After spending endless nights binge-eating TrueFruit and ordering everything on the Toppers menu, it didn’t quite register how much I missed a home-cooked meal until I ran out of Frog Bucks before the second week of classes started. This mid-college crisis gravitated my hunger for a homemade meal onto my Pinterest boards and Instagram, feeding my mind through various saved images and pins of freshly baked cookies, saving me from spending my remaining three dollars in CampusCash. However, things took a drastic turn when I started to regularly attend Dutches for their five-dollar burrito bowls every Thursday, forcing my summer savings to take a tremendous hit. By the time freshers week was over and I was knocked out with the flu, the only thought that could soothe my horrendous cough was the idea of eating a bowl of tomato soup and having grilled cheese, something I found impossible to locate within my student meal plan.
With as much financial responsibility that a college student has, no one ever warned me how dangerous my usual food cravings were going to be, let alone how costly they were and how frequently they were going to occur. As the stress began to build up, I could no longer sustain my newly accustomed diet of only eating sandwiches and chips sold in the library. However, it wasn’t until I got my first box of frozen chickpea curry, made by my mother back at home, that I finally realized how I could balance out my desire for food and my self-funded student budget. As I researched my way around the problem, I relied a lot on other students’ input and advice, working with the RA’s in my residence hall as well as their friends in order to nail down this issue.
They prompted me to explore all the food options on campus before deeming anything un-edible. Places such as Caliente, Kinder Cafe, Magnolias, and Union Grounds were often ignored by students but still had great options like avocado toast and flatbread. In addition, the main piece of advice they gave me was if you ever find yourself at the BLUU, try creating your own meals! When I say this, I mean look at your options with a more open mind. Oftentimes when the cafeteria either serves rice or chicken, I look around for a selection of steamed vegetables and then mix them together to make myself a nutritious rice bowl. Other times, I resort to the wrap/sandwich station, where I can pile on as much protein and vegetables as possible and then finish it off with a sauce of my choice. It was also suggested by many people to search for simple food recipes on social media platforms and combine the food part of the meal plan with other store-bought items in order to create a cheaper meal alternative back in the dorm.
Even though these tips are far from perfect and this problem not affecting everyone on campus, I hope these minor suggestions can help students who are struggling to accommodate their usual homemade meals with a more enjoyable cafeteria-based diet.