The Department of Human Nutrition has launched meal packages to help flats take some stress out of meal prep. It’s one of a long list of initiatives that aim to snap students out of their perennial Indomie addiction.
The Feed My Flat initiative is basically the same as My Food Bag or other similar meal-kit services. For $85 per week, they’ll provide the recipes and ingredients to feed four people for three dinner meals - this works out to about $28 per flat meal. Flats with more people (or bigger appetites) can upgrade to a six-person meal kit, which will cost you $130 per week.
As far as meal kits go, it’s cheap - a similar box from HelloFresh or Bargain Box would set you back about $30 more per week. But the Department has a bigger purpose here that goes beyond simply feeding students on a budget. According to Kimberley, an assistant research fellow at the Department and one of the staff behind the scheme, they want to help students get confident in the kitchen, and develop skills that will last a lifetime.
Cooking needs to be “rebranded,” says Kimberley, because it’s probably cheaper and easier than you think: “Cooking doesn’t have to be fancy, boring or time-consuming…it’s not just for parents. For example, rather than buying a few jars of pasta sauce, you can make it yourself with a can of tomatoes, herbs and spices.”
To try and spread the good word, they’ve been making efforts to go beyond just chucking some stuff into a box and calling it a day. For example, on Instagram, they’re sharing recipes and cooking tips, schooling you on everything from cooking up an orange beef stir-fry to the intricacies of peeling ginger and juicing lemons. Kimberley says this means “all our flatting students can benefit from this information, including students who are not buying the food bags.”
You can order the kits online, but orders need to be in by Wednesday for pick up the following Monday. They’re only limited to 50 orders per week, so anyone wanting a decent flat feed without the admin of a last-minute dash to New World will need to get in quick.