Source: Radio New Zealand
People are often surprised when Renata Herrera Rojas, a fifth-year university student flatting in Dunedin, says she eats just as well as she did at her home – even though she uses some canned food.
But many students struggle: a 2024 University of Auckland survey found 45 percent of 347 students, especially those living away from home, faced food hardship. And the Otago University Student Association has seen rising food bank demand over the past few years.
“There’s this massive culture around that; ‘this is just what’s going to happen. This is what’s normal, that you’re going to be eating bad food for this number of years, and that’s totally fine’, and like a kind of complacency around it,” says Herrera Rojas, who has created the Beginner’s Guide to Nourishment.
Dunedin law and global studies student Renata Herrera Rojas has written a manual to make cheap and healthy student eating easy.
Supplied
