The first culprit of college eating habits is the famous freshman 15, as in the 15 pounds you gain from changing your diet habits. You can change the playbook and not fall prey to the unhealthy eating habits of college life. In this article, the first in a series of making your food budget stretch, I will share with you what low cost food staples to stock up on to keep your grocery bill small and your health thriving.
The college diet is plagued with temptations to eat low-cost & high-calorie foods because they are convenient. You know them well: Instant Ramen, Dollar Menu Items, Frozen Waffles, Frozen Pancakes, Frozen Chicken Tenders, Frozen Fries, Chips, Ranch dressing and the list goes on. These foods are easy to eat because they are cheap, fast to prepare, easy to heat in a microwave, easy to grab, and tasty. All these qualities make them oh-so-great for your busy college days. There are so many experiences to take in as you transition to young adulthood that you don’t have time to think about your food, much less prepare it. No thought goes into what you are feeding your body and so your body starts to accumulate extra calories, extra fat, and extra sugar. The extras are quietly laying the ground for a chronic disease patiently waiting to blitz you in a decade or less.
Motivation to Stay Away From Convenience Foods
I get it. You are overcommitted, overwhelmed, and broke. All three are great excuses to mind no attention to your diet. You don’t want one more thing to worry about, but you should consider what thoughtlessness about eating will do to your body.
The one noticeable effect of keeping an unhealthy diet is weight gain. I want you to think about the not-so-noticeable effects, those processes set forth inside your organs. The extra calories will turn to pounds by converting excess sugar to fat and overworking the pancreas. Those extra pounds will store fat that will add plaque your arteries. A few years down the road that overworked pancreas will fail in keeping up insulin production, landing you at the door of pre-diabetes or diabetes itself. Having this chronic condition means you will need to start paying for medication, higher health insurance premiums, and make paying for exams and checkups a permanent item in your budget.
Ask yourself, “Do I want to use my hard earned money to pay for a disease I can prevent by simply thinking about diet and exercise today? I think you would rather use that money for other ends. The cost of insulin can set you back anywhere from $300 to $1,200 a month depending on your dosage needs and insurance coverage!!! Just to help you consider the magnitude of those costs I want you to think about the following information. The average national medium monthly mortgage payment today is a little more than $1,500. Do the math and factor how big of a bite managing diabetes will take from your budget and financial security. It is in your best interest to take the time to take care of your diet now rather than risk chronic heath conditions.
The Cheap Foods That Will Keep You Healthy
Let me preface that these foods are cheap but require anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours to cook. There are kitchen electric gadgets that make then easier to cook with a method called dump and forget. I will talk about these methods in the recipes posts for each staple food, so make sure to look for them. Meet the cheap and healthy staples that should live in your pantry.
- Beans
- Oatmeal
- Rice
- Pasta
- Lentils
- Quinoa
What is great about these staples is that they are high in nutrients, density and variety. When I speak of density I mean they occupy more volume for their weight than other food options. One cup of beans will fill you more than 1 cup of Cheetos. The density might come from water absorption in the cooking process or the water you ingest when eating them. This density makes them more satiating than alternatives. All five items have several varieties, so it will be easy to vary their taste and texture weekly or daily depending on your resources and cooking sessions. In other words, you will not get stuck with certain flavors.
Varieties
Beans: Navy, Pinto, Black, Kidney, Blackeye, Lima, Garbanzo, etc..
Oatmeal: steel-cut, old-fashioned, quick-cooking
Rice: white, brown, black, wild, etc…
Pasta: semolina, wheat, gluten-free, whole-wheat, rice, etc…
Lentils: brown, red, green, etc..
Quinoa: white, red, black, tricolor
Wait, What About The Not Killing Me Part?
Each of these staples is loaded with rich nutrition and some of them are complex carbohydrates. Quinoa is packed with protein, 8 grams per cooked cup, so it can keep your muscles strong if you are eating less meat due to that small budget. Beans and lentils are rich in iron, protein and fiber. One 1/2 cup of beans has 8 grams of protein, 8.5 grams of fiber, and approximately 10 percent of your daily value for iron. Oatmeal is a great breakfast food that promotes digestion and is packed with sugar regulating and cholesterol reducing properties. Whole wheat pasta is a complex carbohydrate that is high in density and provides good amounts of fiber, folate, magnesium and zinc; plus you need less meat to feel full. I know chicken and meat are expensive on a college budget. I could only afford to buy tofu during my master’s year because small portions of protein were priced astronomically.
Do any of these sound like they will kill you? I think they all sound like excellent diet and health builders. Best of all you can buy all of these staples for less than $4 each. I think quinoa and oatmeal run most expensive for about $4 for a bag of steel-cut oats or 12 oz of quinoa; however, they will last over a week so each meal comes to cents on the dollar. You can not even buy a 20 oz coke and a bag of chips for $4 at today’s supermarket prices, so healthier is cheaper with these staples.
This brings me back to the point about cooking time. I will cover those details in individual posts for each staple. Each of these staples can be prepared in many different ways and have been adapted by several international culinary traditions. I will do my best to break down the basic recipe of how to cook each item and the gadgets or kitchen equipment you will need. I will focus on keeping expenses low and cooking sessions efficient, so that you thinking about what to eat is second-nature and you can focus your mind power in acing those term-papers and midterms.
Your life coach,
Kim
