What consists of the student diet?

[Amethyst Wind]

The student diet consists of mainly cheap carbohydrates and they-call-this-meat-? proteins.

Bargain shopping at its most basic.

During the 2nd year of Uni I didn't drink a thing besides tap water to save money.

 

[smithy_2045]

The past week I've lived on 2 minute noodles, microwaved pasta and pizza. Normally though, since I still live at home, I don't even have to cook myself that much.

 

[Penguinness]

It's definately been a case of, oo that's quite nice.. I think I'll have that EVERY DAY FOR 2 MONTHS

Trends have been:
- Pasta + Cheese
- Coco Shreddies for every meal
- Poptarts like everyone else
- Pizzas.. well sometimes ristorante pizzas are like £1 each, normal price of £2.50, bulk buy them!
- Chicken Dippers + Ketchup, who needs chips?
- This last semester it's been nothing but toast, or nut roast burgers with cheese in toasted bread.

I occasionally go over to having nothing but salad, but as it goes on in a semester, the less I go out to a shop, and veg doesn't keep that long.

One meal that actually involves cooking that I recommend is this:
Big batch of rice, cook it
Fry bacon
Fry onions
Make scrambled Eggs
Mix together with a huge amount of soy sauce, that'll do for like 6 meals or more.

Having your parents on a low household income rocks! Bursaries and loans up the ying-yang.

 

[Verp]

Freezer is your friend, as are the woods, feral fruit trees, and your parents' garden if they have one. Nothing quite spiffs up a boring old porridge or a bowl of cereal than blueberries and apples that you've picked yourself and surplus raspberries and rhubarbs from your parents.

Don't overlook trash -- stores throw out perfectly safe and edible by the motherload every day. Cold seasons are the safest because the food remains fresh for a longer period of time.

I pretty much overlook pasta, rice, potatoes, and bread altogether, although I do consume bread and potatoes if I happen to find some in the trash. But even then I choose to give the white bread to my fellow students while I only eat the dark bread (anywhere between 60-100% rye). My diet otherwise consists of meat, eggs, dairy products, vegetables, fruit, and grain in the form of a bowl of porridge in the morning.

I've tried to eat more fish, but I just don't like most fish that you can find at a palatable price.

 

[AngloDoom]

Pasta and noodles are indeed a big one: just don't get those instant noodles.

I enjoy cooking, so I just ate normally but scoped the town for deals first. I spend about £120 per month on food and household items and I have four big meals a day, a gym-membership, and do a martial-art three times a month. The only reason I can afford all this and most other people can't is because I simply don't drink very often if at all and I prefer pubs to clubs.

Student life isn't so bad, but now with rising student fees it may be a totally different scenario.

(If not from England, disregard all of the above)


Still, things I've tried and things my friends have tried include:

- Onion-ring and chicken-nugget stir-fry
- Chocolate fudge and brownie mocha
- Tuna porridge (Stay away)

At some point we're actually making a video-series out of boredom in which we draw random food-categories out of a hat, such as "reduced" or "looks like a potato" and cooking them together and see what we make.

(Likes cooking a little bit too much <<)

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Rice with ketchup and herbs
Oats with milk
Pasta with ketchup and herbs
Some cheap bulk fruit now and then
Vitamin pills due to the obvious lack of diversity.

 

[templeg]

I'm in the first year of sixth form (that's in the UK, I don't know what the equivalent is in the US but my year is aged 16-17) and my daily diet at school goes- scrum for biscuits at short break, complain when it's something rubbish like fig rolls, hoard if it's Jaffa Cakes or chocolate bourbons or something else good, then about three slices of toast and Flora at lunch. That's more or less what everyone does, except that I hate coffee and tea and everyone else cannot survive without them. I have a friend who goes through three giant thermoses of very strong coffee a day.

 

[Deverfro]

Bulk Buy rice

This is sound advice. Mix in some lentils during cooking and you have a wonderful and healthy meal. Add a little soy sauce for taste.

It is the staple of my diet. I couldn't imagine living without.

Rice can go with just about anything, plus it fills you up fast.

 

[Pilkingtube]

I bulk bought pasta my first week here. I have since cooked EVERYTHING with pasta, seriously. I think the worst I've dropped to so far is honey&mustard, roasted onion and chilli pasta, it was not as good as i thought it would be.

Oh and my roommate has been running an experiment to see how long he can live literally just eating sainsbury's value noodles, he's lasted 3 weeks without death!

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Find some friends and rotate a main daily meal between yourselves. Food usually comes in portions of four. It means you are only cooking once a week, and for a lunch survive of cheap soup, or make your own sandwiches.
Spagetti bolognaise is excellent for multiple people and cheap. anything pasta or rice based is perfect student chow. Buy pizzas frozen in supermarkets, dirt cheap. Fast food may be nice but they really aren't nutritional and you will feel it the next day when you have no energy and feel like a fat mess. Try to learn to cook several pasta or rice dishes and you should be set.

Oh, and go home as often as possible, you never truly appreciate your mum making dinner until you've been away at uni a few months.

 

[SpiralDots]

I could survive off pasta for ages if I wanted to, but I usually have a pretty varied diet - it depends what offers are on each week (right now I'm eating lots of yoghurt as it's all only 50p for a big tub and lots of different flavours) and I also shop late at night to get all the "reduced to clear" stuff (saves me tons on stuff like bread)

 

[Zantos]

It's exam time at the minute so I'm living on a diet of coffee, red bull, skittles and takeaway. Today was curry.

Most of the time it's pasta and something involving cheap meat and tinned tomatoes, or sandwiches