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The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

How to Eat a Balanced-ish Diet Without Leaving Your Dorm Room

How to Eat a Balanced-ish Diet Without Leaving Your Dorm Room

Cheez-It - MCT Wire Service

Through some self-experimentation I have come up with a solution that will allow anyone to get pretty much all the nutritional value you need from the simple care package foods you have right in your dorm room.

First off, don’t even worry about carbs and fats. You will get plenty of these. The focus of the “dorm diet” falls on dairy, protein, vegetables, and fruit. The goal is to find the crackers, candies, and microwavables that hit these four areas enough to keep you nice and alive.

Let’s begin with dairy. My suggestion is to eat 13 snack stacks of Cheddar-flavored Pringles. Each fun size container is a great source of calcium, having up to 8 percent of your daily value. If Pringles aren’t for you, alternatives do exist. A serving size of Cheez-It’s have 4 percent of your daily calcium. Being that Cheez-It’s are made with real cheese, this may be a healthy alternative to Pringles. All you have to do is eat 25 servings of Cheez-It’s – 2 boxes – to meet your daily value of calcium.

Now on to protein. There are a few ways to get the 50 necessary grams of protein you need daily. Along with being delicious, a Maruchan Instant Lunch has 7 whole grams of protein in it. To meet you’re daily value, you’d only have to eat 8 of them! As an added bonus, the little carrot, pea, and corn pieces will come in handy later when we’re addressing vegetables. Of course you could always find protein in a place you wouldn’t expect it: Snack Pack Pudding. Eat 25 of those bad boys and you’re rocking the freshman 50, by which of course I mean 50 grams of protein.

Vegetables present an interesting challenge in the “dorm diet.” My suggestion would be to combine the veggies from the Instant Lunch with 13 hearty servings of Ranch Wheat Thins. However, if you chose to eat pudding for your protein, you can eat 2 bags of Red Vine Licorice, because I’m pretty sure licorice is a vegetable.

Finally, fruit. A serving of Fruity Pebbles contain 10 percent of your daily Vitamin C, so eating a box of the cereal will satisfy those needs. If you want something that will do a better job at stimulating your taste buds, you cannot go wrong with 8 Little Debbie Apple Pies. These pies are as delicious as they are nutritious.

So there you have it. A balanced-ish diet found right in your dorm room. After a day of eating healthy-like, don’t forget to treat yourself to desert. My suggestion is a few homemade mint chocolate brownies from mom. I’m pretty sure mint counts as a vegetable.

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