
FFK97: Preparing your child for university food - self catering shared accommodation
From Food For Kids by The Foodies
April 30, 2026 · 23 min · Episode 97
About this episode
The episode discusses preparing children for self-catering in university shared accommodation, featuring an interview with Anna about her experiences.
Today is the second of our two parter about preparing a child to feed themselves if they go to university or another post 18 route that requires living in dorms or shared accommodation. The two episodes will run slightly long, to pack everything in without running to multiple episodes so please excuse the slightly longer run time than usual. Joanne covers two different aspects, the catered route where you pay in your accommodation fees to include some or all of your food, and then the self catering route where some cooking facilities are provided and you make your own meals. For these episodes Joanne talks to her two grown up children Jacob and Anna, who both finished university in the last couple of years. In this second episode it's an interview with Anna about her first two years in shared self catering flats living with strangers. We talk about the gap between students' ideas of how they think they are going to cook for themselves, and the reality when you have very little space, very little time and have to navigate other people and their cleanliness habits. Links in this episode: Music "Happy Days" by Simon Folwar via Uppbeat
People in this episode
Host: Joanne
Guest: Anna
Topics covered
- university food
- self catering
- shared accommodation
- student cooking
- meal preparation
Keywords
- university
- self catering
- shared flats
- student meals
- cooking tips
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