Let us consider the basics of what it means to ‘eat healthily’ in the medical sense; gobble your greens, get your five-a-day, fishes of the oily kind, away with the cupcakes – the usual advice that we all know (and love, obviously). When it comes to your average student however, various mitigating circumstances and unbeatable external forces may prevent many of us from even bothering to manage our five-a-week, let alone anything else. Now girls – I’m not here to guilt trip you into a half-hearted post-Fresher’s detox, nor am I here to wax lyrical about the benefits of brussel sprouts (although I do happen to believe they truly are the superheroes of the veggie world, but that’s another story). The university lifestyle, unfortunately, makes many prone to piling on the pounds, but there is another way to ensure you’re cutting back those calories without necessarily even thinking about it – it’s all about doing a bit of savvy swapping-around when it comes to your usual treats and binges. So before you shudder at the sight of a beetroot, let us consider the basics of what it means to ‘eat healthily’ – the student way.
Scenario 1: Breakfast on-the-go
Your Usual: Kellogg’s Frosties
Your Savvy Substitution: Ciabatta Bread
Although it may be the most quick, easy (and tasty) meal ever invented, please girls – don’t be a cereal killer. Most cereals of the sugary kind contain almost a quarter of your daily intake of sugar in an adult-sized bowl (which is, by the way, far from the meagre 30g representing the nutritional values on the front of most cereal boxes), not to mention the sugar and fat content many of us disregard with the addition of milk. Ciabatta bread, despite being slightly more fatty than other breads, will ensure you’re not over-doing it on the sugar and as well as having the added benefit of containing olive oil (essential for good hair and skin, which of course ticks all our boxes in life), leaves you feeling fuller for longer than most cheap cereals can achieve.
Scenario 2: The Quick Cuppa
Your Usual: full fat milk
Your Savvy Substitution: soy milk
Milk can be a sly, little thing. I mentioned earlier how many of us disregard its fatty/sugar content, and indeed tend to add it to almost anything we can get our hands on; but mostly, that morning mug of tea that sets us up nicely for the day, or settles us down smoothly for an alcohol-free (!) evening in with the girls. You’ll find that the natural thickness of soy milk – made by grinding soy beans with water – gives a better texture to your food, as well as a slightly sweeter taste that should mean there’s no need to add those extra cheeky two (three?) sugars to your tea. Also, as soy milk is borne of vegetable origins, you can smugly pass it off as having had a part of your vegetable portion for the day. Marvellous.
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Scenario 3: Sneaky Seminar Snacks
Your Usual: Walker’s Ready Salted
Your Savvy Substitution: Snack-a-Jacks
I’m delving into the Valley of the Crisp Addicts here with extreme caution, because I know how precious you lot are about your daily fix – they really can be very addictive. As opposed to your usual Walkers or McCoy’s and the various other popular brands that are simply down-right awful for you, the Snack-a-Jack substitute is a valuable one to make. The rice cake imitation means a whopping eighty per cent less fat content, less saturated content, thus obviously far less calories. They’re also less messy to eat (who wants those greasy, salty nails that harbour that not-so-alluring taste of cheese and onion?) and as opposed to the deep-fried, yellow blotches of your average crisps, these are a lighter, prettier snack to look at – and we all deserve to eat pretty things in keeping with our pretty selves, don’t we?
Scenario 4: Between-Lectures-Lunch
Your Usual: pre-packaged sandwiches
Your Savvy Substitute: your own!
You’d be amazed the amount of additives that exist in these harmless looking bits of bread and cheap meat; despite the angelic appearance of a simple sandwich sitting in the front-of-shop fridge, they’ve still originated from a factory and a journey from some distant land that also calls for the added necessity of preservatives. It doesn’t take long to whack open a can of tuna and throw it on your own (brown) bread in the mornings. Better still, prepare the filling the night before when you get a spare moment, then pack it into some funky tupperware for the following day.
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Scenario 5: Diva-ish Dinners
Your Usual: some shocking ready meal
Your Savvy Substitute: still a ready meal, but slightly less shocking in nature
After a long, painful day of academia, we all have those evenings where we just can’t be bothered; that’ll be all folks, duvet duty calls. If you must, must have a ready meal, then you’ll often find that the smaller food store chains offer healthier ready meal options within their own brands than the bigger stores. As opposed to Sainsbury’s Indian chicken madras with rice ready meal, for example – containing an eye-watering 29.2g of fat (almost half your daily intake!), and 751 calories – Co-Op, in this case, really does co-operate with our bodies more, offering a mere 10.7g of fat and 560 calories in a similar ready meal curry. Pass us another naan, then.
Scenario 6: Devilish Desserts
Your usual: Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice-Cream
Your Savvy Substitute: Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice-Cream (Wait, what?)
We all need a little indulgence once in a while. I don’t know about you, but I’m not prepared to substitute this for anything.
Picture credits: www.pinterest.com