It can sometimes be hard to think of quick and easy meals to make at university. Luckily, this student from Nottingham creates affordable and tasty recipes in her spare time to help the student community eat well whilst living on a budget.
Lauren Leyva, 22, is studying for a master’s degree in Architecture at The University of Nottingham and created her website ‘The Starving Student’ during her first year at university.
The Starving Student has become very popular, despite being something that Lauren does part-time around her education.
All of the recipes Lauren shares and posts about on the website and across social media are her own creations, a task she described as a lot of fun.
Lauren said: “At the moment on my website, I have just over 100 recipes, but more can be found on my Instagram.”
“It’s been amazing to get recognised for the project that I care so much about and that people know that the core of my project is to help others and highlight some important global issues that exist within our society and that these are issues we can help tackle.
Her Instagram account, The Starving Student, boasts over 18,700 followers and features dozens of tasty recipes.
“It’s incredibly important that student recipes are healthy and affordable to simply show people that you don’t have to have a big budget to eat well and cook delicious meals.
“I’ve had student cookbooks before and know of several student food companies that have drifted from ‘real’ affordable food using unusual, inaccessible and sometimes expensive ingredients.
“This is so demotivating for us students with smaller budgets, which is why I have always made sure every recipe I share is in line with my ethos – Easy, Delicious, On a budget.”
During 2020 Lauren designed and created ‘The Student Manual’, which she launched at the start of the 2020/21 academic year.
Recently Lauren has hosted an avoiding food waste design competition, where she wanted to give students the chance to get creative whilst also highlighting the global issue of food waste and poverty.
Both the winning and commended designs are featured on The Starving Student website.
Lauren added: “I am from a creative background, so I wanted to create a competition which would encourage others to be creative.
“I’ve never done a competition like this before and had no idea if I would get any response, but I had some fab submissions.”
Written by Laycie Beck
Feature image credit: Instagram: @thestarvingstudent (edited by Jessica Goddard)