How to prepare your child for university food – shared self catering accommodation – Food For Kids Podcast episode 97

Joanne Roach (00:14)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies.

This is the second of our two-parter about helping to prepare for university food. If you haven't listened to the first one, go back and check that out. In that one, we focused more on catered accommodation or halls of residence.

In today's episode we're looking more at shared self-catering accommodation, so that's the set up where everyone has their own room and maybe their own bathroom or a shared bathroom, but rooms are organised into flats of between 5 and 20 people with a shared kitchen to make your meals in. Some of the practical elements of this episode will obviously therefore also apply to shared student houses where you're choosing to live with friends in the second or subsequent years, although a lot of what we're talking about is the reality of moving in with strangers into self catering halls.

For this episode, I'm talking to my daughter Anna, who lived for two years in flats with strangers, the first in a mini campus belonging to her university and the second year in a more general city centre student apartment complex where students from several universities live together. In both cases, her apartments were around five to eight people sharing, which seems to be a fairly standard flat size in lots of places. But I have also spoken to a few friends whose children have been through universities where the apartments are more like 10 per flat and in a couple of cases up to 20 sharing one large kitchen.

In both of Anna's years, the actual physical setup was pretty good. Decent sized kitchens, although very basic. But even in these decent sized rooms, the reality is that space per person for food storage is very, very limited. And that is the overriding influence on the kind of cooking you can do, as well as the kind of shopping you can do. In Anna's places, there were officially on-site social areas, even though no one actually used them, but that meant there was also officially no need for social areas like a living room inside the flats, so any hanging out together had to be done in the shared kitchen. So both of her kitchens had a table and chairs using up basically half the room.

In terms of storage, from asking around, a standard seems to be that generally people seem to get one door's worth of a wall cupboard each for all the store cupboard food, as well as their plates, mugs and glasses, etc. So that usually ends up with one shelf for crockery and one shelf for food, one drawer for your cutlery and utensils and roughly half an under counter cupboard for pots and pans. If you're lucky, there's an under sink cupboard or a cleaning cupboard where everyone can stash their cleaning products and bin bags and things like that.

If like one of my friends children, you're unlucky, the kitchen's small and you're the last one in, that under sink cupboard is your food and crockery cupboard and you have to be careful about leaks and condensation from the sink drainer. On top of that, there's usually enough shared fridge freezers to allow about three to four people to use each one. So practically that allows for roughly one fridge shelf each, a bit of shared space in the fridge door for milk and some kind of dance around sharing the salad drawers at the bottom. For the freezer part, that ratio usually allows for one drawer each. If you're very lucky, you might get a bag of oven chips into a shared drawer.

But thing to remember is that unlike at home where the whole household shares store cupboard staples, in a multi-occupation flat, because everyone's a stranger, there is very little sharing of items. So although people might allow flatmates to share things like oil or herbs or ketchup that are out on the counter, everyone tends to have their own butter, mayo, cheese, eggs, milk. Even those little things like jars of garlic puree or open tomato puree tubes all have to have a place in the fridge. And with the very limited space in the shared door, this often means that in reality, your one fridge shelf is really roughly two thirds of a shelf.

In Anna's flats, unlike Jacob's catered hall kitchen, there was an oven with a hob as well as a microwave and a sink. One of the things we asked about before going in both unis was what appliances were allowed and from asking other families too, this varies a lot. Some places provide a microwave, kettle and toaster, but then you're not allowed to bring anything of your own. Some allow PAT-tested or new appliances, except for deep fat fryers. Some allow air fryers, others definitely don't. Almost everywhere doesn't allow appliances in the bedrooms, other than sometimes a kettle or a coffee machine and sometimes a PAT-tested mini fridge. If people bring in items like this when they're not allowed, they are usually confiscated during inspections and the student is also fined. So it's worth finding out in advance what is allowed because it can make a lot of difference to the recipes your child can make and therefore practice or think through beforehand. As I said in the last episode, our kids did some thinking ahead and practicing of recipes before they went and they both had ideas of what their independent meals were going to look like. Anna was in self catering accommodation from day one. So with that set up that I've described in your head, let's hear from Anna about how her ideas of cooking for herself lined up with the reality of a shared kitchen.

