Look in your fridge. Go on, take a look.
Is everything neatly organized into food groups? Is there a variety of color in the food that graces your fair shelves (and not just in the packaging)? Can you spot an actual vegetable amongst the ruins of previous meals?
Or, when you take a peek behind the white sealed door, is it a mix of pizza leftovers, bread, cheese and the occasional hunk of meat?
Go on, be honest.
Student eating habits are infamous.
The combination of new experiences, less time and having to actually prepare their own meals means students often embrace a single food group: takeaways.
But in doing so, their bodies suffer.
Local nutritionist and personal trainer Stacey Hancock says New Zealand eating habits are not great overall.
“They are largely dictated by marketing – T.V and magazines,” she says. “Or influenced by peer pressure from other people. We have been brought up, for example, on having dessert every night. We are taught treats are something to have all the time.”
Hancock says New Zealand eating habits are bad, in part, because of the information we are being given.
“When they say 99 per cent fat free, they are not saying how much sugar or salt is in the food.”
This is important information to understand before we put the food in our mouths.
Hancock says that when it comes to food New Zealanders are going wrong in a number of ways.
“We are definitely eating the wrong things. We are also eating bigger portions then we need and we are missing out the fruit and vegetables. Students are likely to eat toast and honey for dinner rather than preparing a full meal.”
Eating crap can have a severe impact on how a person’s body functions, says Hancock.
“Bad eating habits can cause low energy, obesity, illness. It can trigger a basic all over imbalance.”
But all is not lost. There are ways to improve the situation.
Hancock recommends embracing the five plus a day: at least three servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit. To balance everything out, we should also be eating whole grains, lean proteins, essential fatty acids and drink lots of water. The key factor is also to moderate the portion size of each meal.
“The portion sizes should be the size of your fist for carbohydrates and the size of the palm of your hand for meat,” she says. “My advice is to learn how to cook – just easy things like spaghetti bolognese and stir-fry and control your portion size. Frozen veggies are gold as are in-season fruit. Use basic flavoring such as tomato paste, herbs and salt – not the creamy expensive sauces.“
Hancock says one of the best thing students can do is inform themselves over what’s in their food.
“We just don’t seem to know.”

The all meat diet
Breakfast: Bacon, and eggs – to start the day right
Lunch: three mince and cheese pies – got to get that all important diary in.
Dinner: Pizza – with capsicum to ensure it is balanced. Chased down by a dollop of chocolate pudding (because they look like they also came from animals).

How to spot a meat lover in their natural habitat:
The incisors are sharpened as they rip through the plastic of yet another pie packet. When Bambi’s mother died, this person was reaching for their steak knives.

Art “there be no veggies here” Robinson
Arthur Robinson, editor of nexus and occasional drag queen, will argue there is only one food group: meat.
“I eat a lot of meat, processed cheap meats. And, salty meat. That’s what I love. Even if my wife salts the food while she is cooking I will add salt to it. I want to see the crystals.”
He does add some fruit to the mix - a banana here and there. But for Robinson it is all about the flesh of animals.
“I eat capsicum because it’s on the pizza. The only veggies I eat are what traditionally go with pizza and pasta.”
Robinson says he’s not ashamed of the way he eats, in fact there seems to be a little pride in his ability to eat three pies in one sitting.
“I like my food dead – it used to be alive, someone killed it for me so I could eat it. None of this plucking things out of the ground stuff.”
His argument for his diet is evolutionary.
“I understand the food pyramid is there – it was a guideline we were given as kids. But caveman weren’t going around growing shit. They were hunting things. Cavemen are our ancestors and they ate meat. They survived. When shitty times come I’ll survive because I won’t have to try and find vegetables. I’ll just eat the mutated beasts running around.”
This unashamed carnivore says he spends most of his day in front of the computer, letting the calories sit.
“I work in front of a computer and when I go home I play a lot of video games or watch T.V,” he says. “It’s a sedentary life.”
He does walk to and from his house, sometimes. It’s a 5km round trip.
He shrugs his shoulders, because that’s about as healthy as he gets.
(Kiss my ass Foxcroft! Ed.)

The balanced eater
Breakfast: marmite on toast with a side of yoghurt. Low fat mind you, don’t want to add any extra calories.
Lunch: Thai chicken curry, with vegetables all washed down with a bottle of ‘chi’.
Dinner: A pasta dish, loaded with greens. Tells the partner they are going out for a run and get a serving of hot chips along the way.

How to spot a balanced eater in their natural habitat:
He or she’s the one actually looking closely at the food in the glass cabinet before they order. They’re not whipping out any scales – yet – but you can see their minds doing the mental calculations. On the tip of their lips is the question: how much is this really going to cost me?

