Vite Ramen v1.2 Full Patch Notes

Vite Ramen v1.2 Full Patch Notes

by Jian Zheng


A new patch will go live on Windows PC, Xbox, and PlayStation  v1.2 -- A HUGE revamp, v1.2 sees changes in everything from flavor to bioavailability to even less plastic use! To commemorate these changes, we’re also changing the names of these flavors as well to reflect their flavor profiles better.

What’s Changed?

NEW: MASSIVELY upgraded flavors

Massive improvements to all flavors in respect to umami, mouthfeel, aroma and….just about everything. Seriously, they have to be tasted to be believed. All flavors have also been rebalanced with the powdered MCT coconut oil in mind, and so take full advantage of the improved mouthfeel and emulsification offered by the MCT. 

 

Soy Sauce Chicken ----> Roasted Soy Sauce Chicken

  • Nutrition facts updated to reflect v1.2 recipe

  • Tastes WAY better

  • More roast

  • More soy

  • More chicken

  • MORE BETTER

  • More balanced, unlike Echo

  • Just better all around tbh

 

Garlic Pork -----> Garlic Pork Tonkotsu

  • Nutrition facts updated to reflect v1.2 recipe

  • Fixed a bug that allowed Garlic Pork to teleport to unintended locations

  • Thicker, richer broth

  • But like, not like need to eat it with a fork

  • It does get jello-y if you put it in the fridge though, like a good tonkotsu does

  • Which if you’re into eating soups with a fork then do that and it’ll work

  • We don’t judge

  • Actually if someone makes xiao long bao with that we’d be stoked

  • Nvm I’ll do it

 

Vegan Miso -----> Vegan White Miso

  • Nutrition facts updated to reflect v1.2 recipe

  • Sesame seed removed. Rejoice sesame allergy people!

  • Removed red miso that some people found objectionable

  • More than doubled the amount of white miso

  • Introduced more vegetable notes similar to v1.0

  • Also has a thicker, richer texture

  • You could say we made Vite Ramen through thick and thin

  • Don’t think too much about that last phrase

  • I certainly didn’t

 

NEW: Noodtrients have revamped bioavailability

  • Your body gets even more nutrition from Vite Ramen.

  • Okay there’s too much science for this section, so scroll down for the explanations below

 

UPDATE: Potassium citrate replaced by new type of potassium for improved flavor

  • Turns out 1% of the population experiences a really bitter, medicinal reaction to potassium citrate, kinda like cilantro people.

    • No, potassium citrate and cilantro aren’t related.

  • So we replaced it with an advanced potassium chloride (KCl) salt instead

    • Different crystal structure than regular KCl means more salty taste and no metallic or bitter taste

  • We actually did a taste test with a cilantro person and a potassium person

  • Cilantro person got a better midterm and finals score because they ate their potassium

  • Potassium person gets to enjoy all forms of Mexican and Chinese cuisine tho

  • Not really sure who the winner was tbh

 

NEW: Removed canola oil pouch in favor of coconut derived powdered MCT oil

  • This means less packaging and better for the environment, yay!

  • Also preliminary evidence towards MCT having multiple benefits, like mental function and fat loss

  • Take that with a grain of salt though, it’s not a solid deal yet

  • Unless you’re trying to restrict your sodium, in which... I dunno, take it with a grain of potassium or something

  • Directly incorporated into the Noodtrient/Seasoning Pouch, which is getting pretty big tbh

  • Does not make Vite Ramen taste like coconuts, which is a plus or a negative



NEW: Packaging upgraded to #1 recyclable

  • Pillow pack now utilizes PET film, which is one of the most easily recycled materials

  • Now kinda see through because of it

  • You can see nood silhouettes

  • Scandalous



V1.2 Bioavailability and Nutrition Changes

What exactly is bioavailability? 

Simply put, bioavailability is your body’s ability to absorb the particular form of nutrient. Nutrition facts on a label don’t give the amount of micronutrients your body will actually be absorbing, but rather the amount of raw, elemental micronutrients that is present in the food. This means that different forms of different micronutrients will yield different amounts of absorbable, or bioavailable vitamins and minerals in the body.

