As you will be returning to university in the next few weeks, you’ve probably learnt some bad habits as far as food is concerned. You’ve probably eaten one too many takeaways and fast food and needlessly wasted leftovers. You need to re-learn some good habits as you head back to university or go for the first time.
Divide and Freeze Meat on the Day of Purchase
Are you in the habit of putting the entire packet of chicken in the freezer in its plastic container? The problem with that is that when you take it out, you can’t refreeze it. Freeze it together and you must thaw it all at the same time. Getting freezer bags and putting one fillet per bag means you only need to defrost what you need at the time. You will find you get through (and waste) a lot less meat.
Choose Canned Soup Over Fresh
It’s a myth that canned / tinned soup (or anything else for that matter) is less fresh and therefore less nutritious. As demonstrated on BBC food show Eat Well For Less? in August 2016, canned soup is made fresh, canned immediately while still cold and then cooked in their cans. Canned soup is considerably cheaper than the plastic tubs in the refrigerated section. Soup is a cheap and nutritious meal for students.
Make Cake or Bread with Over-ripe Bananas
Bananas are one of the cheapest types of fruit to buy. They are healthy, tasty and nutritious. The problem is that so many of them are thrown away when the skin is brown, even when they are still yellow inside. Even if you don’t like eating them like this, they will be ideal for making banana cake or banana bread. You can wow your friends with a cheap and tasty cake and ensure that bananas don’t go to waste.
Forage
Now, this will require a little local knowledge about what to pick and where to go to get them. It’s amazing just how much stuff around us we can eat. Blackberries (autumn) are the one that everybody knows. But did you know that you can harvest stinging nettles – with care, of course – and make a soup? Nettles are best picked in winter. Add some wild garlic for extra flavour. In the spring, pick dandelion, watercress and elderflowers.
End of Day Supermarket Buys
Go shopping towards the end of the day – typically 9pm during the week, 7pm on a Saturday and around 3pm on a Sunday. This is when the supermarkets have their largest discounts to get rid of their fresh stock. They won’t be able to sell bread, vegetables, salad and fruit the following day so they will sell it for silly money. Packets of crumpets for 20p, loaves of gourmet bread for 20p, salad bags for 10p – they just want to get rid of it and you will save money in the process.