The right food for thought

College is not for the faint of heart. Completing a college degree of any kind is not an easy feat, taking willpower, determination and the capacity for all-nighters when the occasion calls for extreme measures.

There is so much demanded of a college student’s mind and body throughout their college career, that being a college student is like running a very long marathon with more math involved. In order to learn and put in long hours studying, it is important to think about the fuel being put into the well-oiled machine that is a student’s body.

The type of food that a person eats directly translates into the nutrients that our body needs to work. It may seem to be more important for a student athlete to worry about what they are eating, but in reality, it is just as important for a non-athlete. A good meal before a study session is sometimes the best preparation for an exam.

The vital vitamins and minerals a brain needs to comprehend complex material comes from good, balanced meals. Things like vitamin B are necessary for the brain to function well. The foods that give students the ability to put in longs hours studying homework or at work doesn’t come from McDonalds. Sadly, the diet of a college student often consists of more McDonalds than most people would care to admit. If more college students were able to cook good, wholesome meals for themselves, the problem with student malnutrition would undoubtedly dwindle significantly.

Just like athletes, students need nutrients in order to perform better academically. Think like an athlete and treat your body with respect and understand it only performs as well as you treat it. I believe the problems originates long before the freshman year of college.

Cooking is a skill that takes practice to master. If the skill is not being learned at home and it is not being learned during high school, then the average college student will naturally turn to the comforts of fast food. Fast food may fill up your belly, but it will not satisfy the nutritional needs of a student, let alone a stressed one.

This is the reason I believe a cooking course would be very beneficial for students who may not have a firm grasp in the area of cooking. A course that teaches a few very important fundamentals to get students on the right path would no doubt help the situation. A student who may have a bit of a background with cooking could still benefit from such a course to refresh and refine their kitchen skills. They could learn new skills and even some new recipes.

Cooking instead of finding the nearest fast food place is not only better for the body, it’s also better for the wallet in most cases. The amount and quality of food that can be made just by cooking instead of going out would be a benefit. The option to cook their own food or not to save money is an option many students do not have. At the end of the day, everyone has got to eat. Learning how to make good food sooner rather than later in life seems like an easy decision to me.