What I Eat in a Week as a Vegan College Student

Before we begin a few disclaimers: First of all, please do not compare my eating habits to yours, we all have different needs and dietary requirements as well as various metabolisms and levels of exercise which change the amount of food you’ll need in a day. Other things like being on your period or what you ate the day before can change your hunger levels, so it’s important to listen to your body and eat what feels right for you. As someone who has had an eating disorder and exercise addiction, I am still in the recovery process and re-learning how to eat intuitively and listen to my body. Right now I’m loosely following a meal plan provided by the nutritionist I see on campus, but am working on being flexible with what I eat based off of the situation and what I have available. If you’re struggling at all with eating, exercise, or body image I would highly recommend reaching out to someone for help. With all that said, I hope you find some inspiration in a week of my life of eating as an active vegan college student.

Second disclaimer, these meals are not all picture perfect. Even though we’re spending more time inside, life gets crazy. This week is from my last week of classes for the semester with a lot of projects due and finals prep to be done (most of mine are long essays or due next Monday so fingers crossed that I survive).

Monday Nov. 30th

To start off the day, I had a big bowl of apple peanut butter oatmeal with some dairy free yogurt with a mug of chai tea and later some coffee with soy milk.

For lunch I had a tofu stir fry with broccoli, onions, and a bunch of nutritional yeast over a roasted sweet potato. I also had a bunch of grapes. For dessert, I was doing some recipe testing and made a peanut butter chocolate mug cake.

For snacks I had a whole bag of Orville’s Natural Popcorn (scattered thought the day) . I also had some more grapes.

Dinner was lentil vegetable soup with avocado toast, some more grapes, and a slice of cranberry sourdough bread I baked with some vegan butter (below).

For dessert I had 3 squares of chocolate and an ~16 oz mixed fruit smoothie.

Just for some context, my eating varies a lot based on how much I work out or walk, so today I went for a six mile run and probably walked another six miles or so which made me hungrier than I would be on a rest day.

Tuesday Dec 1st

Started off the day with a four mile run with a pre-workout snack of a tablespoon of peanut butter. For breakfast I had a cinnamon raisin bagel with tofutti cream cheese, more raisins, a banana with more peanut butter, and some coffee.

Had another tablespoon of peanut butter later.

Lunch was using up random leftovers! Rice, lentils, veggies, and salsa. Had some grapes as well.

Snack was pretzels and hummus along with a fruit smoothie.

Dinner was roasted chickpeas, broccoli, kale, onions, and nutritional yeast over rice along with a glass of soy milk.

Dessert was another banana with peanut butter (if you haven’t figured it out yet peanut butter was heavily featured today) and two servings of this delicious Endangered Species dark chocolate which was about six squares. For exercise today I went on a run in the morning and did a lot of walking study breaks, so probably went around 10 miles.

Wednesday Dec. 2nd

After a nice five mile run, my breakfast was an oatmeal waffle with peanut butter, dairy free yogurt, chai tea with soy milk, a banana, and some blueberries. Yum!

Lunch was a noddle stir fry with broccoli, onions, kale and chickpeas. Can you tell I’m running low on vegetable options?

Had some grapes as a snack and an apple as well.

Dinner was in a hurry since I had a huge assignment that I needed to work on, so I had a lot of pretzel chips and like half a container of humus.

Later on I felt like I needed to have something more substantial so my “dessert” was more like dinner part two with a slice of avocado toast and then some sweet potatoes with roasted broccoli.

Thursday Dec. 3rd

Today I was running VERY low on groceries, but had enough for apple almond butter oatmeal with some dairy free yogurt and coffee. I went shopping at Trader Joe’s afterwards- it was much needed.

Lunch was a tofu scramble with veggies on top of multigrain toast and with two glasses of sparkling apple cider (aka me trying to hold onto fall even though winter is upon us).

Had some random snacks including some popcorn and an apple which I forgot to photograph.

Dinner was cauliflower gnocchi with tempeh, zucchini, peppers, kale, and vegan pesto. Dessert was some chocolate covered almonds. Ran another five miles today but was at my desk for most of the day getting work done.

Friday Dec. 4th

Yet again, oatmeal! A few tablespoons of peanut butter, banana, raisins, and some chai tea. If you’re curious, I normally get the liquid chai concentrate from Trader Joe’s or Oregon Chai where you make a glass by mixing half of the concentrate with whatever milk of your choice, I normally use soy.

Lunch was more pesto gnocchi, this time with chickpeas instead of tempeh and the same vegetables. For a snack I had an apple and a few servings of chocolate.

Dinner was a rice and tempeh stir fry with veggies and about 3 cups of popcorn as an extra snack.

Desert was two of these chocolate gluten free waffles with a banana, peanut butter, and more chocolate chips. I wanted to make something fun to celebrate the last day of classes for the semester, so I tried this vegan waffle recipe and just subbed GF flour so my roommate could eat it and added some chocolate chips. Yum! Today was busy exercise-wise with a six mile run and like eight miles of walking so the double waffles was definitely a nice treat.

Hopefully this article gives you guys some ideas on what to make or at least some reassurance that it’s okay to eat repeats of foods, that every meal doesn’t have to be picture perfect, that snacking is normal and fine, that chocolate is delicious, and that eating vegan is easier than you think.