Peter MacDonald
Recently featured on RNZ’s Thrift podcast and in the Otago Daily Times, Dunedin law and global studies student Renata Herrera Rojas is encouraging young people to ditch the instant noodles and start cooking properly. Drawing on her Chilean upbringing, where food is central to culture, family and identity, Renata has written The Beginner’s Guide to Nourishment, a practical, budget-conscious guide to home cooking for students.
But this guide isn’t just for students. I believe all New Zealanders, especially those who feel stuck in a routine of fast food or supermarket convenience, could benefit from what Renata is offering.
While I still shop at supermarkets for a handful of items, I avoid most of what’s on offer. In my view, around 95 per cent of the products on supermarket shelves are highly processed or chemically treated, including the fruit and vegetables. Many items even come with stickers detailing the specific sprays used. That’s why I go out of my way to buy organic produce. Yes, it’s more expensive but it’s also more flavourful, more nourishing and far better for long-term health.
I buy meat from boutique butchers and traditional European-style shops in Dunedin, like the German butcheries in North East Valley. These places offer real food, prepared with care and tradition, not the mass-produced packaged fare that fills most supermarket fridges.
Renata’s approach highlights something most New Zealanders don’t realise we’ve lost or maybe never truly had: a strong food culture. In countries like Chile, France, Italy and much of the global South, people grow up cooking, eating together, shopping at open-air markets and valuing food, not just for nutrition but as a pillar of life. In contrast, corporate food systems took root early in New Zealand, crowding out opportunities for a real, local food market culture to flourish.
Farmers’ markets are slowly returning, and that’s encouraging, but the vast majority of people still rely on the supermarket duopolies: eating chemically sprayed produce and highly processed food. This isn’t just about taste: it’s about health, both physical and mental.
Scientific studies, especially from Germany, have drawn serious links between poor nutrition and cognitive decline. Processed and junk food diets have been shown to impair memory, reduce focus and negatively impact mental health. This matters deeply, particularly for students, young professionals and anyone trying to function at a high level.
Renata’s book serves as a wake-up call. Her emphasis on meal planning, investing in decent kitchen tools, shopping smarter and cooking from scratch is not just about surviving university life: it’s about reclaiming sovereignty over what we put in our bodies.
Food is power. It can dull our minds or sharpen them. It can damage our health or help us thrive. In a country where food has been reduced to a packaged commodity, we need to return to something more real, more nourishing and more human.
If students took Renata Herrera Rojas’ advice seriously – centralising their lives around food, investing in shared kitchen spaces and pooling resources for good quality kitchen tools and ingredients – the change wouldn’t just be nutritional. It would be cultural.
A proper kitchen setup, with quality knives and sturdy pots, with cookbooks like Renata’s The Beginner’s Guide to Nourishment, could spark a kind of culinary renaissance among young people.
This wouldn’t just feed bodies: it would feed friendships, ideas and wellbeing. It would reduce food waste, build cooking skills and strengthen flat-mate bonds. In an age of screen fatigue and social disconnection, communal eating could become a quiet form of resistance.
It would also mark a rejection of the corporate fast-food culture that dominates student life: a step away from ultra-processed convenience and toward something slower, richer and more human.
Otago University students are known not just for their legendary parties, but for their innovative leadership, intellect, drive and talent. With enough momentum, students could become the vanguard of a new Kiwi food culture one based on quality, collaboration and joy, not just survival.
In the end, it’s not just about eating better. It’s about living better.