Joanne Roach (05:15)

When you were getting ready to go to uni, what did you hope your food and cooking would look like And how different was it in real life?

Anna (05:23)

I wanted it to be that I was, I cooked everything all the You know, you watch all these like influencers have these like intricate meals and things, you're like, well, I'm gonna have the time now. But don't really have the time. Because you're also learning how to do laundry 100 % of the time on your own. Learning to keep yourself on a sleeping schedule 100 % on your own. Keeping up with your hygiene and keeping up with homework and stuff with no prompting that by the time you've done all of that you're knackered before you've even looked food that point you need simpler meals.

Joanne Roach (05:57)

Yeah, I seem to remember when we were getting ready for you to go to uni, like you did already know how to cook quite a few things and you asked to learn a few extra things that you thought you'd like to cook at But I know that some of those, you did do them sometimes, but they weren't necessarily practical, were they?

Anna (06:11)

No, so many of these sorts of things that like, yeah, they're 15 minutes once you start cooking, they're half an hour worth of prep to then make it 15 minutes worth of cooking. Some of my lessons were until 9pm. So there's only so much left in the day before you've then got a 9am lesson the next day that you can really be bothered to cook something and then have to clean it up by hand because they don't have dishwashers. So like you've got to make sure you can clean up after yourself by hand as well which takes another 20 minutes.

Joanne Roach (06:29)

Mm. You were always in shared accommodation. What were the kitchens like in each of the three places you lived in and how easy was it to cook and eat even a little bit well in each of those places?

Anna (06:52)

In the first year I was living with clean freaks in the nicest way possible. I was working nights so I'd finish at 3am, get back by 4am and cook my dinner. But they had this expectation that I needed to leave nothing in the sink overnight, even though you know, it was quite literally the middle of the night. It was witching hour at the point I was eating. And so that meant, you know, my dinners on work nights, for example, always had to be incredibly simple because I had to be able to clean up one pot one plate and one fork. I couldn't be doing nice meals on my weekends while also working, because they'd get in my face a bit about it. They’d clearly grown up in like incredibly clean houses which, fair enough, like the expectations were a bit insane that way. And then my second year was the opposite of that and it was borderline a biohazard. None of the surfaces were clean, there was food on the floor, there was rotting stuff in the fridge, sink was always full, so it meant that like again you ended up not being able to cook as intricate meals as I would have wanted when I had time, because I'd feel that for that food to feel good and happy and nice to eat, I'd have to clean the kitchen first, that adds you know like a good couple hours because there's like a layer of grime across everything that like isn't really your responsibility to clean all the time.

Joanne Roach (08:16)

No, and it would still be there the next time you went because nobody else was cleaning.

Anna (08:21)

Exactly. So like I had both ends of the spectrum on that, of like kind of extremes and sometimes you end up somewhere in the middle. But on the whole general consensus shouldn't be leaving stuff out that's gonna smell ever,  because it's shared. Don't leave anything that's going to smell by the next day. And then most places, like my friends and things that are in other flats, it didn't have to be that same evening if you'd made a big meal for you and your friend, but by the end of the next day it would need to be cleaned up.

Joanne Roach (08:50)

Yeah, so if you were soaking some pans or something like that, or you'd stack the plates up neatly. And also, one of the things that seemed to be really key in those shared houses is a lot of people would soak pans and leave them in the sink, which meant that nobody else could use the sink. Whereas if you put water in them and put them off to the side somewhere, at least people could use the sink. That seemed to come up quite a lot.

Anna (09:09)

Yeah, something to say about people having different expectations for how they would accept living. And I was somewhere slap bang in the middle.  I didn't want to live in a biohazard but I was fine with untidiness. Being on the end where it was like, no, everything has to be clean all the time was a bit of a high expectation And then the next year being like, for the flat to be clean, I'd have to clean it, was also a bit much because like we all live here, surely you don't want to live in mess.

