Can anyone recommend the best foods to buy for student life?

To me, there are only two food routes to be taken, when you are a hungry college student. its either frozen or in a can. either way, salt is a key ingredient. if you have a fridge, i would choose the frozen food route. generally, frozen food contains less salt and weighes less. canned food is heavy and contains too much salt as a preservative. also, you might consider a toaster oven. many meals can be cooked in a small toaster oven.

Thanks for your answer, although i want to be able to keep making fresh foods and steer clear of anything i haven’t made myself.

Hope you find your solution. i never did find mine, when i was in college. i ate a lot of pizza.

Although that sounds like heaven to me I’m pretty unhealthy and my weight has gained dramatically and I feel the best time for me to change is at university where i’ll be buying my own shopping and creating my own meals. Fresh start!

Are you fairly proficient at cooking for yourself? Do you have access to a stove, or are you going have to microwave? How picky of an eater are you?

@BarnacleBill I have access to an oven, a microwave and a grill.

A simple cookbook like this one is your best start. Students are generally time-strapped and tend to eat on the run, so that equates to junk. If you can get in the habit of taking the 15 minutes or working ahead, you will cultivate better habits.

Noodles, rice and salads are great quick and easy to consume and or add to other meals once you prepare a bunch for later in the week. Mixing up your own “trail mix” to grab a handful on the fly is great too!

@BarnacleBill Thanks for that answer, i’ve made myself a promise to make time for proper meals i just need to get to working out what type of meals to make haha.

@Cruiser Thanks for your answer, but what is a trail mix?

The types of ingredients you will need to have on hand are salt, pepper, olive oil, garlic powder (not salt), basil, thyme, chili powder, sugar, flour, hot sauce, peanut butter, soy sauce, fish sauce.

You should buy canned black beans, chick peas, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce products, chicken broth, several types of pasta, rice.

With this base, and buying onions, lemons, celery, fresh tomatoes, broccoli and carrots, plus a meat you can make just about anything.

The best thing to do is to plan your week. If you bake or grill several (4 or more) chicken breasts on Sunday, then you can make stir-fried rice, chicken salad, chicken soup, or just eat leftovers.

Most vegetables will combine into broth to make a great soup.

If you make more than you need and freeze portions right away, then when you are in a hurry you can take soup, or chili or chicken and rice that you made right out of the freezer and reheat that.

@BarnacleBill That is exactly the type of question I was hoping for! So helpful, I’m going to write this down now so I won’t forget. Thanks everyone!

@BarnacleBill has come up with a good basic list.

Yogurt
Eggs
Nuts
Corn tortillas
Salsa
Cup o Noodles
Microwave popcorn

Pasta is always a good starter to build a meal around. It is filling, relatively cheap and can go with just about anything.

@lsdh182 A trail mix gets it’s name from a mix of dried fruits and nuts and even chocolate and or peanut butter morsels which are all very portable high energy food for when hiking on the trail or in your case at school. You can buy them in most stores or make your own with your favorite items.

I lived in the dorms and ate whatever they served in that cafeteria. The only thing I kept in my dorm room in a little fridge was beer :-/

Ah my halls are self catering so washing up galore for me!

@Cruiser ah I think i’ve seen my step mum prepare these in little tupperware boxes for lunch, definitely be handy between long lectures, I guess it’ll stop me spending a lot of money on sandwiches and fruit pots whilst out and about too, thanks!

First thing you need to do is get your hand on two things: an electric skillet, and an electric tea pot (boiling water in the microwave is very dangerous) Both can be had at WalMart for less than $20, and both will allow you to make whatever you want, when someone else has a monopoly on the stove.

Use your skillet to stir-fry some veggies, your boiling water to cook up some instant rice, and shazaam – healthy dinner in ten minutes. You can easily grill chicken breasts, or even whip up some Hamburger Helper (not as healthy, but easy!)

Top Ramen, cup’o’Soup, hot dogs, tortillas, rice and beans. Enjoy your college experience.

@lsdh182 you said an oven, a grill, and a microwave, no stove top?

