Food is an important part of a balanced diet

Over the summer I’ve seen a lot of students who aren’t feeling well, not a surprise since my job is seeing students who don’t feel well. As I’ve tried to get to the bottom of what’s what, I’ve been surprised and somewhat taken aback by how many of you survive on $2 Happy Meals and $0.99 extra value menu items. While I am loathe to denigrate (or pass up) a $2 meal that comes with a free toy, fast food does not form the basis of a healthy diet.

I concede that the food service isn’t always on the same schedule as hunger. After a long, stressful day in the lab or library, throwing together a soufflé might not be super relaxing. McDonalds, on the other hand is open late and doesn’t require any advance planning.

But it’s not that hard to throw together a healthy meal. Here’s a brief guide to feeding yourself well without spending a lot of money or all afternoon prepping mise en place with an expensive German knife.

First, you have to find the food. Your mom, roommate, friend, or even good old COTA (the local city bus for you out of town newbies) can help get you to fresh suppliers. Along with local groceries, don’t forget the affordable bounty at our local ethnic markets. Three or four are a stone’s throw north on High Street. The North Market and its fabulous Saturday farmer’s market is a brisk 2 mile walk south on High Street. For a comprehensive list of fresh food, check out:

Hungry Wolf’s Guide to Local Food Procurement

Once you get provisions, what do you do? How about salads? Hard-boiled eggs, precut salad bar vegetables, and pre-cleaned greens in bags make a decent salad a breeze. Bulk nuts and dried fruits are great ways to add protein and fiber. Add a side of bread, and you’re running your own Panera. Check out the link below to stretch your salad wings:

Minimalist’s 100 simple salads for the season

Real, live college students commented on their food survival techniques @ 101-Cookbooks:

Dorm Food Ideas

If you have access to a microwave and fridge there’s almost nothing you can’t do. Look for one of the many well-reviewed products on the market that make cooking rice or pasta in a microwave a breeze, and check out these sites:

Eating on $25 a week

Cooking ramen in the microwave

Cooking rice in the microwave

Once you’re an accomplished chef, what are you to do with all those odds and ends you have left? Try the Restaurant Puppy. You enter what you have and the puppy spits out recipes for you to try:

An Ingredient based Recipe Search Engine – Recipe Puppy

So, veteran Buckeye eaters, what do you do? Please post a comment and share your epicurean expertise with the rest of us.

Post voraciously written by Victoria Rentel, MD (Ohio State Student Health Services) with a title shamelessly stolen from Fran Lebowitz

178 thoughts on “Food is an important part of a balanced diet

  1. I agree with you, that wholefoods should form the basis of our diet! But it’s not always easy, and an sometimes seem expensive if you’re new to healthy eating.

    Here’s another post on how to find healthy food on a budget, I hope it helps!

  2. Good sharing Food is surely an important part of balanced diet. I avoid fast foods most times because you don’t know how they prepared it and how healthy the environment was.

  3. With good food, we can be in an amazing shape, really but it’s not so easy az it sounds.
    First the healthy food is more expensive than an other food.
    Second the healthy food (for me ) is not so tasty as the other food
    When I ask PLK company and http://1total-hits.info/ what they think they told me that we can eat only good and healthy food beacause we just are in a good shape in all our live.

  4. I am new to this blog. But I have enjoyed your post and learned something
    new.I hope next post will be very helpful so Waiting for your next update.

  5. Your article is great! Too few of us, students or others, eat a healthy meal. I appreciate the article, and look forward to other from you.

  6. I am new to this blog. But I have enjoyed your post and learned something
    new.I hope next post will be very helpful for me so Waiting for your next update. j

  7. Thanks for sharing your valuable information on your site, I will share your article to my friends also so that they can understand about the reality of this huge market.

  8. The thing is it’s easier to eat junk food than to eat healthy, because junk food is always available and requires no effort from you. You can change this around by cooking quick but yet healthy meals for all your nutrient needs. You can find such recipes on http://lovingveggie.com as well. Pop in and pick what you like. Most of the recipes take little time to cook.

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  10. Thanks for the info. I too, deal with seasonal allergies. I’ve also learned that allergy pills are not the way to go. They’re very expensive and not good for the body at all. Natural foods, as you’ve listed above, are very much the way to go . Cake Recipe

  11. I think food also is one of the main causes of disease in our bodies . Cholesterol , triglycerides for example. goo.gl/y56Reg

  12. nice I am new to this blog. But I have enjoyed your post and learned something
    new.I hope next post will be very helpful for me so Waiting for your next update. thaks . . . .

  13. Thank you for posting this informative article as I throughout read your article: it is informative for me and I hope helpful for rest of the world. I admire the valuable information you offer in your articles. Thanks for this wonderful posting it.
    you are absolutely right if we are eating something it must be energetic and hygenic

  14. I agree with your article. I think it’s diet should be done by eating foods that are good for the body and choose healthy foods that suits you. because the most important thing of the diet it is what goes into your body. so you try to pay attention to your food.
    of course, sport also determine the success of a person’s diet, so please find out what sport is suitable for you.
    I recently met a nice site that contains about How to lose weight ( http://ehowtolose10pounds.com/ ), there are many references about healthy foods and ways to diet, for example, the blood type diet, etc.

    I love this article, thanks! This article was very helpful to me.

  15. When it comes to lowering high cholesterol, basically there is nothing to ponder about genetic weaknesses, the key is watching over food intake. Cholesterol is highly present in animal meats and fats, especially pork and beef. It is easy to watch fatty foods with all the precautions available today. But it takes discipline to live a life with less cholesterol consumption.

  16. The diet debate is been going on for so many years, and it’s constantly advancing. More and more people are starting to learn the importance of eating vegetables, fruits and also drinking 2L of water per day. Now everyone knows you don’t have to kill yourself in the gym when you go eat at McDonalds after. Diet is the trick.
    Thanks for sharing a great article.

  17. Nice article but it would be more nice if you add a health news feed here for us to check the latest updates and studies today. That would be very helpful and would be very much appreciated.Thanks!

  18. Thanks for sharing this amazing article.
    Nothing say to late hehehe…

    Warm Regards,
    Orang Muda Kreatif | OMK

  19. Very informative & useful article.You took this topic which is a very important for all.Most of the people suffering from this problem.Thank a lot .

  20. I agree that we should use household appliances. but I also think that we have become really lazy and expect them too, appliances are not a magic wand. Also knowledge (skill) is in the hands, and appliances are just a little help in making a favorite meal. good article

  21. I say thank you for this usefull article, at least the knowledge inside this post will be very helpfull for the people who wants perform diet with safe.

  22. I agree with this article, the difficult thing to manage is when we are on the journey and difficult to get healthy food.

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