Balanced and low-cost diet for a busy student

Low-cost YET nutritious meals for a BUSY student life

As a student ambassador, I usually get questions about living expenses, especially about meals and food, from prospective students and their parents. Personally speaking, how to have a balanced diet, yet not so time- or money-consuming, has been one of my major concerns.  Additionally, pursuing a PhD life for me means working in the lab from 8:30 till 5 every day in the week, and usually after that, I have no energy left to cook nice meals. For a couple of months, my food was decent and balanced but BORING! Also, I honestly did not enjoy the process of thinking what to cook every day; it indeed bugged me a lot since I found it hard to concentrate on work when I had to calculate what to cook to make sure I would have something to please my hanger after 30 or 45 minutes I got home.  I believe this is common for many of students as well, regardless of the study level, because an undergraduate can be super busy if there are lots of society events/social activities or part-time job shifts. Such a nightmare!!! Meals should be something that we enjoy (who doesn’t love food???!!!) but it gradually became a real burden to me…until I got enlightened by my housemate: WEEKEND MEAL PREP(aration)!

So what is ‘weekend meal prep’?

Step 1: I will plan ahead on Friday or Saturday what kind of main dish I would like to have for the following week. I tend to go for 10 meals (Monday-Friday, lunch and dinner) and the menu is usually a combination of vegetarian, meat (poultry or pork, well basically meat of your choice) and fish/seafood with a ratio of 4-4-2, respectively. With this, you will limit your chance of having food high in fat, sugar or salt from stores or takeaways. 

Step 2: Once I get the menu done (usually 3-4 different main dishes), I will get all necessary ingredients. By doing this in one go, you tend to save more money because this are fewer chances that you will do a takeaway or ready meal . Also, with planning, you can get great deals or offers from supermarkets.

Step 3: Cooking!!!!

I find planning boosts the process a lot and it helps save so much more time. For example, if the meat requires to be marinated, it will be chopped first and while waiting for that, I would cut all vegetables or herbs involved! By processing all ingredients in one go, I also save a lot of water required for washing up!

Step 4: Storage

Make use of the freezer! I get several glass containers (yes, if you decide to do meal prep, I advise you to invest in those – they are sturdy and long-lasting, and also oven-friendly).

Step 5: Enjoy a hassle-free meal after work/study

(I transfer a box from the freezer to the fridge the night before so the food is relatively thawed when I get home J and the first thing upon home arrival is get the rice cooker on so that after a relaxing shower, my meal is ready, nice and steamy! Voilaaa)

Thao - Vietnamese student ambassador :)