Dear Readers,
1. You have to maintain a balanced diet.
- To clarify, the food pyramid that everybody reads nowadays is completely false, so please get the idea out of your heads. Many nutritionists refuse to give away the 'secret' food pyramid because it is only exclusive to a university students. With regards to servings, you will have to double your intake in order to survive a day of constant procrastination, Netflix, clubbing and skipping lectures. The time span is completely up to the individual but I highly recommend midnight snacking particularly during group events, post break up blues or exam periods.
- You will need to focus on the ratios of what you are ingesting, essentially, let's put this statistically. 80% of a typical student meal should consist of fats, sugars, salts and oils. A lot of carbohydrates are essential into fueling you up for a busy day of absolutely nothing. I personally recommend a wide variety of culinary treats such as pasta, pizza, chocolate, biscuits, crisps and a healthy serving of takeaways. Warning, your wallet may suffer from symptoms of emptiness and anxiety of a credit card gone into overdraft.
2. Your microwave will become your best friend.
- Personally, I lived in a catered accommodation and one of the primary tools I used in order to heat up my meals was the microwave. The microwave is an essential tool in replicating what a stove does. Living like Bear Grylls in the jungle, with a kettle and microwave has taught me that I can make a mean pasta. Want to know how I make it? Simple, I boil up a kettle of fresh water and pour it into a container. Usually, food packets will try to manipulate you and tell you that half a bag of pasta is for 3 people. Absolute baloney! There is no such thing as too much, you shake that bag until its penne-less. Next, you place a lid, not seal, into the microwave and wait for 10 minutes. After waiting a generation of your life and having endless chit chat with your flatmates, you drain the water and add an entire jar of pesto onto the pasta as well as grate half a block's worth of cheese. This is may seem like extreme measurements, but like I said, there is no such thing as too much, you need to stock up on fats and carbohydrates in unfriendly environments.
- For breakfast, boiling and scrambling eggs on the stove is a thing of the past. Whilst there is a risk of an explosion, please do not take to heart too much. Exploding an egg in the oven essentially removes the process of scrambling. It is a time efficient process that requires minimal manual labour.
3. Another man's treasure can also be your treasure apparently...
- Sharing a communal kitchen or fridge means that your food is at the risk of being taken by certain snakes on your floor or from other flats. But don't be alarmed, essentially morals go out the window as soon as you leave home and the war begins. One cost efficient pro to the act of theft is that you can selfishly enjoy what someone else wanted to treat themselves too. This goes far beyond food; alcohol and contraception too. My advice? It's survival of the fittest...if you do not want your food stolen - then lock dry foods or hide them in your room and place laxatives in others. Karma comes back around right?
4. The kettle will become your best friend.
- Signature dishes prepared at university will often include Pot noodles with a glass of tea, coffee or hot chocolate. Coffee proves essential when it comes to revision and cramming a week's worth of work into one night. In addition pot noodles, are an excellent starter to your lunch as well as artificial flavors. Repeat, artificial, not fresh!
5. Snack loading.
- Your shopping basket will primarily consist of this. Vegetables and fruits are not necessarily the best options to go for, only because they do not provide the same amount of nutritional value as a chocolate bar, digestives or a tube of pringles. Take it from me, these are essential snacks to keep you motivated. During the night before my coursework deadlines, I spent the entire night in the library with a bag filled with another 24 bags of cheesy wotsits as well as 3 packs of Oreo. Despite looking like a gremlin, it allowed me to get through the night and still not understand a word of what I was writing.
6. Takeaways! AKA Takes away your money...
- You will find yourself on lonely nights craving a Dominos pizza. Despite being one of the most ridiculously priced takeaway foods ever, it will definitely fill up that cholesterol-lacking hole in your heart. My favorite dining experience in university was me and my best friend sat on her bed, eating a large pizza each, with a bottle of pepsi to share, cheesy garlic bread, potato wedges and a box of Ben and Jerry's brownie ice-cream. Is your mouth watering yet?
- If say you cannot afford the luxury or are just a sensible spender unlike my friend and I, JustEat provides you with a flurry of food to eat - Chinese, Indian, Italian, your pick. Good thing about it, if you do not finish it all, you can refrigerate it and pray to the Lord Almighty it isn't stolen during the night.
7. Alcohol is the new Water
- Your first year of university will consist of a lot of partying and alcohol drinking. Alcohol will essentially take form of your own blood by the end of the year. Only way to cure this is to exercise or abstain from constant drinking. Who knew the cure sounded worse than the disease?! Going to a free wine bar was probably one of the highlights of my year, I simply couldn't resist and I ended up drunk, swapping two taxis to find my way home. That night, a fire alarm woke me, and the entire building was waiting outside for it to stop. Usually, when a fire alarm goes off, people take one prized possession with them to make sure it doesn't catch ablaze. My choice was a box of Maltesers that I drunkenly offered to all of my exhausted flatmates. Priorities eh?
8. Crying yourself to sleep....<Tears are essential>
Once you have completed the day and get ready for bed, take a good look at yourself in the mirror and begin to cry at the blob that you have become. Tears, loathing and self pity are the fundamental foundations that the rest of your university life rests upon.
There you have it. Essentially, buy cheap, buy fatty foods and drink plenty of alcohol kids. You have a rough three years ahead of you, make sure you are nutritionally balanced. Do you even succeed first year of university if you don't put any weight on?
Hell no!
P.S. to any confused readers, this is a sarcastic and ironic post...please do not follow instructions above. Have a lovely weekend.
