Changing your diet, to help your diet change you.

~ Written by Cyra Henson

Cooking as a student can be a horrifying experience, possibly you're just used to your mum's Sunday roast or maybe you just can't find what's the best fit for you. Either way this article will help provide you with some simple solutions and insights to help organise your food schedule and feel better about your general eating habits; from meal preparation ideas to intolerance solutions.

When you first get to university, you step into the supermarket and realise you have no idea where to start. Planning your meals can be tricky, but during my research 90% of those who prepare their meals in advance said that they feel as though it generally helps improves their eating habits as well as organisation skills . Not only does it make you feel better mentally, and physically but it also helps to avoid excessive or unnecessary spending; which can be very important as any student knows.

Many choose to shop with those around them; flatmates often purchase certain items together to save money by avoiding buying the same things and helping reducing waste. Items such as bread, butter, milk etc. are especially good to share between housemates if possible. Listing out individual ingredients and working out what you need before you go helps get a clearer view in your head of what you need, as well as making it possible to work out which items overlap between meals. Making cooking generally easier for you, and also stopping the purchasing of excess items; which often creates food overlap regularly resulting in food going to waste. Another way to avoid food wastage is by using up the items you may already have in your cupboard to create meals; making meals from scratch when you can.

“Google recipes for simple, yet impactful, meals and use this time to experiment with food types that you enjoy.”

Eve, 20. Third year student at Staffordshire university.

Making a dish from scratch can be very intimidating, especially for those of us that are culinarily challenged and manage to mess up a microwave meal. However, with the online resources available, there are many ways to making perfectly edible meals following simple instructions. Home-cooked meals have many advantages, first of which being able to spend less on each meal as many ingredients can be used across many dishes. Secondly, with cooking your own food you can create portions that work for you and be able to spread them over multiple days; meaning less preparation overall and less money spent when you can't be bothered to cook. Many websites such as 'BBC Good food' and 'Student recipes' have an assortment of meals for your preference; with recipes catered specifically towards students along with videos, photographs and specific proportion sizes to go along with them.

Making your food into multiple meals is a great way to save money and make your food last for longer, simply by portioning and saving it for later. Separating your meals, is a great way to get into a better routine, make your meal for the evening and put a portion of it away in a container splitting your meal into multiple saving you money and making it easier for you to eat when you don't feel like cooking, store in a freeze-able container until you're ready to eat, and simply heat up your already cooked meal. Eating the same meal can be quite boring, but a lot of students use their left over meals to create new ones; just by adding a few simple ingredients can change the meal entirely.

While writing this article I stumbled across many who suffered with intolerances or allergies that heavily affected their eating habits, a condition where your stomach reacts badly or doesn't digest properly to certain foods. Most commonly known forms are lactose intolerant ( dairy product ) and coeliac ( gluten ), intolerances can make your options very limited, causing the planning of food to be a lot harder of a task. Knowing what you can and can't have makes a world of difference when planning your food; and I set out to find out my own limitations to see how it would affect my day to day life.

For the purpose of getting a better insight, I decided to do a test myself using the organisation 'Check my body health' to learn what food I personally could/couldn't have in my diet. The process was very simple, I had to print out a barcode and put a few strands of my hair into a clear bag, then a week later I got my results. During which I found that I was both lactose intolerant and Coeliac ; dairy and gluten. Along with many more I didn't even think possible such as apples, bananas, and POPCORN.

Although I do admit, having a clearer idea of what to avoid has overall improved my eating habits; I cut out all food that was bad for me and examined how it affected me in daily life. I found myself less fatigued and more energized which really helped me find a more stable food plan that works for me; so I think finding the right habits for you can be very important and luckily with modern day recognition of certain dietary requirements many supermarkets now offer a vast range of alternatives for most foods.

Hopefully these few tips will help guide you on your own journey to better habits and a healthier lifestyle. As a student, it can be very difficult, but changes big or small make all the difference. Buying food with others, storing meals for later, making meals from scratch, and knowing what's good for your body is just the beginning of your own personalised path. But hopefully you'll find your own way to changing your diet so your diet can help change you...