Let’s take magnesium, for example. Magnesium oxide has the highest percentage of elemental magnesium, which means that the absolute amount of magnesium is highest in this form. Despite this, it’s not very soluble, leading to the body not absorbing as much of it, kind of like salt or sugar that just refuses to dissolve in a drink. By contrast, magnesium citrate, and especially magnesium gluconate, the form we’re using in v1.2, are very well tolerated by the body and exhibit the highest bioavailability that we currently know. 

There are many, many different forms of every single micronutrient that our body needs, and some are significantly cheaper than others. We’re committed to making Vite Ramen the best it can be, instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel for the cheapest forms with poor bioavailability for a quick buck. Take a look at the most popular multivitamins out there and check out what kind of magnesium they have, for instance, and you’ll immediately see the difference.

We’ve made a sweeping set of changes to our micronutrients as we learn more through evidence based scientific research. Read on to see the changes along with why we made them!

 

Vitamin A

  • Retinyl Palmitate -----> Retinyl Acetate

  • Swapped to remove any traces of palm oil use in our product, even microscopic amounts. While some palm oil can be sourced from sustainable, non-deforestation methods, it’s difficult to trace the source, so it’s better for us to stay away from palitate entirely.

 

Folate

  • Folic Acid -----> Calcium-L-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate

  • Calcium-L-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate (try saying that 5 times fast) may be more absorbable for some people, as it’s the active form of folic acid. A highly requested form of folate.

  • Bioavailability of folates found in food is actually only 80% of folic acid, which means Calcium-L-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate may actually be more bioavailable than eating foods with folates in them.

  • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24944062

Vitamin K

  • Phytonadione -----> Phytonadione + Menaquinone-7

  • Despite it just being generally referred to as “Vitamin K”, there are actually two forms. We’re now utilizing both vitamin K1 and MK7 with a 50/50 blend, utilizing the more bioavailable MK7 version which increases serum K levels, rather than the MK4 version, which doesn’t.

  • https://innovixlabs.com/blogs/insights/vitamin-k1-vs-k2-a-side-by-side-comparison

Vitamin B6

  • Pyridoxine HCl -----> Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate

  • Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate exhibits higher potential bioavailability, being the functional form of vitamin B6. 

  • We mostly put this one in because it was highly requested; however, the evidence isn’t as strong given the EFSA states that it needs to be dephosphorylated (e.g. taking off the 5-phosphate) before absorption anyway

  • https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2903/j.efsa.2008.760

Vitamin B12

 

Vitamin D

  • Cholecalciferol -----> Ergocalciferol

  • This one is actually switching from D3 to vitamin D2, which is technically slightly less bioavailable

  • However, the primary reason for switching is that a consistent vegan D3 source is difficult to come by-- Vitamin D3 is primarily sourced from sheep wool. Our previous source of vegan D3, derived from lichen, became unavailable. Being that we wanted to make sure our vegan ingredients were completely vegan, we made the switch to D2 instead.

 

Vitamin E

  • D-a-tocopheryl Succinate -----> D-a-tocopheryl Acetate

  • This switch is more of a practical switch as well, with there being no significant literature on succinate and acetate bioavailability. However, D-a-tocopheryl acetate is just easier to source!

Magnesium

  • Magnesium Citrate -----> Magnesium Gluconate

  • Study of magnesium bioavailability from ten organic and inorganic Mg salts in Mg-depleted rats using a stable isotope approach shows magnesium gluconate having the highest bioavailability.

  • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16548135

 

Zinc

 

Copper

  • Copper Gluconate -----> Copper Glycinate

  • Copper Gluconate is a easily soluble form in water

  • http://www.chemicalland21.com/lifescience/foco/COPPER%20GLUCONATE.htm

  • However, glycinate = bound to amino acid, which is larger but tends to be more bioavailable. No studies that directly compare the bioavailability of copper from gluconate to glycinate, but as a general rule of thumb, glycinate tends to be more bioavailable.

 

Calcium

  • Calcium Carbonate -----> Calcium Citrate

  • Calcium Carbonate had poor water solubility, requiring extra acid for absorption. Solubility is likely linked to rates of absorption, though it’s not a fact cemented in stone yet.

  • Calcium citrate exhibits high bioavailability, though citrate-malate consistently exhibits the highest bioavailability with high solubility. This becomes more of a supply chain problem, as we’re currently unable to source citrate-malate.

  • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11329115

  • https://aor.ca/blog/understanding-different-types-of-calcium-part-2

 

Selenium

 

Manganese

  • Manganese Sulfate -----> Manganese Glycinate

  • Manganese Sulfate is an inorganic form, with manganese glycinate being an organic form that utilizes the well tolerated glycinate format, and thus being more bioavailable.

 

Molybdenum

  • Sodium Molybdate -----> Molybdenum Glycinate

  • Same story as Manganese and the other swaps to glycinate!

 

Iron

  • Ferrous Gluconate -----> REMOVED!

  • Okay, this one’s a bit more interesting. With our new flavor formulations, we actually managed to introduce enough iron into the v1.2 formulas to have enough iron without needing to add any additional Ferrous Gluconate! Too much iron can also be an issue, causing things like intestinal discomfort, so we do try to keep things balanced.

 

Potassium

  • Potassium Citrate -----> Advanced Potassium Chloride

  • We utilize potassium salts to add salinity to the broth without exceeding sodium limits, but previously we were unable to add beyond a certain threshold before it got exceedingly metallic and bitter. This was the primary cause of the “vitamin taste” that some people were experiencing in the first iterations.

  • The v1.2 flavor formula was designed so that we could incorporate more of an advanced type of potassium chloride to not only increase the perceived salinity of the broth, but also satisfy the amount of nutritional potassium we wanted in the ramen!



Side note: MCT oil

MCT stands for Medium Chain Triglycerides, and are a kind of oil that can be derived from many different sources, such as coconut and palm. We use a vegan coconut MCT in our formulation, specifically utilizing a C8:C10 version with a 70:30 ratio. C8 and C10 refer to the amount of carbon atoms in the fatty acid chain, where lower carbon atom variations are supposed to be better and easier to break down into ketones for those in keto.

Not real relevant here, since you’re not in ketosis if you’re eating a balanced macronutrient ramen, but worth mentioning for education’s sake. They’re notably easier to break down for energy in general though.

The addition of powdered MCT oil served multiple different functions. We actually experimented with many different kinds of ways of incorporating the oil directly into the powder, from utilizing maltodextrin canola oil carriers to xanthan gum sunflower oil carriers. They all turned out okay but didn’t really get us to the kind of thickness and texture we wanted from slurping the soup. We wanted something that could really get us that rich, delicious mouthfeel we’d get from real ramen restaurants.

When testing MCT oil powder, however, we found that it really created an awesome richness that really gave a hearty body to the soup, and we knew we had to use it. An interesting thing when we were testing different MCT powders is that some MCT powders do actually have coconutty tastes to them, while others have almost a molasses/maple syrup kind of flavor to them. Interesting, but not what we really want from it, so we went with the most neutral one.

MCT does add some saturated fat into the mix, but it is, as with everything, balanced at 25% of Daily Value. It’s a coconut base MCT, so there’s actually many preliminary studies showing that MCT can have some cool potential benefits to mental cognition and maaaybe even fat loss. We won’t link any studies or anything here simply because we don’t believe there’s enough evidence based studies to draw any conclusions yet, but hey, pretty cool regardless.

In the end, it does help us fulfill two big criteria we had going into this: Reducing more packaging, and improving the flavor and mouthfeel, which we think it succeeded very well on!

A note though-- coconut is considered a tree nut by the FDA, which is why we do have “tree nut” allergen statements on our products now. While you should definitely check with your doctor, experts generally regard coconut oil as not an allergen of concern for the vast majority of people: https://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/coconut-oil

 

Conclusion

Anyway, that’s one really long set of patch notes with all the massive changes we’ve made to v1.2! It’s what we’d call our first “stable” variant of Vite Ramen-- that is to say, we got most of the things we wanted in there, but obviously not everything. It’s the very first formulation of Vite Ramen that we’ve been able to create more or less from the ground up since we started this journey, and utilize all the lessons we’ve learned over these past few years with supply chains, R&D, and everything else.

 

We hope you enjoy, and as always, leave your comments and let us know what you think! We’re always listening and willing to change for the better :)

 

-Tim, Tom, and the Vite Ramen team

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