In a city that centers around the college lifestyle, it’s hard not to get sucked into the norm of five-minute meals and 2 a.m. fast food breaks.
When it comes to food, quick and easy is usually synonymous with take-out or drive-through. With a full class schedule, work, friends and internships, most students don’t exactly have the time to whip up a full meal.
This is apparent when the drive-through window at McDonald’s and the line at Chipotle are both packed at lunch time.
Although moderation is key, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to start making your favorite fast-food meals at home — just as fast but half as bad for you, human nutrition professor Sharon Hoerr said.
Not to mention the savings factor that eating in will have on your quickly dwindling bank account.
“The problem is time and that’s what most students are short of,” she said. “It’s just convenience and time that are the real con of home food preparation for most college students. The advantage of preparing your own food is cost — to save money. If you make good choices, you can get a lot more nutrition and good taste for less money. Most people don’t make good choices — they either don’t care to or don’t know how to.”
Ronda Bokram, staff nutritionist at Olin Health Center and a registered dietitian, said it’s all about variety.
“I really don’t believe there is a bad food. You just have to eat a variety of things over time,” Bokram said.
“It’s really about the whole of your nutrition. How you eat over the whole day and whole week and whole month.”
If you are the type to eat fast food multiple times a week, there are ways to eat the things you love without having to worry about the health risks. Here are new ways to make your old favorites at home in a healthy way.
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