Joanne Roach (09:34)

Yeah. But that flat was something else. I mean I've lived in grotty student dives but there was always raw chicken splattered around the sink which was genuinely hazardous and there were mice at various points in that place.

Anna (09:46)

Yep. That was in like a big accommodation building that wasn't just for my university, it was for multiple universities. On the ground floor of the same block of buildings I was in, there was a kitchen that you could see from the street was filled to the ceiling with bin bags that they all refused to take outside. None of that in my opinion is like acceptable ways to live.

It's something to be aware of if you're a bit of a clean freak, look for other clean freaks. Maybe even ask to move flats, like no one's going to be judgmental of you moving flats, especially if they live a different way to you. They will feel judged So you might as well ask to move to a different flat that's maybe got more of a vibe that fits with you, rather than live with a group of people that live by a different standard. Otherwise you are kind of stuck with who you're given. There is a level of like, these are strangers, they don't have to be your friends. You have learn to coexist with them. You don't have to be best friends with them.

Joanne Roach (10:39)

Particularly in that place where it was very difficult to cook in the kitchen. What things did you end up trying that helped you to eat a little bit better or more consistently, just getting enough?

Anna (11:00)

My main thing was that second half of making sure that I was eating enough. Because with my ADHD it kind of went by the wayside, so like my main concern was making sure I ate enough regardless of anything else. I got to a point in my second year with the unclean place, where like I'd maybe buy two meals worth of things that would last a dinner and a lunch. And then I'd just accept that I'd buy some frozen pizzas and some ready meals because to live there and cook consistently would mean to clean up after everyone else all the time. For my mental wellbeing, it was easier just to coexist with them and ignore it and just kind of get on with what I needed to do. Unless you need very specific dietary requirements, like I'm not coeliac, I'm not a vegetarian or any of these things. I was able to relatively balanced ready meals because I could swap between some proteins, some carbs, some bits that had more veggies in, I’d buy like frozen vegetables to put alongside it so could just microwave it, call it a day, to my room and eat in there.

Sometimes to cohabit with people that do not match your expectations but you don't want have problems with, it is sometimes a bit easier to kind of give in to a couple bits. You're young, you don't have to have a perfect diet once you move out. You can pick it up later when you have a bit more freedom. You're living with friends who have similar expectations to you, or when you’re living with a partner or you're living on your own. Until that point, you are house sharing with strangers.

Joanne Roach (12:32)

You were relying more on things that you could either put in the microwave so you could keep the microwave clean and if you had to clean the microwave sometimes fine you could just clean that, or put on a tray in the oven so you only have to keep your own oven tray clean, some steamed vegetables or like chop up a cucumber on your own board so again you're not having to use any of the work surfaces or the hob or any of those things. You managed to make somewhat of a balanced meal by doing that. And then another thing that we did which wouldn't suit for every accommodation is we got a second hand fridge off Facebook marketplace. And what sort of things did you have in in your room?

Anna (13:06)

Yeah, like a mini fridge.

Joanne Roach (13:08)

And what sort of things did you have in in your room?

Anna (13:10)

Just snacks and stuff, like a chicken satay and like cream cheese and ritz. Things like that that would like tide you over.

Joanne Roach (13:16)

Yeah some of those ready chopped carrot sticks was one of the things wasn't it and fruit juice and drinking yogurts.

If people are listening who are either students who are going to uni in the next year, or their parents and their parents are wanting to know what to do to help them in the next few months. What tips would you pass on about how to prepare in a realistic way for shared accommodation?

Anna (13:37)

You can have like dreams about what you're gonna manage, like I said, like there was still days that I would bother to clean the hob and make a nice meal for myself because it seemed worth doing. All of what I've said, that doesn't mean never try a new recipe because you're around people that won't clean up after themselves. Occasionally it will be worth wiping the hob, clearing the sink and just doing what you want to cook. But then just don't expect you're gonna have the energy to do that every day.

