I am currently in Chicago as an exchange professor at the university I graduated from. My major is chemistry. I am continuing my research from Korea and also teaching undergraduate classes, living each day in a whirlwind. Since I spend so much time in the lab, it's hard to eat properly.

At the age of forty, I am single, and since I don't have family here, I have to handle most things on my own. To be honest, when I was feeling lazy, I sometimes relied on instant noodles for all three meals. It was so convenient because I could just pour water and have it ready in three minutes during busy experiments. It tastes good, and I could eat quickly and get back to work.

But I started to feel that this was causing problems.

At first, I thought I was just tired. It was really hard to get up in the morning, my head wasn't clear, and my body felt heavy all the time. Then one day, I experienced chills like a cold, and my skin would frequently break out in rashes that would come and go.

I wondered if it was the Chicago weather, so I tried drinking warm tea and took multivitamins, but there wasn't much difference.

Then I went to the hospital and had a simple blood test, and the doctor said, "There's no specific illness, but your immunity is significantly low."

Hearing that made me suddenly think of my eating habits. Instant noodles. I realized I had been eating them way too often. I think I had instant noodles or frozen instant meals at least 6-8 times a week.

So from that moment, I decided to make a change.

The first thing I implemented was reducing flour. Once I learned that most instant foods, including instant noodles, are made with refined flour, I thought that was the first thing I needed to cut out.

At first, it was really hard. A day felt empty without noodles. Even though I was full, something felt missing, and my stomach felt bored. I realized how scary habits can be.

But I forced myself to endure. Instead, I started cooking a large batch of brown rice and freezing it in portions, and I made side dishes with store-bought kimchi, boiled eggs, and canned salmon. It was simple, but I began to change my diet to 'real food.'

After a week, I started to feel some changes. First of all, my stomach felt less bloated, and going to the bathroom was much easier. I wondered if it was because of the flour, but the next week was even more surprising.

Strangely, it became easier to wake up in the morning, and even after spending a long time in the lab, I didn't feel as fatigued as before. My concentration improved. Most importantly, the lingering cough and dry throat that felt like a cold disappeared.

Could it really be because of the flour?

I am a chemistry major. I tend to be skeptical and want to interpret everything scientifically. So I looked for papers and dug through data.

The results were quite convincing.

Refined flour, in particular, can worsen gut health and trigger inflammatory responses. The gut is where more than 70% of immune cells are located, so gut health is directly linked to immunity. Foods high in preservatives and sodium, like instant noodles, can make the gut more sensitive, and eating them repeatedly can burden the immune system.

That's when I truly felt it. A significant part of why I had been feeling unwell was due to my eating habits.

I am still just as busy these days. There are times when I feel anxious waiting for experiment results, and I am pressed for deadlines on papers. However, I now hardly eat instant noodles. There are very rare cheat days when I do, but most of the time, I make sure to have at least one meal of 'real food.'

Life in Chicago is still lonely, and being a professor is a constant competition. But as my body gradually recovers, my mindset is changing too.

If there's anyone out there who is living off instant noodles or instant foods and feels unnecessarily heavy, I hope you will try reducing flour at least once.

You might experience a bigger change than you expect.

This is the experimental result that a chemistry professor in Chicago, who only did experiments, felt firsthand. I will conclude with this today.