How to get your five a day?

Eating healthy as a student doesn’t come without its challenges. How are you supposed to get your five a day when you’re on a budget and you barely have time to cook?

1. Breakfast: if you have muesli with lots of dried fruit and raisins in it*, apparently that counts as 1. And if you add a chopped banana (or some strawberries if you’re fancy) to that, you’ve already got 2 from breakfast! If you’re super motivated, you can also press an orange and blend it with a banana and some frozen berries or something similar and have a smoothie -another portion right there ;)

2. Snacks: grab an apple (you can have it with peanut butter which is also -in moderation- good for you), a banana or a couple of clementines. Or any other fruit you like really (those are the ones I usually have, partly because it’s so easy to transport them)! Carrots also make great snacks in my opinon, and you can always pair them with some hummus, which contains pulses (chickpeas) which I wouldn’t count as one of five a day but is still very good to eat! If you have a fruit/vegetable as a snack, that brings you up another portion.

3. Then, when it comes to meals… Make time to cook. You’ll save a lot of money and if you make big batches you can freeze the leftovers for easy meals. Not to mention it’s much healthier than eating processed food! Here are some easy ways to get more vegetables in your meals.

a. Soup. Make a big pot so it lasts, and you can have a nice bowl with a sandwich for lunch. That’s another portion of veg!

b. Even if you only have time for pasta, you can always have it with a sauce with tomato and vegetables (try making your own with onion, oive oil, chopped tomatoes, herbs, courgette, carrot, paprika… whatever you like!).

c. If you really don’t have time to make sauce, what I like doing is boiling some frozen vegetable mix with the pasta. It all cooks at the same time so it’s completely fuss-free. You can also add fresh broccoli in small bouquets.

d. Even if you’re just having a quick sandwich, you can always add some salad or tomato to it -it’s better than nothing right?

e. For dessert, try baked fruit. I’ve already done banana, apple and pear, but recently I tried pineapple -sprikled with some cinammon and a few cloves- and it’s delicious! Just bake chunks of fruit in the oven at 180 until you can no longer keep your mouth from watering at the smell ;)




*I know what you’re thinking, muesli is for fancy people and it’s expensive. Wrong! LIDL has great muesli with 50% fruit, seeds and nuts (which are also super-good for you), AND it tastes great, too!