STUDENT
SELF-
CATERING
Up until they become students, many young adults never have to think how to produce what
they eat. Even if they have travelled between leaving home and starting their studies, what
they eat tends to depend on how much money they have and the most convenient food
available from some kind of eatery, not cooked by themselves. They will know that eating
this way will have to change sooner or later when it becomes time to consider their health,
their income, the time they have available, and maybe a few other things like saving the
planet. They may be sharing accommodation with other people, whereupon it will clearly be
sensible to share the catering, too, as they will probably be sharing a proper kitchen. On the
other hand, they may only have a bedsit or studio apartment, with just a hotplate and a kettle
for food preparation, and they may from time to time, when time allows, want to entertain
and maybe impress friends. The idea is to establish practical, frugal habits that will probably
be required in the hard decades to come as climate change establishes itself.
Also, young adults can often be too preoccupied with other things to bother much about
eating and sleeping – but that is dangerous to their health. Proper eating, which this is
designed to encourage, will contribute to your ability to work. This has been compiled by one
who loves good food, but is bored by cooking and has also spent a lifetime on limited
resources in a variety of countries.
Self-catering on one’s own does allow a person more opportunities to experiment, and
failures cause less distress. But sharing with others, especially if it involves a house and a
yard, has many more advantages.
THIS IS NOT A RECIPE BOOK. It is intended simply to help you decide what or what
not to eat and drink, according to your own philosophy of life. What it aims to do is to
consider the possibilities in different contexts applicable in most parts of the world, usually
urban ones because that is where universities are. Recipe books tend to list ingredients; this
approach looks at what you may actually have available for the production of a meal. And it
is not, of course, just for students but for those beginning work at lowly levels, which is fairly
common among graduates still trying to finish off dissertations when loans and grants may
have run out.
Obviously you will not be thinking in terms of five- or even three-course meals, with soup
before and dessert after the main dish, not even for visitors that you may want impress. Too
much work, too time-consuming and too expensive. In this document extras are treated as
occasional snacks, including a sweet dessert which may be desirable to end a meal.
It will be up to you to find what mix of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals suits
you best, and what foods are available to you so as to provide them in the greatest variety.
The nutritional value of various foods does get mentioned here, but of course there is a lot
more to be discovered on the internet. Including recipes for most things. Also, different
cultures will have different words for the same things mentioned here. Let Wikipedia sort
this out for you.
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,In the left-hand column are listed the types of saving that can be made, so you can pick out
your priorities. Otherwise discussion will range widely from food storage, through eating
implements to genetic modification, and various other things for you to think about before
you cook and eat.
WHAT MAY
THINGS TO CONSIDER
BE SAVED
Growing your own food
This is not nearly as difficult and time-consuming as you might suppose, and is
particularly suitable for all salad ingredients and the herbs which you may wish to use
to flavour food from time to time. Eating plants freshly picked and which you know
to be free of harmful sprays is a pleasure which you will soon appreciate. Start with
pots on windowsills, where they can get sunlight or at least strong light at some time
in every day. Not only will this freshen the air indoors, but the contemplation (and
care and weeding) of growing things is known to have good effects on human mental
health.
If you are sharing a house which has anything like a yard, then more pots can go
there, and you can move to bigger plants like fruit trees and creepers which need
deeper soils.
Why waste any soil on the merely decorative, like ornamental flowers ? Fruits,
vegetables and herbs also produce flowers, many of which smell enchanting, but also
provide nutrition. According to your environment there will be limits on what can
grow, and at what times of year, so you can learn from neighbours – a useful social
exercise in itself.
Not all that grows in your garden will be what you plant yourself, but bear in mind
that not everything else is necessarily a weed. Plants like dandelions and sorrel will
Health plant themselves and grow vigorously, but are delicious to eat and easy to prepare,
especially for salads although they are also suitable for soups. Some herbs, like
Planet
rosemary and mint, are easy to grow from cuttings, but mint is a thirsty plant and
Income grows best under a tap where there may be drips.