Essentially, uni is like practicing to be an adult with some structure but you're still practicing.

You've just got to have realistic expectations for how much room you have to add in more and more things because it is not the same as living at home. You're living with strangers and everything's new. That on its own is gonna be a big change that you've got to sort of adapt to.

If you're really lucky you'll end up with people that become your friends. But I've met more people that have gone into these flats and they don't hate each other, like there is no animosity there but they would never have been friends in any other scenario, They’re just kind of friendly and polite and then you move on. Which then means you have to have a level of respect for their space in shared spaces as much as they do for you.

Joanne Roach (14:57)

Cooking in a shared kitchen where there are varied levels of hygiene or lack thereof can also be a huge influence on what you end up cooking. As Anna said, if you're in a group of sharers who are trying to keep things super clean, you may feel under pressure to cook simple things that use very minimal equipment that you can wash up immediately so you don't upset them. One pot or one oven tray meal are king here. But if you live in a place where other people have a total disregard for mess and how it affects other people,

You may end up not wanting to cook much because you'd have to clean everything before you use it. Knowing that other people won't take their turn with the bins might cause you to want to use less fresh food because the trimmings could rot and smell. So you end up buying ready prepped veg, which is more expensive. Or you may end up with more microwave and oven tray food than you'd like, to avoid using a hob that you've cleaned the last five times and no one else is taking a turn. In a lot of cases though, there is a happy medium, either a rota for chores or just one or two people being a bit slack who cave into other people nagging them.

This is especially true if you're living with friends and you've got enough of a relationship to nudge one another.

And you can make accommodations. So for example, when Anna was working nights, as she said, and not wanting to wash up at 4am, we got her a plastic washing up bowl which she could put her crocks into so they weren't in anyone's way and definitely not in the sink. Then she could do them the next day after lectures. But in a future house she lived in, she had a housemate who would leave her washing up festering for days. So the washing up bowl came out again to put that housemate's items in to keep them in one place. So for two different reasons, that was a way to keep the sink and counters clean for other people to cook.

While we're still on cleaning, most uni shared flats have some kind of cleaning or inspection service. This ranges from providing a cleaner fortnightly or weekly, but expecting the countertops to be clean and the bins empty, or just inspections where you're assessed against some criteria and given a warning or a fine if you don't match them. In the flat of one of my friend's sons, there was weekly cleaning, but anything left on the counter was actually removed and taken to a kind of lost and found box that they called the Pots and Pans prison. And if you didn't collect them within a set time they were disposed of. But in most places you get a warning and a repeat visit to show you fixed the issues. This is worth knowing so you can make sure that you don't cook something messy right before an inspection and let the side down.

The idea of saving money by buying bigger packs of things or batch cooking and refrigerating and freezing portions for the future is really just not practical when there's so little storage space. Not that it's impossible and both of mine still did it to a degree, but it's not the regular money saver that it can be in a family kitchen with a whole fridge freezer to use. Making two portions of something is doable, however, and eating the leftovers the next day.

The final thing that was mentioned by several people I asked that really affected how they could cook was the proximity to good shops or lack of them. As I mentioned in the last episode, student accommodation is often located either way out of town or right in the middle of it because students need less parking per person. So you can either be miles from any stores except a campus corner shop, or in the city centres you can be near only the express style stores that are meant for office workers to pick up a little something on the way home. And these are limited in range and usually a lot more expensive. Budget supermarkets are most common in the suburbs and the rings around the outside of the center, but that means having transport. Even if you decide to prioritise space in your tiny food cupboard for a huge budget bag of pasta, you'd have to lug it back from somewhere a long way away. For this reason, you might find that these kinds of heavy items like big bags or bottles of things are the most helpful things to bring to your child when you visit, as long as they confirm they have room to store them, as well as bringing them more interesting convenience foods when they might have been confined to a very small range in a local store. On this note about distance to shops affecting your ability to budget and cook well, Jacob asked that I mention that this is something worth telling students who are currently in their first year and who are starting to look for second year accommodation with a friendship group. He said that taking into account the distance to food shopping can make a huge difference to how nice it is to live in a particular house and that a place that is a fiver a month per person higher rent

can easily end up cheaper if it's a short walking distance to a budget supermarket. So that's worth bearing in mind.

