How to eat healthy as a college student?

Cheap, fatty cuts of meat can be bought economically and batch slow-cooked and portioned out. Lamb, braise steak, pork shoulder are all excellent and cheap.

Potatoes, rice, pasta can all be bought cheaply and eaten in sufficient quantities to add cals to your diet.

Buying a whole chicken, roasting it and shredding it for lunches is cheaper than buying already butchered chicken in breast form.

All depends on your cooking skills and your dedication (and also what foods/food groups you specify as verboten)

Eating healthy as a college student is hard, but gaining as a college student on healthy foods is likely even harder.

For me, I kept my food cheap by looking into local options (farmers market, local butchers etc). Since graduating, I've kept going to the farmers markets, they're just so much cheaper; I literally get twice as many fruit/veggies as when I go to the grocery store.

The other thing is really just buying foods as they're on sale: discount meat especially. If you have any good, local butchers in the area, a lot of them offer deals like "buy four, get two free" on things like pork chops, chicken etc.

I also frequent Bulk Barn (and other stores like that) a lot to grab some of my basics like lentils and other dried beans that I can use to beef up meals protein wise on the cheap.

Last tip, repetition. If you aren't picky, it's cheaper to buy the ingredients to make only 3-4 different meals that you'll eat through out the week rather than something different for every day. Chili and crock pot pulled chicken are two of my (fairly cheap) faves.

@Lionesslindsey I take a lot of inspiration from many people... check out breelovesbeauty on youtube, she taught me this. I too am learning self love.

mccindy72 wrote: »

Eating take-out food is more expensive than buying your own food, no matter if you are a college student or anything else. When it comes to maintaining weight or gaining, healthy fats like avocado, peanut butter, whole nuts, hummus.... these will all help you. cheese is another good addition.

Yup. Eating out adds up quick. On a day to day basis, it might seem like the $100+ bucks you might pend at the store for two weeks of groceries is a lot, bu when you end up spending about $7-8 per meal on every meal, you can see how less than a week of eating out trumps groceries for two weeks.

I dislike cooking, so I tend to make batches of food that last a couple days. Good foods that you can buy in bulk and I have found are fairly cheap (expiration times vary):

• Bone-in chicken breasts
• Round or Chuck portions of beef (you can cook a lot of the fat out, especially if it is ground meat)
• Sweet Potatoes
• Eggs
• Broccolli
• Carrots
• Greek Yogurt (stuff has a super long expiration date)
• Cottage Cheese
• Wheat/Whole Grain Bread

Obviously, you need other things to round out your diet like nuts, fruits, etc. but use the cheaper foods you can find as a "base" for your meals and you will save a ton of money. I saw somebody say farmer's market, those are great for stocking up on produce if you have them available to you.

Also a good idea to try and meal plan a least a couple times a week. Will help you strategize when you hit the grocery store, and keeps you from getting frustrated when you don't know what to cook and giving into a craving to go out and eat. Has helped me a lot.

Brolympus wrote: »

mccindy72 wrote: »

Eating take-out food is more expensive than buying your own food, no matter if you are a college student or anything else. When it comes to maintaining weight or gaining, healthy fats like avocado, peanut butter, whole nuts, hummus.... these will all help you. cheese is another good addition.

Yup. Eating out adds up quick. On a day to day basis, it might seem like the $100+ bucks you might pend at the store for two weeks of groceries is a lot, bu when you end up spending about $7-8 per meal on every meal, you can see how less than a week of eating out trumps groceries for two weeks.

I dislike cooking, so I tend to make batches of food that last a couple days. Good foods that you can buy in bulk and I have found are fairly cheap (expiration times vary):

• Bone-in chicken breasts
• Round or Chuck portions of beef (you can cook a lot of the fat out, especially if it is ground meat)
• Sweet Potatoes
• Eggs
• Broccolli
• Carrots
• Greek Yogurt (stuff has a super long expiration date)
• Cottage Cheese
• Wheat/Whole Grain Bread

Obviously, you need other things to round out your diet like nuts, fruits, etc. but use the cheaper foods you can find as a "base" for your meals and you will save a ton of money. I saw somebody say farmer's market, those are great for stocking up on produce if you have them available to you.

Also a good idea to try and meal plan a least a couple times a week. Will help you strategize when you hit the grocery store, and keeps you from getting frustrated when you don't know what to cook and giving into a craving to go out and eat. Has helped me a lot.

You forgot rice and dried beans, especially in bulk. I had a friend who was a little older than us when we were in college, so he had real money. He'd buy people 20lbs of rice, which fits in a 5 gallon paint bucket. You can eat off that forever (again, supplementing with other food to round out the diet). Kind of again big investment upfront, but lasts a long time.

Chicken and rice. Just started bulking but from reading that is the cheapest best bulking food you will get.