There are several breakfast burrito recipes like this one scattered across the web that help you make a months worth of breakfast burritos at a time. Make them, then throw them in the freezer, and remove one and nuke for a few minutes every morning. It has the perks of frozen dinners without the unhealthiness.

@papayalily Watch out for those eggs with the salmonella.

@Ben_Dover You’re supposed to scramble them first. Personally, I don’t like eggs in my breakfast burritos unless it’s been made from scratch in the past 15 minutes, so I just stock up on the other stuff.

Geez Now a day I would live on the dollar menu and fast food resteraunts.

@Frenchfry Iunderstand that those dollar menus can cause gall stones and kidney stones.

@Ben_Dover Haven’t got one yet. LOL Where did you get that statics?

There’s lots of quick and healthy meals you can make for yourself.
This site is handy. Lots of fresh fruit & veg which I’d buy daily, as opposed to bulk, home-made soup is a nutritious, cheap and easy to make.
Allow yourself to indulge in your favourite things every now and then too. It’s all about keeping it balanced. Best of luck & enjoy college life :)

@Frenchfry From people who got gallstones and /or kidney stones when their diet consisted of said menu items.

watch out for MSG heartburn from eating to many noodles…I got it bad in university from making a bulk purchase of Co-op brand noodles…fruits are the way to go

@talljasperman IF you react badly to MSG. I could eat that crap all day long and never have any problems.

I’m with @talljasperman, don’t depend on or make ramen that big a part of your diet. It’s very tempting; it’s cheap and easy, but think of all the things and people you’ve encountered so far in your life that were cheap and easy and ask yourself: Do I want this or them to be a once or twice daily part of my life? It think the answer will be clear. Anyway, the same shit everyone else tells you: fruit, whole grains, planning ahead and cooking meals in advance; keep your freezer clean and organized and get a cheap microwave, that will help you easily re-heat leftovers or meals you have managed to make in advance.

@papayalily Not me. MSG laced foods make me kind of insane, well more insane than I normally am, if one can actually be more than normally insane. :-) Anyway, MSG doesn’t agree with me, bottom line.

@lillycoyote I third not making ramen a huge part of your diet, but not because of MSG, but because of the lack of nutrients. I had a month where my diet was almost entirely ramen, and I was so weak and my brain was fuzzy and everything was harder. I ended up passing out in my apartment, and that’s when the ramen diet ended.

@papayalily Yes, the ramen thing is very tempting and I had a serious ramen phase when I was a student. It’s certainly cheap and very satisfying, in the moment, and tasty because of the salt and carbs and all the artificial ingredients, but you’re right, not good for you at all. It kind of gives the illusion that you have fed yourself, but you really haven’t at all.

@lillycoyote Wow, I think it tastes like piss. I mean, I liked it when I was 10, but only because my mother wouldn’t let me have it, so my aunt let me have it when I was over at her house, and I love forbidden fruit as much as the next guy.

@papayalily I kind of had my own way of fixing it. I would always drain the noodles, saute them in a little butter and add about half the seasoning packet and then throw in whatever miscellaneous crap I might have in my fridge. I think it only tastes like piss if you don’t drain the water. Anyway, my ramen days are long, long over. The stuff kind of scares me now, to be honest.

@lillycoyote Ah, yeah I was doing it the way it says on the package.

I do like the Vietnamese noodle bowls that have ramen-like noodles made of rice with Nuoc Cham, lettuce, bean sprouts, chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, egg rolls, mint, cilantro, and peanuts.

Saimin! Yummy!

Sorry to be a little lazy, but there was a question like this a few weeks ago. I posted these things that require very little cooking/ prep. I still eat like this even though I have a whole kitchen now. Lazyness ftw? link

All I had was a “hot plate” and I cooked canned soup and was Still starving. Plus, we weren’t allowed to cook in the dorm. No microwaves in those days and a big Boo Hoo.

@Aster That sucks. You know, another idea is to get a part time job in a restaurant! Bring home plenty of good togo!

I bet a job like that would be really hard to get. And you’d have to take a lot fewer classes. I took as many courses as I could.
I was so dumb. I needed a big pan and canned stew but all I ate was vegetarian vegetable soup, my favorite. Maybe dorm life wasn’t as great as I remember.