Francisco “the balancing act” Yanez
With a bit of a laugh, Chilean born Francisco Yanez admits he eats healthy because his partner is a food technician.
“My partner does have a lot to do with it,” he says. “I eat very healthy, I eat a lot of veggies, and when I make a meal, there’s a lot of variety. It’s a conscious choice.”
Admittedly, he says, it’s a choice that’s ‘encouraged’ at home.
For Yanez, an engineering student embarking on his second degree, its all about pasta, curry and bolegnese – but always with vegetables and a bit of meat.
“I always feel satisfied but never full. Even with dessert – its cans of fruit or just a little bit of ice cream.”
Sounds a little too saintly?
In our conversation on food it takes a while to get there but Yanez eventually reveals his guilty pleasure – deep fried hot chips. And takeaways. And his mama’s cooking.
Its at this stage that the halo slipped off.
After a recent three-week trip home to Chile, he gained five kilograms.
“It’s nice to eat traditional food – manjar (caramel spread) and empanadas – all high in fat and deep fried,” he says. “You can just go to the corner store and get them. While I was there I did gain a lot of weight – you just can’t help it.”
Back on Kiwi soil, the weight is dropping off thanks to his healthy diet and running around a soccer pitch.
As he gets ready to amble off to class he brings his food regime down to one point.
“I do a lot of exercise so I need the right food,” he says.
And the food technician partner helps.

The vegetarian
Breakfast: muesli, yoghurt, and the occasional piece of multigrain toast.
Lunch: Carrot sticks, pasta and tofu dogs (because fake meat is soooo good).
Dinner: stir-fry, beans, baked beans on toast.

How to spot the vegetarian in their natural habitat:
One word - salad. Lots and lots of salad. There are a subset of the vegetarian species who only eat potatoes, but you can spot these by their iron-deficient pasty complexions. Some vegetarians, or reformed meat eaters, are easy to spot by disapproving looks thrown at meat eaters. Nothing worse than someone who has been reformed.

Hilary “yay for veggies” Max
About eight years ago a young Hilary Max decided to turn her back on meat. Just 12 years old, she became the black sheep in a family that embraced the traditional meat and three veggies.
“I just didn’t really like the taste of meat,” she says. “And combined with the fact that I was young and idealist, well, I just stopped eating meat.”
In her youth, this law and psychology students friends would wave steak in front of her face, trying to tempt her back to the dark side. The smell, the sight, the dripping juices, But she resisted. Nowadays, most of her friends look at what’s on Max’s plate with envy.
“Most of my friends eat vegetarian during the week, so they look at what I’m eating and cook the same the next day.”
Max admits a few cravings and her ultimate weakness: a Burger King whopper.
“That’s the only thing I get a craving for – it’s so good.”
But being vegetarian is not all skipping in the meadows and hugging trees. There are difficulties, such as getting enough iron and protein - to minerals that come directly from the bloodied piece of flesh that Max refuses.
“Being vegetarian means you actually have to plan your meals. You have to think about it,” she says. “There was time when my iron was so low that I went back to eating meat. But after two days of trying to force it down, I realized I couldn’t. I just felt so sick, I just didn’t like it.”
Max admits sorting out her food each week is easier because she flats with another vegetarian. They plan their meals and cook together.
Would she recommend being a vegetarian to others?
“Sure, but don’t do it if you really miss meat. Why torture yourself?,” she says.

The Vegan
Breakfast: nuts, seeds…um…cardboard?
Lunch: Anything from Gaura’s – why think about it when someone has done it for you?
Dinner: if you made it this far, well done. How about treating yourself with some lentils? Or legumes? Or…cardboard?

How to spot a Vegan in their natural habitat:
Well, the socks and naturally woven sandals might be just a little bit of a hint that you are dealing with a different beast here. A vegan in the wild might be hugging a tree, or a lamb. Or hugging in general. You have been warned.

Manu Chari:
When Manu Chari decided to become a vegan three years ago, it wasnt such a big step for him. He had already been a vegetarian for eleven years before that.
“I became a vegetarian because I’m Hari Krishna,” he says. “But I decided to become a vegan about three years ago because a lot of people that we were dealing with, those involved in animal rights and the sort, are vegans themselves. They would tell us that the cows that produce the milk are, more often than not the same ones that end up in the slaughter house.”
So Chari thought about it, and decided it needed to be all or nothing.
“We decided to be vegan until we have our own farm,” he says.
That hasn’t happened yet – so, no milk it is.
Chari describes vegans as vegetarians who have no animal products what so ever.
“Sure, there are arguments about honey – some people say that’s an animal product as well, but the main point is that we don’t have dairy.”
Chari says the decision wasn’t difficult but it involved a lot of changed for him and his partner.
“The Hari Krishna diet involves a lot of dairy so we had to make changes. But because we had a reason for doing it – it was easy to stick with it.”
Chari says vegan food leaves you feeling satisfied but it’s not heavy.
“A lot of people come here who aren’t vegetarian – they come here for a healthy option,” he says. “For us commercially made food equals unhealthy food. It will always have something added or removed. So you have to focus not just on the no animal products, but also on being healthy.”
And no, he doesn’t miss the meat or the milk.
“I don’t miss it, because I know why I stopped,” he says. “I’m not going to change the meat industry but I’ve taken a stand.”