Our favourite student meals

Kelly: Hey everyone! Welcome back to another UTS Student Hacks podcast with Kelly

Rachel: And Rachel!!!!! 

Rachel: It’s week 5… Already. It feels like I’m behind on 8 weeks’ worth of content and sometimes I am soooo focused on studying and getting things done for uni, that I forget to do other important things. Things such as preparing and eating food. 

Kelly: One thing Rachel and I have noticed is that some of us really do forget about breakfast and its importance. That’s why we’ll be talking about how we do breakfast, and how we incorporate healthy foods during a busy day.

Rachel: Warning, you might get really hungry during this episode, so grab a snack and settle in :)

Kelly: If there is any meal of the day I cannot pass, that would be breakfast. For those coffee drinkers out there, Breakfast to me would be the equivalent to your coffee. It helps me function like a normal human being making coherent sentences and being able to try to understand the content of the lecture. What about you Rachel?

Rachel: I personally have only started to eat breakfast recently. Not that I have anything against it, I just find myself with little to no time in the morning, and so I prioritise other things over making breakfast. I realised though, that I end up not having much energy and so I can’t really focus on tasks till later in the afternoon for lunch. This has changed tremendously after I started introducing breakfast to my daily routine. I realised that I didn’t need to have something really fancy like one of those buffets in the HP movies. It can be anything, what would be your go to Kelly?

Kelly: Wouldn’t we all love a breakfast buffet just like those ones at Hogwarts. Sadly my go to breakfast can be described as basic at best. And that is cereal. Regardless of whether you are a cereal milk, or milk cereal person, having cereal for breakfast is so easy to make. Other than cereal I could have some toast with strawberry jam or peanut butter.  If I have extra time, I might cut up some fruit or cook some eggs.

Rachel: That sounds really nice! I also eat something light for breakfast. My go to’s are either scrambled eggs on toast or a peanut butter and jelly toast. 

Kelly: For the moments when I do not have time for lunch, I tend to bring a snack with me such as fruits, chips or biscuits. I tend to prepare this the day before or in the morning.

Rachel: I’m a really forgetful person, so instead of forgetting to pack up some food containers with me, I usually put a handful of museli and granola bars in my bag. This way, I don’t have to worry about them getting spoiled. I also have taken the habit of snacking on them when I get hungry and they help me last till lunch or dinner!

Rachel: Now let’s go back to the talk about it being week 5 (not to stress you out or anything lol). It’s expected that we will spend more time being focused on uni related tasks. Even as a big foodie myself, I usually avoid cooking or even thinking about making food because of all the money I need to spend on the ingredients, all the time I need to cook for and most importantly all the effort I have to put through for cleaning up afterwards. 

Kelly: That’s why we are focusing on what we all like: budget friendly, relatively easy, yummy dishes.

Rachel: So we are going to be making Greek Yogurt Breakfast Bowl and the very basic Avocado Toast. You can either alternate between these dishes or even have them both in the morning if you are feeling extra hungry.

Kelly: We have chosen these 2 dishes as they are highly customisable and do not really require any culinary skills. The recipes for these 2 dishes will be linked in the resources section below.

Rachel: We are now joined with Adrienne from the Organic Food CO-OP to provide insight into organic and sustainable food.

Adrienne: My name is Adrienne and I’m the CEO of the Broadway Food Co-op at UTS and we provide sustainably sourced sustainable food to UTS Staff and Students and the Ultimo community.

Kelly: So what is the Organic Food Co-op?

Adrienne: It was started by the Environment Officer of the Students Association, about a dozen years ago, as a cart at first and then in a quiet space that no one was interested in using, and it was to provide healthy sustainable food for staff and students at a price that they could afford. Because at the time, before it became trendy to eat organic food, it was quite an expensive option, and it was something different for students, other than fast food and these foods that are available in the Ultimo area. And that’s still what we’re providing today, although everything now is organic and we try to source in Australia as much as possible to lower our carbon footprint. But a lot of the time, what we’re providing is information, people want to know what it means that it’s organic, is it just a trendy word or is there some sort of value behind that word? How does it coincide with sustainability? What can they do at home and sometimes just, how do I create a meal from this food source. If you’ve never made cous cous before, sometimes a little assistance, a recipe, or just trying it out. That way you haven’t purchased $10 of cous cous with no idea how to provide it, so it sat at the back of your cupboard for four years until you graduate and throw it out. So a lot of the time its information rather than food that we’re providing, we’re more than happy to do that.

