Ebony-Renee Baker
Vanessa Nigro
As a student, it can be pretty easy to overlook healthy eating when you’re swamped with homework, your job, and are still trying to make it to class everyday. Whether you’re paying for tuition, rent, commuting or all the above (and more), it’s easy to scrimp on food in order to save the cash you have left. So sometimes grabbing a value meal for lunch—and dinner—is the only way some of us can make it through the week.
This recurring eating habit has resulted in large-scale food insecurity among university students; meaning students can’t have access to healthy food due to inadequate financial resources. A study last year showed that nearly 40 per cent of Canadian university students would describe themselves as food insecure.
While frequently eating healthy can become more expensive than everyday value meals, incorporating fruits and vegetables into your diet is a relatively easy and cheap way to stay healthy. Contrary to a Big Mac, vegetables are low in calories and fat, are a source of several essential nutrients and can lower your blood cholesterol and risk for heart disease.
Furthermore, constantly maintaining a garbage diet can seriously impact your performance at school, as well your mental wellbeing.
So to bring light to this issue, we tested students on Gould Street to see if they knew their vegetables (and hopefully informed them at the same time).
If you are experiencing food insecurity, resources at Ryerson such as the Good Food Centre are there for assistance.
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