Bloomberg just did an interesting article (well, mainly interesting if you’re into things like commodity pricing) about the surge in wheat imports to Indonesia, which the business news outlet attributes to an an increasing appetite amongst the Indonesian middle class for bread and pastries. These shifts have caused Indonesia to become the number two biggest importer of wheat in the world.
But the most interesting factoid we found in the the article was this:
Wow, 53 packets per year. That means Indonesians eat more than one packet of instant noodles per week, on average. And in reality, that means some Indonesians are eating way, way more than one packet of instant noodles per week.
And who can blame us, when we have such easy access to the best instant noodles in the world, Indomie?
The Bloomberg article mentions the fact because Indonesia’s noodle industry actually used a whopping 70 percent of the nation’s wheat flour last year, far more than the 20 percent used by bakeries. So it seems like it could be argued that our addiction to instant noodles might be just as big a factor in increasing wheat imports as our apparently growing fondness for bread.
So be honest, do you eat more or less instant noodles per year than the average Indonesian? Personally, we’re going to have to admit that we’re probably closer to triple the national average. Yes, we are aware that that is incredibly unhealthy, but it’s so damn tasty! We’d rather die young and full of Indomie then grow old in a world without it.
