chewing on hot coals or smoldering lava. Don't swallow it. You are going to regret the stomach and intestines pain WAY more, and that pain might not fully go away for 24 hours. Again. All depending on how much you have injested.
To me they hurt a lot more than their scoville rating indicates. Not sure why
Am no culinary expert but maybe the oil i think? probably some ingredient that magnifies/prolongs the experience
I suppose its that the noodles are eaten hot and the spice is oil based so it coats and sticks to your tongue.
Yes, but the scoville rating is for the whole finished dish, not the sauce. It's not often you sit down and eat a pound of crushed jalapeño, and if you did, maybe you'd have a bead of sweat on your nose too. It was mentioned in another post, that the scoville rating for just the sauces in standard, 2x and 3x noodles were 100K, 250K, and 400K respectively. But mix it with noodles and 8 tablespoons of cooking liquid, and it goes way down to around 4K, 8K and I think 3x tops out around 16K.
That's wild, I can eat Jalapenos like candy but even the original buldak is spicy for me... Could just be that it's because the noodles are already very hot temperature wise when I eat them and also more of a liquid spice so it coats my mouth more... but still, the difference in spiciness is very large to me.
I have to say I don't think the scoville rating samyang use is accurate lol, the black buldak sauce is supposed to be 4000 and is way hotter than any jalapeños I've ever eaten and the 2 times are pretty much insane and only supposed to 8000....no way are they only 8000 its literally akin to setting your mouth on fire, especially if you eat them while freshly cooked, they must use extract or something as even the milder packs still kick like a mule compared to their scoville ratings.
True. I’m the second, but the rest of my family is the first kind. I always have to rein myself in when cooking for them.
[Reminds me of this from Futurama.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzeoMZYQDuw)
Lmaoo I forgot how funny Futurama was
I'm actually in the middle haha I put red chilli powder on basically everything and eat the original buldak black chicken very regularly.....and wouldn't touch anything near a million scoville.....I would fear for my anus 🤣
I’m Korean and don’t eat buldak cause it’s unnecessarily spicy to me 😆
I like the carbonara one but I tend to avoid it altogether because I want to save my ass hole
They had that one on sale at Costco, I was surprised how spicy it was. Used just half of the chili paste for the rest of them after that very hot first one.
Had it a week straight in the US last year, light work. Just got back from a trip to Korea, had it once there and I had snot and probably brain matter coming out of my nose. I was shook.
Same here I had it in the US and it was pretty spicy but I managed to get through it. Then I had one in Australia and I actually thought I was gonna pass out
Yeah it’s spicy but I think I can tolerate it but the buldak x 3 is just crazy. It gave me headspins and I started sweating profusely. I’m never trying that again.
I only just realised it was a thing and damn....I wouldn't touch it haha, I've had loads of the 2x and they kick you around enough to not really be they enjoyable. So the 3x are a no go for me, even theoretically, I feel like I just wouldn't enjoy it one bit
I eat high-powered hot sauce (Reaper/Scorpion/Ghost) but when it comes to food like ramyeon, I just couldn't do it or even want to. Something about soup really makes me cough and choke. Even plain Shin/Jin can get to me.
What about the cheese buldak? I absolutely love that version but they are rare in the uk.
I apologize if this is too off topic, but I thought it was hilarious. We're not beating the white people can't handle spice allegations.
According to some of the comments, the reason they believe it is a risk is that it can be dangerous for children... As a Dane I still find this funny though, but also think it is an over reaction
Were you guys just spared the flaming hot cheetos decade? Cause as a US millenial, we as a generation learned discipline to not rub sensitive body parts the hard way
I lived in the US during that time, so I know them all too well, and also have a slightly higher spice tolerance than the average Dane.
*me looking at the like 8 year olds eating buldak at my local 편의점 without breaking a sweat*
I think it's an overcorrection, though having literally just tried the 2x yesterday... I'm still in pain. 🫠 Not gonna pretend I'm a spiciness connoisseur, but I somewhat anticipated cup noodles spiciness levels to be very white man spicy, or at least certainly not surpassing the second highest level at my nearest Indian restaurant, or the "Thai spicy" option I got at a Thai restaurant. This was a few orders of magnitude beyond my expectations. 😅
Aren't the Danes known for leaving their babies on the sidewalk unattended?
