But, "student food" is usually not all that healthy - TV dinners, Kraft dinner, and pizza are usually staples. Here are some suggestions for healthy student living that I learned while I was living on my own while at Cornell:
Getting your vegetables and fruit:
Since I usually only went grocery shopping about once every two or three weeks, I ran into the problem of my fruits and veggies going bad before I could eat them all, and also not having a lot of fresh fruits and veggies that last week before I went grocery shopping again. Here are some ways to get around that:
- Store your fruits and veggies in tupperware in the fridge to make them last longer
- Apples, oranges and carrots last really long in the fridge
- Buy some frozen veggies that you can easily steam in the microwave with dinner (it will do when you run out of the fresh stuff)
- Apple sauce and real fruit/veggie drinks will stay for a long time and are an easy way of getting your fruit/veggies
- When you do decide to buy something at the caf, go for a salad to get a veggies boost between grocery store visits
Alternatives to Kraft Dinner, TV dinners and canned soup:
I think the reason why so many students eat a lot of these foods are because they are quick, easy, and last forever in the freezer/cupboard. Here are some other suggestions:
- Make your own TV dinners! I had some really great take-out containers and I would make massive batches of stir-fries (with more veggies and nutrition than the store-bought ones), fill up my containers and freeze them.
- Make a large pot of healthy pasta sauce (tomatoes, beef, veggies if you like) and then freeze them in individual portions. This way, you can easy boil up some pasta (whole wheat is the best choice) and microwave your sauce to go on top)
- The same goes for soup - instead of super salty canned soup, make a large pot of your own and then just freeze in individual portions
Other easy meal ideas:
- I found that my bread would go stale before I could eat it all, so I just freeze any bread products right away. Microwave for sandwiches or put in the toaster oven for toast. The same goes for muffins!
- Leftovers are wonderful things - always make more than you'll eat, so you'll get multiple meals. My favourite was to make a chicken breast and then enjoy it in salads, sandwiches, and tacos for the next few days (but be careful about chicken - I'd usually only give it about three days)
- Breakfast foods are great at any time of day - toast, healthy cereal, eggs etc.
- If you're craving pizza, try this: get a tortilla, and put on it some cheese, chicken/beef, tomatoes, veggies, and then fry it in a frying pan. The gooey cheese makes it taste like pizza, but it's way healthier!
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