Cheap, microwavable or stove-top ‘food’ from the supermarket is lying to us; and I’m going to prove it!

I don’t mean marketing that claims something with 500g of salt and sugar and 15g of protein is a health food; but rather that “ready in two minutes” is a load of BS.

Sure, the non-descript item may take two minutes to heat up in the microwave, but what about preparation? It doesn’t say “heat up in just two minutes,” it says it’s “ready” in that time; and here lies the lie – see what I did there.

When you’re hungry enough to go for one of these items, adding an extra two minutes to the already required “ready in two minutes” is criminal.

“…before you can start step one of your two-minute noodle journey, you’re more than three minutes in.”

And that’s not taking into consideration the cool-down phase – which is on the cooking instructions as “let cool down for one minute” – yet not included in the timeframe. If the cool-down phase is required, why isn’t it “ready in three minutes” if we just went by the required timeframes outlined on the packet?

This isn’t just the off-brand satay noodles that I bought for $3 from Woolworths that inspired this blog; even our beloved Maggi 2 Minute Noodles overpromise on the front and under-deliver with the instructions.

Step one requires boiling water. According to a thrilling video by YouTuber Michael Ruppe, bringing about 1 litre of room temperature (20°C-ish) water to a boil adds three minutes and 20 seconds to your preparation time.

So now, without doing anything else, before you can start step one of your two-minute noodle journey, you’re more than three minutes in. Yet according to Maggi’s website, the preparation time to obtain boiling water for step one is 0 minutes.

If we ignore everything else, two-minute noodles are really ‘five minute, 20 second noodles’.

I wonder what else they’re lying to us about. *Cue X-Files music*.