Kelly: What is the importance of purchasing organic, sustainable food in your opinion?

Adrienne: Organics is one of the steps to sustainability, sustainability is: we’re not using up more resources than the planet can provide, after all there is no Planet B that we can just move to once we’re finished here. The Broadway Food Co-op provides information as well as the organic food in order to be part of the UTS sustainability practices that are taught in almost every lesson.

Kelly: For students that are listening to this podcast, how could they get involved in the Broadway Food Co-op, how can they get involved with you guys?

Adrienne: Well we’re always looking for volunteers, at the moment it’s just myself and one other person, which is why the hours that the shop is open is somewhat reduced. But you could do your projects through us, we’ve had Business students doing their end project with us, based on pricing, based on marketing. We’ve had design students doing their projects with us, based on logos and marketing campaigns, so we’re certainly there for you. Anyway at all! If you have ideas, we have market days, we join in when there’s Open Days of course, we have stalls where we’re promoting sustainability and organic foods, we always need help with those, so anything you can think of, we’re more than happy to take on board.

Kelly: Any final words that you would like to give us?

Adrienne: Only that we’re here as a suggestion, that’s all. We certainly wouldn’t want anyone to give up fast foods altogether, every member of the Broadway Food Co-op has always been a big fan of Uni Brothers chips, just like anyone else is, but this is an alternative that’s all. Come in and see us, and try out something new and different, just once, you never know, you might like it. We’re there as part of the diverse mix, if you will. We have dry foods, we have drinks, we have snack foods, and we have lots and lots of information, and we have a lot of tea too. Organics have always been big on tea. Come down and have a cup of tea, if nothing else.

Kelly: Now we will be talking to Tyler Key who is a UTS Associate Lecturer and Personal Trainer about the importance of regular eating patterns and eating in moderation.

Tyler: Hi. My name’s Tyler and I’m an Associate Lecturer at the Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation and I’m also a personal trainer. So I was a student at UTS and while I was a student I coached people at the gym mainly working on different exercises and stuff like that but nutrition plays a big part of that as well.

Kelly: What is the bare minimum to sustain a healthy diet as a uni student?

Tyler: The bare minimum… It's very individualised. So depending on each person and how active you are. You are going to need a different amount of food. And people, it works best, like everyone is individualised so everyone has their bare minimum they need to get. That is a really tricky question to answer because everyone is their own sort of person. The minimum would be, I would say if you have to put a frame around it, would be at least trying to get 2 good meals a day. But it is really what works for you.

Kelly: As a personal trainer, what are the biggest problem areas you have identified in uni students?

Tyler: Uni students are pretty busy, so they’re usually working as well as studying, so the lack of time to prepare and plan, and figure out what it is they need to eat or how much exercise they need to get in can be really tricky. And on the flip side of that is because you are studying as well as working, money, trying to find easy meals to make at the same time.

Rachel: So we did go over in this episode how some students skip food because they can’t be bothered making their own food or buying ingredients that are healthy as well as cheap. What would be your top advice concerning this?

Tyler: The first step is to figure out what it is you like, and what you actually like eating. And again, people are different, they’re going to like different sorts of things. The best way to think about it, is that you’re going to explore and figure out what is cheap at your supermarket, and depending what kind of meal you’re looking for, right? Chicken breast is always super cheap and quick, super easy to prepare, frozen vegetables, they are prepared and they are going to give you the nutrients that you need for your body to work well so you can study better. Stuff like Greek yoghurt is great, if your plant based, any of your legumes or beans, always making sure you’re including those. It’s really trying to understand what it is that you like eating and what is quick and easy to prepare, then planning that and getting it done.

Rachel: And just going off that lack of time, I personally struggle with the mornings, that’s when I need to rush, catch my train, get dressed, get everything sorted. Do you have anything about the importance of breakfast and why we need to prioritise it?

