Eating well while off-campus

With limited on-campus resident rooms at colleges and universities, many post-secondary students will find themselves living off-campus during their studies, whether on their own or with roommates.
And while that can mean greater freedoms — like fewer dorm rules — it also comes with added responsibilities, like buying your own groceries and making your own meals, something some students may be doing for the first time in their lives.
Louisa Clements is the creator of LivingLou.com, a website full of simple recipes to inspire others to cook. She started the website roughly 15 years ago while she was still a high-school student and used the insights she learned to keep herself fed on a budget while she attended Humber College in Toronto.
“I feel like there has been a whole renaissance in cooking and I think it was amplified by the pandemic, with people at home and having to cook — whether it was them doing it or seeing their family cooking,” said Clements, pointing anecdotally to a rise in recipe-related TikTok posts and Instagram reels.
“I was always a big foodie, always cooking, always trying to find budget-friendly meal ideas and recipes. We know that food is important, and it is also expensive, so I was always challenging myself in school, and even now I still stick to a pretty strict grocery budget.”
For those finding themselves grocery shopping and making their own meals for the first time, or those who are on a strict budget because of rising food costs in Canada — a late-December study from Dalhousie University estimates they will increase between 2.5 to 4.5 per cent in 2024 — Clements offers some tips to help.
Clement said shopping can be a learning process as you begin to familiarize yourself with the prices of different items — to know if something is a good deal — and a better understanding of portion sizes and costs per unit.
“You aren’t going to know it all right from the start, and that is okay,” said Clements. She suggests that people start by going to the different grocery stores and looking at their prices, but also checking out flyers — which you can find on store-specific apps or by using ones like Flipp. “Get to know what typical prices are and what a good deal actually is.”
When you are shopping, she said, be sure to also consider the price per unit, so you can understand whether it its better value for your money, or it doesn’t make sense for your eating habits.
“If you are looking for mushrooms, and the bigger package is a better price per gram, that might be a good price but if you aren’t going to use all those mushrooms, you might be better buying the smaller version that is more expensive per gram. That way you aren’t wasting food, and your money.”
Continuing with the mushroom example, she said there is often a difference when it comes to prepared food, like the pre-sliced varieties compare to the whole ones.
“The trade-off comes with your time: how much time do you have between your job, your studies, your social commitments to prep those ingredients? I will say, the more you practice prepping food, the better you get and the faster you get.”
When it comes to what to buy at the store, Clements recommends keeping an eye on any staples — especially if they are on sale. “I like to think of them as budget-friendly basics that you have and can use for quite a while; things like legumes — lentils or beans. You can challenge yourself to really use them every week in a dinner or lunch.”
Her other staples include frozen vegetables, like kale or spinach, that you can easily add to everything from a pasta to a smoothie, bananas — one of the most budget-friendly foods in the store — that can be eaten with breakfasts or as snacks — and root vegetables, such as carrots, potatoes and sweet potatoes. Those will last a long time if they are stored properly.
“Potatoes can go in almost anything. If you are making a soup, throw some in. Or in a chili or stew. You can also use them to bulk and stretch a recipe. One of my favourite things to do is to add vegetables to recipes that have a lot of meat in them, because meat is expensive and it helps stretch the number of servings you get. So, bulk those meat-forward recipes with potatoes, sweet potatoes, lentils, beans or mushrooms and stretch your dollar.”
Once you get home from the grocery store, Clements said you should take any meat out of its original packaging and portions it — whatever you would use in one meal — in a container that you can then freeze.
When it comes to cooking your own meals or trying new recipes or ingredients, Clements said you shouldn’t put too much pressure on yourself. Start by keeping it simple.
“Start small, start planning – look at the flyers, build a list, and plan for two or three dishes — and set yourself up for success. And do things that are easy, like a family recipe you grew up with. Those are always great, espcailly if you are away from home and craving that comfort dish.”
One thing she likes to do is purchase and prepare ingredients that can be used in different meals throughout the week. She will, for example, chop and roast vegetables — like sweet potatoes and bell peppers — that can then go into a bowl with rice one day or in a burrito or wrap for another meal. If there are any left over at the end of that week, you can throw it into a soup.
“I love making a soup on the weekend. I shop my fridge and see what I have that’s maybe not looking its best and use that to make a soup or stew. They are full of nutrients, super easy to make, and a quick and easy meal for when you are getting home from a long day. All you need to do is heat up a bowl,” she said. “You can turn practically anything into a delicious soup.”
Batch cooking – where you cook extra servings of one dish — can be useful, Clements said, but, you really need to eat those extra portions throughout the week. Otherwise, you are wasting food, and your money. Instead, consider taking those portions, labeling them with what it is and the date you made it, and freezing it to eat later. (Be sure to follow proper food safety guidelines.)
She also said that most recipes are meant to serve four people, so when you are cooking, think about whether want to make multiple meals and eat for a few days, or scale back the recipe so not wasting any food.
“Do your best,” Clements said. “Not every recipe is going to be super successful, and that is okay. You are going to learn, and get better, and start to understand what you like and what you like to make.”