Last week a college friend and I were talking about dorm food. Living on a student budget and with the most minimal of cooking equipment, we stocked up on canned goods and instant ramen noodles. Not the healthiest of diets and are we glad we're way past that stage.

Although the instant noodles are a quick, easy and reliable source of carbohydrates on study nights you run out of bread and too busy to cook rice or pasta, those same noodles are to be prepared with packets of flavouring which are in essence sodium. And how do the noodles remain crisp in storage? They're deep-fried. Eating more than 3 servings a week would definitely lead to bloating, weight gain, hypertension and not to mention possible kidney disease.

Given in some circumstances those noodles are a necessary evil (hey, think of stormy days stranded somewhere and you can't get to a grocery), and you have to eat a bowl or two, make sure to drink at least two glasses of water to wash away all that sodium and whatever preservatives they put in there.