I’m a picky eater and the fact that the dining hall food is just crap makes it worse. I’ve lost weight since I got to college because there are times when I go hungry or don’t eat enough because the food is so terrible. I got lightheaded a few days ago because I hadn’t eaten enough. There are no restaurants nearby, the college is in the middle of nowhere. What am I supposed to do? Please don’t tell me to try new food, I really don’t want to
Try new food. You’re not a baby, and it’s not going to kill you.
I never understand this. Stuff your face with fruit, cereal or Peanut butter and jelly and be done with it. You are at school, not a fine cruise ship. You literally can’t find anything to eat?
Do you have a fridge in your dorm ? My D hated the dining room food but could use her dining dollars to buy cereal and fruit at a take out section of the cafeteria. So she would eat cereal in her room.
If you can afford to order some protein bars delivered? Or drinks? Amazon has all kinds of stuff.
Appeal to your relatives -Many people love baking and making care packages
Join clubs and organizations. Does your school have a reddit? Start a thread and ask -what clubs are giving out free food? I understand at my D’s school there was almost some organization having Pizza somewhere.
Make friends with someone on the dinning hall staff and ask if they will make you something in a particular way.
Good luck!
No pasta bar, no sandwich bar, no salad bar?
What do you like to eat at home?
If there are grocery stores nearby, stock up and cook your own food. Or join a club that has a food focus (like they make different recipes and stuff) and do things with them.
Maybe mom can send you a care package.
You seem to hate everything about college:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/1937802-i-hate-college.html#latest
Is the dining hall included in your tuition? If so you must learn to like something there. Trust me when you are hungry enough you be surprised at how your palette desires increase.
If there really isn’t anything nearby, you can always use an online service to get meal kits delivered, or just order food online from somewhere like Amazon Pantry. But that costs money, so if you’re not able or willing to pay for food in addition to your meal plan, I’d say that you just have to suck it up and deal with it. I’ve found that copious amounts of hot sauce can make almost any dining hall meal palatable. If you don’t like hot sauce, you could always just drown your food in ketchup.
Did you spend high school eating caviar, truffles, and other really expensive foods or something?
You have a few options:
- Cancel meal plan and buy food from a grocery store every week or so.
- Order food through Amazon Pantry.
- Suck it up. If you go to a really good college I'm sure there's plenty of options to choose from - maybe you need to try a different dining hall than your usual one.
Sorry to say I have little sympathy for picky eaters. I doubt cavemen were picky. Time to be an adult and expand your culinary horizons.
No one is force feeding you, if you don’t like it you can get other food.
My son’s school is one of the top ten and they don’t serve meals on the weekends so the kids have to fend for themselves. It’s a small school and everyone knows everyone in the residence halls.
The classmates, with cars, work together with those that don’t, to create their own shopping lists and run to Safeway. They have full sized kitchens in each hall, so they stock up the fridges on weekends, then make/freeze meals whenever they can. BTW: getting six hours of sleep per night is a luxury for them.
Additionally, the roommates all have packages, sent by their parents, of favorite regional foods and they share. They’ve asked their parents to send extra foods. My son’s roommate eats a lot of trail mix, so he’s had his mom ship tons of trail mix. My son eats easy-to-make Mexican food and top ramen. So, I shipped him Costco-sized corn tortillas, and rice, and top ramen. I sent him a gift card for Safeway (for his quesadillas: Monterey jack cheese, sour cream, cilantro, lettuce, chorizo/eggs, etc.)
It’s not hard to eat at a school with crappy food. It is not hard. Every poster has given you some good suggestions.
Given your previous post referenced by @TomSrOfBoston, I think there is more going on than you trying to use “not liking food at your school” to get sick. Talk to a counselor because you really may be depressed. BTW: Seeing your high school friends having “fun” at their schools, doesn’t help and it means their grades may be weaker than what they say.
@“aunt bea” Please do tell which school does not have an open dining hall on the weekends and the kids get little sleep. I think many will want to avoid that school.