Eating healthy at university seems like an impossible task when you combine a student-friendly budget and having the time. Spending hours cooking a healthy meal never appeals and the healthy choices in the supermarket are always expensive. With this in mind, I have created a Student Survival Guide to Healthy Eating with a few tips and tricks.
Eating healthy isn’t as difficult as it seems. With a small budget, you can still buy a lot of nutritious food that will last and can make a lot of scrummy meals.
Look up fun recipes – the idea of eating healthy isn’t usually at the top of the list for priorities, it seems more of an expense and inconvenience. However, by finding a good recipe book or some recipes online that appeal and include ingredients you enjoy it’s a game-changer. A recipe book I recommend is Nosh for Students - A Fun Student Cookbook by Joy May. There are some great healthy meal suggestions, it’s easy, you don’t need any fancy cooking utensils and they are simple recipes to follow. Perfect for students such as ourselves.
Freeze fruit – fruit always goes off so quickly in the fridge. Then it seems such a waste to have bought it for it to go off a few days later. So, instead why not freeze them. Get some freezer bags and cut up fruit to then freeze and enjoy later. Grapes are the best straight from the freezer.
Buy frozen vegetables – buy bags of spinach, broccoli, peppers and mixed veg from the supermarket. This can save space in the fridge; reduce waste and they aren’t expensive either. I always recommend frozen broccoli as it cooks within 4-5 minutes and can bulk up a lot of different meals. Aldi also does some great fruit mix bags, which they recommend adding to smoothies. They are inexpensive, tasty and last for ages.
Bulk cooking – by cooking large portions and freezing them you can save money and also time. When you come home from a long day of lectures all you need to do is defrost a portion in the microwave or heat it up from out the fridge without having to spend ages cooking every night. By bulk cooking two nights a week you’ll be saving lots of time and you will have the time to prepare and cook healthier meals full of vegetables and protein. Maybe dedicate a Sunday evening when you aren’t doing uni work to make a weeks’ worth of meals.
Eating healthy can become much easier on a student budget when you know which ingredients last the longest and you have fun recipes to cook.