If you can arrange things so that your plant beds are at knee height, this makes
gardening a lot easier, especially for someone with any kind of leg injury.
Lemon trees are easy to grow and thrive in many environments. If you have a lemon
tree, you truly have a culinary treasure, as the zest (outermost peel) and juice of the
fruit as well as the leaves of the tree provide subtle and delicious flavours to just
about anything.
As for watering: rainwater is always best. Perhaps your roof has gutters from which
you can collect this – but not for drinking, because roofs get very dirty. Also, if you
carefully select an eco-friendly dishwashing liquid, plants can thrive on used
dishwater with its small quantities of food waste.
If you have a yard big enough, you can have that real treasure: a compost heap for
any food or plant wastes. Even your own wastes if you have a composting toilet
rather than a flush toilet. Depending on your environment, various types of
composting are possible and very easy to construct and maintain. It also means that
you can keep a couple of laying hens that can produce eggs for you. The question of
being vegan is discussed later, but if you only keep hens and not a rooster, not only
will you and also your neighbours not be disturbed before dawn, but the eggs will not
be fertilized. Eggs are particularly quick and easy to cook and rich in proteins, and
keeping free-range hens in this way means that there are really no ethical
considerations to prevent you eating their eggs. Besides which, birds are effective at
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, WHAT MAY
THINGS TO CONSIDER
BE SAVED
reducing the insect pests in their environments, so no bother of flies from the compost
heap. Birds contribute wastes which are very beneficial to the soil, and are are also
useful as recipients of dry foods that you may have failed to protect from weevils by
storing them in airtight containers.
For hens you will only need to provide a couple of nests and a roosting place – a pole
on which they sleep at night – which can be secured at night so that predators cannot
get in.
Examples:
All mature hens lay eggs, whether there is a rooster present to fertilize
View of single them, or not, but not necessarily rvery day. They will go through cycles
nest. of laying, moulting, etc.
When they do want to lay eggs, they will look for a good place to nest,
so if you provide a convenient one, you will know where the eggs can
be found, and collect them for yourself.
Illustrated here is a ‘nesting box’ with three nests, although hens will
Three nests in a ‘box’, with often share a nest. It is close enough to the ground so that hens can
gate to exclude hens when hop into a nest, but underneath is a layer of thorns that will discourage
broody. any predators that cannot make the hop. All the same, it is not a good
idea to leave eggs in the nests for any time, as there are many animals
that love to eat hens’ eggs.
After laying, a hen will leave the nest, often making a loud
announcement, but after a number of days she may become ‘broody’,
i.e. decide to stop laying and simply sit on any eggs for a couple of
weeks until they hatch. Obviously, unfertilized eggs are not going to
hatch, so she must be stopped being broody as soon as possible, by
being excluded from the nests during the day and only being allowed to
A ‘roosting box’ for poultry, in sleep in the roost with the others.
which birds can be protected
against predators and also In nature, hens will fly up to a branch in a tree, where they will huddle
against the weather, also low together. They are not really safe there, as they sleep very soundly
enough for you to reach the and, once asleep, can be captured and taken away without much fuss.
birds if and when necessary.
Although this is useful for owners to know, you will want to protect your
birds from predators, and also the weather.
The bottom of any such cage should be of netting, through
which droppings can fall, so a good idea to have it hanging
above a place where eventually you may plant a garden.
The mesh, of course, should not be so large as to allow
predators in – or eggs out. Sometimes a hen will want to
lay an egg at night, and will do so in the roosting place if
she cannot reach a nest.
You may also have to protect some of your plants from the
birds – hens and others – at least when the plants are small.
At the same time, of course, you will want your poultry to
be free-range, at least for part of the day. Just generally,
therefore, it is wise to have a very well-protected garden,
complete with a netting roof over which shadecloth can be
drawn in the hottest weather.
Processed food
Health
Make no mistake, almost everything you eat and drink will have been processed to
Finance some degree – even salads if salt and oil are added. Cooking is just one of the
processes, the first of which is often refinement after harvesting, and store-bought
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