When it comes to the college diet, our minds savor food dreams such as eating pepperoni pizza, late night Waffle House and, yes, ramen. For the most part, many of us view college as the four years our lives where it’s perfectly ok to have at least five meals a day and use our bodies as a garbage disposal. We convince ourselves that we we will be more body conscientious after we graduate and are settled down into our career. Why the wait? We all seem to ignore the fact that eating healthier can actually shape us into more productive, driven students and, well, humans. And yet, this idea seems near impossible for many of us. When ordering food, yeah, fried chicken sounds much better than grilled or blackened chicken. Fries or a salad? Um…dare I answer that question. What would happen if eating habits were truly shaped just by taking meat out of our diet?
Being the competitive and curious person that I am, I decided to challenge myself, and a fellow classmate, during my senior year of high school to be vegetarian until the day that I graduated high school. I thought that by doing that, I would be more mindful of what I ate. I was right, and I flourished going vegetarian until I stepped foot onto UGA’s campus. From there, the vegetarian diet was ignored and instead replaced by pepperoni pizza and hamburgers. Although my diet habits from freshman year are now in the past, I did recently go back to being a vegetarian, and I have never felt better about myself. Although there are many reasons why one should go vegetarian, here are four reasons that aren’t about animal rights on why college students should try a vegetarian diet.
1. You feel thinner.
Vegetarians are on average slimmer than meat eaters in part due to the fact that vegetarians consume more fiber and less fat. You feel much less bloated when you do not eat meat due to the fact that plant-based foods are easier to digest than meat.
2. You notice that you eat more nutritiously… if done properly.
Being on a plant based diet, you are receiving more antioxidants and vitamins at each vegetarian meal rather than a meat based meal. Why should we as college students care about this? Well, for a generation that worries about growing up and aging, antioxidants provide us with a ton of health benefits such as reduced chances of disease and nature’s best anti-aging serum. Pretty much the more antioxidants that we consume, the happier and longer our lives will be.
3. You have more energy!
You can finally muster up the strength to walk to class and even opt out of paying for a cab ride back from downtown (depending on where you live of course). With all of the antioxidants and vitamins that you consume, your energy and focus go up. You no longer need to rely on coffee every hour to get you through your day. Ditch Starbucks and simply start eating more plant-based foods.
4. It’s cheaper.
A lot of vegetarian options at restaurants are much cheaper than the standard meal with meat. Also, when shopping for groceries, buying milk, vegetables, beans, etc. is much cheaper than having to add meat to your grocery list. Yes, college budgeting is no longer a myth and can be a reality.
With all of this being said, if you do decide to be a vegetarian, you have to make sure that you are getting necessary nutrients through vegetables, fruit, certain dairy products, grains and legumes. Try to avoid using the processed crap that you can find in the middle aisles of a grocery store as meal replacements. Instead, focus on what you would find on a food pyramid and rely on all of that, minus the meat of course. You would be shocked to find that you can get a lot of protein through everyday items such as milk, grains, eggs and beans. I will warn you that being a vegetarian is far from easy. You will find it to be challenging, but my advice is to not give up if you ever break down and just have to bite into a hamburger. Replacing even a little bit of meat that you would normally eat during your day with vegetarian staples will promote a positive change within you. From there, it is all up to you on whether you will finally take the next step and simply "veg out."
