The best thing about the Chinese noodles, besides being quick and cheap, is they are easy to doctor up. You can pretty much add whatever leftover vegetables and meat you have on hand.
Onions, carrots, a left-over boiled egg, garlic (of course), or palmetto hearts. When things get tight I have been known to walk into the nearest vacant lot with a machete and to harvest a couple of pounds of palm hearts. In salad, steamed or stewed they are good eating.
Poke weed, wild parsnips, dandelion greens for a salad on the side or dropped in and stewed.
In the end Ramen noodles can eaten on their own, used as a soup base or just the starting point for a rich stew where the noodles are almost undetectable. In this later role it reminds me of the old story: "Nail Soup". The 'magic' nail gets the ball rolling so people have a reason to cooperate in the making of a stew.
MSG - "Whatever you do, dump the seasoning packet!"
Less sodium and less MSG are probably good. But I have my doubts as to the 'deadly' effects of these in an of themselves. For one the Japanese, on average, consume several times the salt as we do and their blood pressure is much better than ours. Perhaps less salt isn't the whole answer.
Large amounts of MSG probably isn't all that great for us either in large quantities but sometimes I eat stuff with MSG just to [censored] off the MSG conspiracy, worry trolls. I have a friend who used to give me this look like I was stuffing a can of Raid down my throat every time I ate Chinese take-out. It was drop-dead funny to watch. I kept commenting on how good it was and offering some to them. You would have thought it was radioactive waste.
MSG does add flavor and I simply think that the hyperbole about deadly MSG toxicity is bull. Other than for comedy effect I don't go out of my way to consume MSG but in moderation I see little harm.
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