Healthy Instant Noodles

Are they ever healthy? What if they can be?

The Pyramid of Luxuries

The Bespoke - $1,000 Grocery Gift Card

The Ultra High End - $100 Mountain Warehouse eGift Card

The Superpremium - The Autobahn

The Premium Core - Rechargeable Hand Warmers

The Accessible Core - Healthy Instant Noodles

The Affordable Luxury - TRIVIA: Which of these animals has the longest lifespan?

The Everyday Luxury - BBQ Social + Charity Tentative Date

The Bespoke

Click on the banner to enter The Bespoke Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $1,000 Grocery Gift Card [ARV $1,000]

• Odds: For every 130 Ducky Tran premium member by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) Grocery gift card

• Contest Period: October 2, 2024 at 10 AM CST to October 29, 2024 at 10 PM CST

The Ultra High End

Previous Contest Winner

The winner of Issue 47 Ultra High End Contest is TIMOTHY from LEWISVILLE, TEXAS! Here’s his submission for “your favorite footwear”:

Congratulations to TIMOTHY, you’re going to need those running shoes to run off the box of chocolates you won from Kate Wiser! Let’s take a look at some other submissions:

I thought there would be some more fancy ones, but most were your daily wears or most comfortable footwear. No crocs? No fancy high heels? Utility beats price.

This Week’s Contest

Click on the banner to enter The Ultra High End Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $100 Mountain Warehouse Digital Gift Card [ARV $100]

• Odds: For every 70 Ducky Tran premium members that submit a valid entry, I will give out one (1) digital gift card

• Contest Period: October 16, 2024 at 10 AM CST to October 22, 2024 at 10 PM CST

This week’s focus is physical wealth and one of the essentials is clothing. The temperature finally dropped and it finally feels like autumn for the next few days in Texas. Time to add to that collection of jackets and vests you collect every year! However, outerwear seems to strictly be priced based on brand names. There are similar jackets and coats at three different stores with prices ranging from $50-$300. That just doesn’t make sense.

Let me introduce you to Mountain Warehouse, originally selling distributors bulk coats, they now own 300+ stores and started in a country where everyone carries a coat all the time, the UK. Surprisingly, they are extreme affordable especially for the bigger items that would normally cost $300-$1,000 elsewhere, they sell for less than $200, and sometimes less than $100. They have the history, brand, and price to be a great add to your fall or winter closet.

The Superpremium

This week’s Superpremium topic is the Autobahn. What’s the first thing everyone thinks about when they hear the Autobahn, the no speed limits right? However, I like it for another reason, the same reason I quite dislike the US highways, trash.

The Autobahn is famous for its stretches of limitless speed lanes and high posted speed limits. My experience with this world changing roads was they were clean. When I say clean, I’m not saying no potholes and swept medians. I’m talking about NO trash, not even little rocks, cans, paper, tires, or anything. I don’t know if it’s just my luck or not, but I drove on the Autobahn for a total of 3-4 hours and I did not see any debris anywhere. I know that sounds crazy if you drive on US highways, where trash, debris, diapers and tires harbor all the medians. I was so amazed the first day, that during the week I spent driving on the Autobahn, I kept trying to look for trash on the roads.

This not only enhanced my testing of cars but made me love Germany even more. A bit unrelated to the Autobahn, but the drivers were pretty awesome too. There were a few odd balls, but essentially 99% of every car I saw on the Autobahn stuck to rules that made the driving experience so much more relaxing and enjoyable. It is as if they had something to lose, their licenses. FYI: In 2024, it costs about $3,300 to get a driving license in Germany versus $10-$80 in the US.

There are areas on the Autobahn that are slower due to dangerous or congested traffic; however, 70% of the Autobahn has no speed limits. It’s never safe to go faster than suggested speeds, which is 80 mph on the Autobahn, but it is nice to have the ability without feeling like you need to look around for a hiding Trooper. Plus, I got to test some cars native to Europe and got to really enjoy their performance capabilities.

The Autobahn isn’t a destination for everyone, but if you’re in Germany, why not take a scenic drive in your favorite European car.

The Premium Core

I always thought it was weird seeing people crack those disposable hand warmers so I never bought them. Just felt like a waste for 30 minutes of warmth, it’s my frugality kicking in. However, the world is progressing and disposable is not as cost effective for everyone. In these upcoming cold months, don’t be caught with your hands in your pits trying to warm up.

Deal #1: This week you can get some rechargeable hand warmers for just $10, normally $18-$20! Go to shop.duckytran.com and keep your hands warm all season. There will be 5 warmers available.

The Accessible Core

The Value of Living Elsewhere

Over 120 billion servings of instant ramen noodles were consumed in 2023, with 5 billion servings being consumed in the United States alone. This makes it one of many common starchy processed foods eaten in the world. Being exposed to so many people in such quantity, you would think people would think about its nutrition more; however, because ramen is seen as a base and many times the addition of meats, vegetables, and spices is expected to complete the meal, it has been neglected.

Yes, the nutrition of the grains put into the noodle may have been improved over time; however, studies have showed that processed nutrient sources such as noodles and vitamins have less than 90% of their nutrition uptake by the body. This is a problem because a large amount of the instant ramen eaten is not actually accompanied by other meats or vegetables. This means the nutrient-lacking noodles becomes a nutrient-lacking meal.

Not unlike potato chips, the instant ramen just becomes a tasty snack meant to carry you to the next meal. There are a few companies out there improving the nutrition in instant ramen by using other starches to create their noodles and less salt in their broths; however, the true heroes are researchers that are spending time to learn how to improve nutrient absorption in lightly processed foods like noodles. There are many large companies trying to improve these effects and only time will show results of this multi-billion-dollar industry. Until then, I’ll still have to get fancy and boil eggs and add vegetables to my Tom Yum Mama Noodles.

The Affordable Luxury

Issue 47 Community Poll Results

Here’s results from last week’s poll:

1. I was so surprised about this. With the amount of ramen eaten in the US, most of you selected you eat ramen, instant or not, monthly or rarely. I love ramen! I did not expect it being eaten so rarely.

2. This was not a surprise, but your favorite starch is rice, with ramen coming in a close second.

3. With nearly all the votes, $1,000 worth of groceries is the vote for the next Bespoke prize. I will implement it again for December.

This Week’s Community Poll

Here are this week’s poll questions:

The Everyday Luxury

Based on the feedback for the date for the BBQ Social + Charity, it will tentatively be Saturday, December 14 @ 11:00. I will update with more information as I get it.

(The referral program is only viewable on the email version of the newsletter.)

Visit shop.duckytran.com with the weekly password: ramen