2 October 2018
Zachary J. Engelman
College is sometimes a time of late-night studying, eating junk food and instant ramen, which sometimes results in the infamous ‘freshman 15.’ But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Cooking is a valuable life skill. When people cook food they can have direct control over the ingredients they put in to the food they eat. This gives people that cook more control over the nutritional benefits and detriments of their diets.
Food sold in stores and restaurants is often subject to competition for our money. Because of this, they often pack them full of sugar, fat and salt. They are also known for using cost saving ingredients with questionable sources and strange health side effects. Cooking for yourself allows you to avoid this and only put the things you want to eat in your food.
Home-cooked food can also be more affordable. Cooking in bulk can produce multiple meals to be saved and consumed over a long period of time and serve to prevent spontaneous trips to fast food drive-thrus.
Learning to make snacks can save a lot of money. Things like granola and cookies are drastically overpriced when sold at stores, but become extremely affordable when made at home.
Young people today are often criticized for their inability to cook. In today’s increasingly fast moving world, people are becoming more and more dependent on restaurants. Students in particular have limited schedules and don’t always have time to learn to cook.
Abandoning this restaurant crutch can be difficult. If you weren’t taught to cook growing up, it can be easy to get lost in the world of preprocessed food. UCCS has an answer to this problem. The Recreation and Wellness Center is providing free cooking classes in 2018. These bite-sized classes teach students how to make good, healthy food quickly.
The current schedule has already started and classes run until November. The classes are diverse and teach students to make a variety of foods, from burritos to homemade pizza.
According to their webpage “classes strive to make cooking accessible to everyone by providing hands-on experience and instruction to students. Classes center around meals that are nutritional, quick, easy and affordable. We provide a variety of programs to accommodate varying interests, ages and abilities.”
During the class, students get to cook in person and even eat the food they make. The recipes are created with the help of registered dietitians and are selected to teach specific techniques and sanitation processes. The classes don’t just stop at a one-time lesson; after taking the classes, students have access to recipe cards online to help reinforce the skills learned in class.
These classes could make a fun night out with friends, or even a creative idea for a date. Sign up with friends on the webpage www.uccs.edu/recwellness/nutrition/cookingregistration.
Registrations for classes open a few weeks before they start and have a limit to how many people can register for any given class. Make sure to sign up early to ensure a spot is available.
These free cooking classes make it easy to overcome the trend of restaurant and instant food addiction. Use these classes to become a more self sufficient person.
Gain control over your diet, save some money and eat food made to your preferences.