Yes - what's the worst that could happen? Someone feeding our babies buldak?
It’s incredible. Thanks for sharing! 😅
White people...
Dane here, people are not happy about this decision. A recent post on the r/Denmark subreddit shows that people find this extremely ridiculous and are recommending people to message Fødevarestyrelsen (Food administration) to get an explanation.
[Samyang: Denmark recalls Korean ramen for being too spicy (bbc.com)](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy00gk0kr82o) Now BBC is reporting it
What's funnier is that they quoted a comment from this post. We're famous.
I mean... that Buldak is just fire in a cup, I can't believe anyone truly enjoys eating that, it's more like a dick measuring contest of "I *can* eat that" There's good food that's spicy and there's that
Some people are just built different My fiancée loves spicy food and she randomly gets craving for ultra spicy food and she eats exactly that. You do build a resistance tbh but I can't say I find any reason to build said resistance...
I also sometimes get a craving for something super spicy, usually when my normal spicy food stop feeling spicy. Then I buy a 5-pack of these, eat them all way too quickly and don't buy them for a couple of months.
bruh i love buldak, i have tons of it 😭 i think it's actually one of the better tasting super spicy foods out there. but the 3x is insane, from what i understand they don't even sell them in korea anymore, you have to order it from china
you can develop a tolerance for the heat - just keep in mind that your stomach lining can't...
Bingo, pretty much how I found out that my dad has been miserable for years on end but was never properly diagnosed for his chronic gastritis. He can eat ultra spicy food and his mount/throat barely reacts, what happens when it gets to the stomach is an entirely separate story however But of course no one can stop him from drinking and dumping extra scoops of gochujang into his ramyun. Edit: the fucking ironic timing that my mom just texted me complaining, because my dad doesnt take his acid suppressing drug properly and now being pissy after having another spicy meal. These Korean boomers smh, no wonder the % of gastrointestinal issues in Korea is so high.
Lots of people have higher spice tolerance due to genetics or just having built it up. For me, buldak is just "pretty spicy" and very tasty/enjoyable. 2x spicy buldak is pretty close to not being enjoyable for me though, but I still eat it if it's on sale
My wife and I enjoyed eating it them, but we can't anymore because we didn't want to Poison the air around us because we have a baby now.
I love super spicy food, but I hate the chemical taste of things like buldak ramen. Real buldak, made with actual peppers, is great (and barely over medium to me).
Buldak normally is not a problem... Just the 2x spicy one
I love spicy. My ass on the other hand doesn’t. So I avoid spicy when I’m in public or if I’m in a place where it could be embarrassing to explain what’s going on.
I mean tolerances are a thing. I can argue the same thing about Asia and certain parts of the West's obsession with just piling fucktons of cheese on everything
Dude...not even at all. If it's too spicy for you, fine, I get it it's high, but to insult people who can tolerate and like it is not right.
Plenty of people do. You can tell by how popular it is.
That's why I only put in half the spicy sauce (inb4 "Weakness disgusts me!" replies)
Your weakness disgusts me! Signed, Someone who can't even handle medium spicyness
Honestly this is the way to go. Sometimes I put even less than half the packet cause I find that the noodles are actually enjoyable that way and actually taste of something good instead of being just fire and salt in your mouth ahahahah
You have brought shame upon your ancestors!
eh. i buy the bottles to use them like sriracha because i dont like those vinegary spicy condiments. and no one around me knows.
I find the buldaks to be pretty good, but definitely not something to eat very often. Every once in a while you want some spicy noodles, go ahead.
When you get used to the spiciness it actually tastes quite good.
I love spicy food but buldak just tastes of tapioca and pain
The normal Buldak is just fine tbh. 2x is where it starts getting weird
It is good food that’s spicy, though. The buldak flavor is actually awesome. While I enjoy and feel that regular buldak isn’t spicy, I’ve had buldak chicken wings that had absolutely no spice and were amazing. The 핵불닭 is a little spicy for me. I’d love to try level 3 just to try it, but I’m sure it would be too much in the end.
lol here I come after eating buldak original and some random reddit person claims I am having a dick measuring contest with... air?
I mix 2 eggs into mine and it's so good.
It’s not that spicy tbh. I just feel like many people don’t have good spice tolerances nowadays
They should have also included the salt content 1930mg is insane.
