Awsome! I always wanted to make my own noodles as I luv noodles. I think the issue with a lot of store bought ones are high sodium content. If you look on the nutrition panel, you will see 40% of daily allowance of sodium per serving. I thinking if you make your own, not that much sodium in it?
That depends. If you're talking about instant noodles, then absolutely you'll use less sodium, since those come with high sodium (plain salt as well as MSG) flavour packets, and even the noodles themselves have more salt than usual to help them hold up in the manufacturing process where they're cooked and then fried to dry. There's a reason why you're not supposed to eat instant noodles regularly, even if it saved Japan from starving to death after losing the most epic deathmatch in history to date and they realize they don't have a lot of two things: money (or conquered resources) and farmers (ie they had the same problem Rome had, despite having a professional standing army, which, if the deathmatch is epic enough, still ends up with conscription).
Even non-instant dry noodles have salt, primarily as a preservative.
If you mean store bought fresh noodles...still, not exactly. Sure they have a bit more salt than usual owing to the need for a natural preservative, BUT you're still getting sodium in other ways either with those or by making your own noodles:
1. You need them in most Eastern noodle recipes as they act as a stabilizer. Hand-pulled round or hand-stretched flat noodles can't just autolyse without salt, they won't stretch and if you go far enough, they'll tear instead.
2. Italian noodles will get cooked in what essentially counts for clean seawater (ie it won't have dead fish in it, but has enough salt in it to match that). Then there's the sauce, even if you don't add much. How? Render the guanciale, and the cured pork is itself cured by coating it in salt, not all of it getting knocked off of it.
3. Asian noodles won't need salt in the cooking water since chances are the dough has salt,
but then you have sodium in the sauce or soup. Lots of it. Take ramen for example. The main broth/stock has no salt, just garlic and pork fat, but then that's poured into a bowl with dried tuna-based stock plus
tare, which is made by boiling dried tuna, dried tuna stock, wine/sake, and a load of salt or soy sauce (plus a little sugar) until the flavor is concentrated as it reduces. The original Korean version? Same thing except instead of dried tuna stock they used anchovy stock, and instead of a complex tare they just used finely crafted soy sauce. Speaking of which...when ramen doesn't have soy sauce or outrightconcentrated salt, they have miso, of which the soy sauce is the by product. Go south, and while you don't have a complex
tare, the Philippines adds fermented fish sauce to the mix, which is basically soy sauce but with fish, and really rancid if you go to where it's made (hell, even Worcestershire made in a cold climate stinks, guess how bad this is in NW Philippines, to non-locals anyway).
But then why aren't Italians and Asians dropping dead? Balanced diet. Outside of the Philippines and Vietnam (and soon, Korea), breakfast for example tends to be bland compared to the rest of each cuisine. There's also portion control. I have a friend who can down a huge bowl of ramen every night, but that's because he'd skip breakfast or lunch save for a piece of (sometimes steamed instead of baked) bread, no filling; just enough so he doesn't pass out at work. Knuckleheads like me who when out of pickled veg will just stuff a banh mi with kimchi (not to mention I've probably had a grilled cheese with kimchi for breakfast...as in literally it's in the grilled cheese...and man does my brother absolutely hate the "stank" when the aged cheese and fermented cabbage heat up on the skillet) are kind of rare. My water intake is so high (it's hot out here, OK) the salt ends up as white streaks on my black shirts instead of sticking around to kill my kidneys. That or maybe it's because I rarely drink soda anyway, mostly just several liters of pure water everyday and some coffee or tea.