Tyler: The main reason that breakfast is important, is coming back to being consistent. So a lot of people, not just students skip breakfast, they might have a small snack or something at lunch because they’re really busy or studying, and it gets to after work or after the day and they’re starving, and they end up devouring a whole packet of chips and a whole block of chocolate and ending up feeling not great. So the reason breakfast is important is more so for consistency, if you’re consistent with your meals on a daily basis, your energy levels are going to be good throughout the day, and you’ll be able to have the energy you need to do the work, or study, whatever it is you need to do, and that consistency allows you on a day to day basis, just to be set up for the day, it’s like having your morning routine.

Kelly: For something quick and easy what do you think is a go-to snack or food that we should go to?

Tyler: For snacks, thinking about how can you add more of the good stuff, so everyone’s like we need to avoid chocolate, avoid crisps and stuff like that, so rather than thinking about taking stuff away, how can you just increase the amount of vegetables and fruit that you’re having, so green beans, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, carrots are my favourites. You can combo those with dips to make it more exciting and then any of your standard fruits like berries, apples, oranges, citrus fruits are all fantastic, quick and easy, on the go. One thing that is important in keeping your energy levels up and to stay feeling satisfied is protein as well, so that’s where the Chobani yoghurts are fantastic, quick and easy, hits a lot of the nutritional areas that you would need to get.

Rachel: Is there some food that is specifically effective for studying and helping us focus during classes?

Tyler: I think a lot of the time people come to the mindset that this specific food is going to help you think better, but there’s no specific food that’s going to help you do that. It’s more about having balance, nutrition throughout your day and in your life. In terms of studying and getting the energy you need, again my favourite would be the baked pea crisps, they’re super yummy, easy to snack on. Dark chocolate, instead of you getting your really sugar-loaded milk chocolate, dark chocolate is awesome and hits that sugar fix that you need. Nuts are good, but in moderation, if you’ve ever looked at the serving size of nuts compared to what you grab, they’re super energy dense, and you don’t need that many.

Kelly: If you could give any student just three tips on how to maintain a healthy diet, stay motivated throughout the day, what would those three tips be?

Tyler: You can literally sum up good nutrition in one sentence, and that would be, eat mostly plants and fruit (which is also a plant), have protein with each meal and eat to moderation. One of the big things that I see students do is they say some foods are good or bad. So foods don’t actually have any morals, we’re just saying that they’re good or bad, and what that means is when you say ‘Oh chocolate’s bad for me, but chocolate’s great right? You enjoy chocolate. So if you say chocolates bad and you want chocolate and you eat it, you feel bad. So re-thinking how you’re thinking about your food where it’s not if it’s good or bad, it’s just, I have to eat some foods in moderation and that’s okay! And then paying attention to when you’re eating, so a lot of students, because you’re trying to do a million things at once, and your snacking while you’re working at something, my top tip for that, is rather than snacking while your studying, just take five minutes, take a break, go eat a snack, pay attention to what you’re eating. And the reason for that, when you’re eating while you’re doing something, your brain isn’t paying attention to the digestion of your food, and so you’ll end up finishing a whole bag of chips and you’ll be like ‘Oh I’m still hungry’ whereas if you just took a five minute break, ate some chips, enjoyed them, paid attention to it, had some water with it, you’d probably be pretty good, you wouldn’t need the whole bag. So yeah, eat mindfully, pay attention to your food while you eat it.

Tyler: Oh and last thing, you’re probably going to make mistakes with food while you’re at uni, whatever it is. So rather than thinking you need to get this right, every single day, just focus on getting a little bit better every day and just being self-compassionate with however it is your day went and just be like, tomorrow’s a new day, we’ll get back on it.

Rachel: Thanks for sticking to the end of this podcast about breakfast. A quick summary:

Kelly: Have an eating routine to ensure you have enough energy to last you throughout the whole day.

Rachel: Foods do not have morals so they are not inherently good or bad. Just be sure to have them in moderation.

Kelly: And finally, diversify your diet which may include trying out organic and sustainable foods.

Rachel: Talk to ya’ll in our next podcast.

Rachel and Kelly: Until then, stay fed :)