And when it comes to shopping, in the last episode we mentioned getting delivery apps and using them strategically with friends to make the most of money off deals. The same is true for supermarket loyalty cards and deals. Get all the cards just in case. And if you do happen to walk past or near a supermarket to get to or from campus, make an effort to pop in on the way home, especially in the evening, because they may have yellow sticker reductions and you can see if there's anything you can eat the following day or pop in your limited freezer space for another day.

As a parent, it's also worth taking into account that sometimes your young person might have issues with food that is only exacerbated by the limited facilities. If your child's a fussy eater, they may need more stored items that they're comfortable with and they're less likely to use those deals.

If your child is neurodivergent or they lack social confidence, they may find the experience of cooking in a shared kitchen difficult because of both the sensory overload

and the enforced socialising with flatmates while they're cooking.

In this case, I would recommend listening to episode 47 with Natalie Fox, who talks through some great mindset strategies for people who find planning and making food difficult. But pretty much everyone I spoke to about what they wish they'd known before their child went to uni echoed what Anna said in this interview. It is definitely worth learning some good recipes. It's definitely worth taking an interest and finding out things that appeal to you.

But it's really important to set your expectations for the everyday meal pretty low and accept that most of your meals are likely going to be quick to cook and using only one or two pieces of equipment. So when you're getting ready to go to uni, finding recipes that you like that fit this criteria is a great plan. Finding sauces and toppings that can make quick, easy food seem more interesting is also a great shortcut - things like sriracha or chilli crisp or parmesan or a good flavoured mayo. Learning which things don't need to be in the fridge until they're open is a fridge space saver,

and they can think through which things that they like so much that they're prepared to use space to have them available. For Anna, she was prepared to give up freezer space to burger fixings because she could always eat pasta or burgers even when she was feeling low and both are often disappointing to order in. So she would split packs of four burgers and packs of four brioche rolls, wrap them separately in cling film and freeze them as well as a pack of burger cheese slices.

so she only needed lettuce and mayo in the fridge. She usually made pasta meals from scratch and kept the leftovers

but a lot of the time it really is about getting those convenience foods and trying to add things to them to bump them up. You can get individually packed steamer veg packs in the freezer that take a couple of minutes in the microwave.

Rice that you cook yourself, of course, is really cheap, but it requires a whole pan. And if you batch cook it, it needs storage space and using up quickly.

So there's no shame in using those microwave rice packs and you can easily stir fry some things to go alongside them.

Obviously supermarket pizzas are easy to add toppings to and for lots of other ideas on how to bump up easy convenience foods to add in some nutrition I'll linked to episode 68 in the show notes.

The main thing is to make sure that your child doesn't feel embarrassed for eating a fairly limited range of things because they're easy to store and cook and doesn't feel bad if their diet wouldn't pass some kind of optimum nutrition inspection. They're learning to live by themselves and if they're keeping themselves fed, they're doing a good job.

I want to say thanks to my kids for indulging me by discussing uni food on an interview and to the families I asked for extra context and advice.

For all the ups and downs of the things they talked about, our kids have all managed to stay in one piece until they graduated and are now living independently and cooking for themselves.

And these times are now mostly just a source of outrageous stories to tell. So while it's worth preparing and doing what you can, it is just a short period in their life and a good step on the way to becoming independent.

As I warned these episodes have run a little long to get a lot of information into just two episodes, but I hope you found them useful or I'd love it if you would pass them on to someone that you know whose child is at sixth form. I'll pop a bunch of helpful links in the show notes for all the ideas we talked about. I'll be back next week with another episode for children who are still living at home. So I hope to see you then. And in the meantime, happy eating.