Eating Healthy as a College Student

If you are in college and either trying to avoid the “freshman 15” or simply want to eat a healthier diet, your very strict budget might make this a little more complicated.

But even without a big kitchen to use and money to buy whatever ingredients you want, you can still eat better and stay within your budget.

Here are some tips for eating healthier as a college student, whether you live in a dorm or an apartment with friends.


Get Compact Appliances to Help You Cook

To start with, you need appliances that will help you cook your meals, whether you are in a dorm or apartment.

Think about simple appliances that cook many different types of meals, and won’t take up a lot of space.

For example, a pressure cooker like an Instant Pot is a great investment. It doesn’t take up a lot of space and will help you cook a lot of different foods in very little time.

Some others include a blender, mini-fridge or toaster oven.


Choose Healthy Food with a Long Shelf Life

Since you probably don’t have a full-size refrigerator if you are in a dorm, a lot of your food will need to stay fresh on the counter or shelves.

This is when foods with a long shelf life come in, like crackers, nuts, seeds, nut butters, and granola bars.

Think about foods that you can keep in your dorm room or apartment and grab on the way to class as a snack. It keeps you from going to the dining hall and ordering overly-priced food there.


Start Your Day With a Healthy Breakfast

Always start your busy school days with a healthy breakfast, preferably one you prepared yourself in your apartment or dorm room.

If you can do this before you head to your first class, you will be much less likely to snack throughout the day until your next regular meal.


Split Meals with Friends

When you eat out with friends, it can help both your budget and your waistline if you choose to split meals with friends.

Ask a friend if they want to split a meal with you, and you share the cost 50/50. This is a great option if you would normally have leftovers, but have nowhere to store them.


Split Your Takeout Meals

Another option for takeout meals is to split it in half, and save the other half for the next day.

If you have a mini-fridge in your dorm room or a regular fridge in an apartment, you can get meals that tend to have more than one serving, like a bowl from Chipotle, and save half for tomorrow’s lunch.

How to Avoid Wasting Food

Wasting food is hard on anyone, whether you are on a budget or you just don’t like seeing food being thrown away. Luckily, there are many ways to reduce food waste, stop throwing out all the produce you don’t use, and use up those leftovers.


Have a Plan for Everything You Buy

Now is the time to stop with the impulse buys and grabbing ingredients you think you might use, but don’t have an actual plan for. This tends to happen when you are the grocery store and see something that sounds good or that is new, and you want to try it.

The problem is that if you don’t have a very specific plan for what meal to use it for, it is often unnecessary and might not even be used up before it expires.


Always Have a Meal Plan and a List

If you want to avoid wasting food, aside from having a plan for what you buy, you should have a detailed meal plan and grocery list before you step foot in the store.

As always, start with food you already have, then create meals based on that. Make a list of ingredients you need for all the meals and snacks for the week or however long your food budget is for.


Find Creative Ways to Use Leftovers

When it comes to leftovers, people often make the mistake of leaving the meal as it was originally served. While this does help sometimes, it can quickly become unexciting, which increases the chances of it just sitting in the fridge until it goes bad.

Instead, think about other ways you can use those meals or side dishes into other meals.

For example, leftover roasted chicken can be used for so many different meals. Put it in a casserole, make chicken quesadillas or enchiladas, or shred it up for chicken salad.


Know How to Store Your Produce

Produce is one of the most common types of foods to go bad and end up being thrown away. There are a few things you can do to prevent this, beginning with understanding how and where to store your produce.

Did you know that some produce releases ethylene and others are sensitive to it? If you store an ethylene-producing food with an ethylene-sensitive food, it’s going to go bad faster.

For example, don’t store your potatoes with your avocados. Potatoes are sensitive to as, and avocados release a lot of the ethylene gas.

Freeze What You Can’t Finish

If you have a meal or foods that you know you won’t finish eating before it goes bad, consider putting it in the freezer.

A lot more foods than you might think can do well in the freezer. Did you know you can freeze cheese? It freezes really well, so if you buy bags in bulk, put half of it in another freezer bag, label it, and keep it frozen until you’re ready to use it.

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Cheers, Helene Malmsio

Related Reading: https://www.discoveryhub.net/Healthy-Eating-Plan.html

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