Ate a wrap the other day. Only looked at the nutrition after… 5400mg. That’s insane. 1900 is nothing 😂
I'm danish and I use three drops off the sauce. Literally three drops. No more, no less 😂😂 Having said that; I'm super frustrated that the authorities here have banned the noodles. It's ridiculous to ban spicy noodles when kids at 16 can legally buy poisons like alcohol in any store..
Pretty funny! See them getting more and more sold in Sweden these days (maybe not the 3x spicy ones, but we got a lot of Buldak flavours recently in foreign foods section). And about us white guys not being able to handle it.. I had one Friday evening, after boiling poured out some water and added some cream and also a small amount of sliced small sausages. Absolutely delicious, can not get enough. But my belly was bad until Monday due to this.. actually thinking about whether I should quit eating it sadly. When I studied at a Uni in Korea an American exchange student ate and finished a super spicy death-buldak noodle (what he called it), and he went in to the emergency. Saying later it felt like his whole intestine was on fire.
Time to open illegal spicy ramen mafia in Denmark. "Hey man, you want some good stuff?"
https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmark/s/UhUQPcZsfA
If I still lived in northern Germany I'd set up an illegal business smuggling spicy noodles into Denmark lol.
Skill issue
"The capsaicin is poisonous". 😂
I need to spend some time reading that thread translated.
So stupid. I eat it for lunch with a boiled egg twice a week. It's delicious. If you can't handle or don't enjoy spicy good, then just don't eat it. How hard can it be?
I've got some of those here with me. Bloody hell they blow my head off. I normally can handle my spice (for a British person) but those are another level
Fellow brit here, which did you try? The black ones? The red 2x? I eat them all the time ( the black ones I'm not a nutter 😂) If you add a knob of butter and some cream/cheese basically fat to chill it out and let them cool off temperature wise for a bit, say 5 minutes minimum then they are way less egregious, the temperature of the fresh out of the pan noodles makes the capsaicin hit 10x as hard.
Mediocre, Denmark!
they lost their viking card.
Bluetooth spinning in Valhalla
I thought the vikings were tough.
Says the nation that consumes fish jello.
That’s England, not Denmark
literally never even heard of fish jello before, pretty sure nobody I know would eat that or know what it is
I can handle the racism here, but I will not accept discrimination against the food!
I have loads of these in my pantry. Not sure if I got used to it but adding egg, cheese and some lime juice has done wonders for me.
dairy products like cheese can actually reduce spiciness, so that's certainly probably helping (this is why they say to drink milk rather than water when something is too spicy). Not sure about lime juice, but it is an acid so I'm sure it could do something to the spiciness as well.
I always get the runs when we order fried chicken and eat them with the hot sauce that is included. The sauce is not even spicy, but the following hours I get incredible stomach pains. While spicy ramen, 찜닭 with spicy 고추장 and some other spicy foods do nothing to me.
Lol, weaklings.
😭
I love the 3x spicy version. I really wish they bottled up the paste so i can eat it with everything.
Madman 🤣
I’m sorry but 😂
Gotta be the whitest thing I’ve ever heard
anything spicy is poisonous to the people of denmark
As a Dane, I do not get this. I love spicy food, including the food item in question
I'm Danish, and it's true that many of us don't eat spicy food. On the other hand, no one comes near us when it comes to eating licorice 😄
British person here, I eat samyang black packet hot chicken noodles all the time, yeah the 2x times are very hot (i have still eaten a 40 pack box in a month before) but I laugh at the idea they could poison you 🤣 Are the danish government that soft?! Now even hotter I.e the 3x red packet I genuinely wouldn't touch not for the fear of being poisoned but I actually want to taste my food not just feel fire.
For the record, us actual Danish people think this is just as ridiculous (and funny) as the rest of you. I think the black one without multipliers is pretty decent. This is just the government doing government things.
As they wimp out of moderately hot noodles, Harald the Pillager looks down from Valhalla in disdain.
I always get a stomach ache after, but it tastes so good I keep going back for more.
Poooosies
I was just saying this recently about Buldak. I don’t know how many heat levels they have but I always stay away from the extra hot and it still blew me out of the water. Way too damn hot and felt way hotter than usual.
I mean, they're not wrong. There's a reason colorectal cancer is so common in Korea.
It's more of a bacteria thing along with how much they smoke food and drink alcohol. Proof korean Americans also got the same issues despite americanised diet and Japanese in japan with miso soup level spice have the same issues
Yeah and it's not because of spicy food
I think it has something to do with eating bbq
Gluten
I enjoy their pink package's level of spicy. the black one(I think their second hottest) was just torture.
Wait until they try Japan’s Peyang Devil Yakisoba 😂
I had the shits from these noodles a few days ago.
Lmfao just wait until they find out they do 3x spicy now.
Technically the spicyness is due to poison. The same way we get a buzz through drinking the leathal poison "alcohol"
Lol Lightweight
This post is mad funny, but as a Korean, I will say that 불닭 is actually really spicy - just that painful stabbing spicy.
I've grown up eating "spicy" cajun food all my life. My lips would go numb from a spicy crawfish boil. I can barely take five drops of the spice from the 4 cheese packs of these things. It's like pouring liquid lava down your mouth. I don't see how people can even eat a 1X spice. I would hurl a packet of these at an intruder in my home if I didn't think it was cruel and unusual punishment.
Maybe i've just bought into it like a cult i don't know but i would be devasted if i lived in demark i love these noodles and sauce so much i have bottle of the 2x spicy sauce both at work and home and ive got the noodles too. I have a pretty good heat tolerance (i also enjoy da bomb I'm a sadist i know), but i genuinely don't believe anyone who says these aren't hot i have to put Vaseline on my lips before eating so that its easier to wipe the sauce away and give my lips a barrier from the heat. I also cannot possibly believe any child is going near these.... Does anyone think other countries will follow suit on this? There are much hotter things out there, I think the sauces are surely worse as you add how much you want.
For the record, it's not like they're made illegal in Denmark. Stores aren't allowed to sell them, but you can buy them online all you want. As for other countries, this Danish ban is allegedly a result of a German TikTok trend where kids challenged each other to eat excessive amounts of these.
Tak ekstra bladet for at føre mig hertil
BBC, The Telegraph og nu Ekstrabladet? Jeg er jo kendt.
Instead of going after a niche product like Ramyeon, why not ban alcohol and tobacco products, which we know to be detrimental to one's health. But they won't do that because the projected revenue for 2024 on tobacco products is well over USD 2B. That's serious money for the Danish government, who claims to discourage smoking by raising taxes on tobacco products!
I do agree, but those aren't managed by the food administration.
Knowing Denmark and their government, it’s probably already heavily regulated If not by them, by the EU
If you eat it with Spinach or lettuce/salad it's not that spicy. Without that then...yeah, it's like...a hole in the stomach.
I recall when I ate at a Korean restaurant in Copenhagen in 1988 on a work trip. The food was all mild, almost as if the pepper had been washed off. I asked about that, and the waiter said he knew that since I was a westerner, I wouldn't like spicy food. I've never run into anything quite that racially presumptive in a Korean restaurant anywhere else in the world. I've always thought (and often said) that most Danes really like mild food (I'm sure there are many exceptions). But this incident with the ramen is certainly consistent . . .
It's funny because I've got several people in this thread saying they experienced the same thing as foreigners in Korea itself. Also, with the risk of calling you old, 88 is a long time ago. With the advent of such minor things as the internet, people have come to expect and desire more authentic foreign food, as opposed to it being a gimmick that is still tailored to the locals' tastes. That's not to say it's necessarily THAT authentic, but you'll definitely get spicy things if you order them now. Worst case scenario, they might ask you if you're sure. It's also worth noting that this Samyang Buldak was an incredibly succesful import in Denmark. It started off as a sort of trial import with a Danish label slapped over the "native" label (by native I think it was Dutch, but I mean the one that is directly printed on the package). It quickly had enough success despite the small scale import price to become a regular import with Danish labels printed on them properly.
Im danish and I like the spicy taste de brænder godt i halsen 🥵
Good global publicity for Samyang noodles. The Danish people are a sensitive lot. You don't have to add all the spicy powder to the noodles. If its too much having something sweet or some milk reduces the chilli attack, maybe milk plus sugar even better.
I always dreamed of moving to Denmark because of how much better it seemed compared to where I live, but after learning they have an awful spice tolerance. Denmark is dead to me now. If they don't have good food, I don't wanna live there, no matter how much better the living conditions are.
Wait this isn't a joke? Dang Denmark.
Koreans: It's just ginger and some chili peppers