Study: Roommate Who's Been Meal Prepping All Semester 'Slightly Better Than You As A Person'

It’s the beginning of a new semester and you’re looking to balance a budget after spending more on foods covered in melted cheese than you’d comfortably like to admit. It looks like the easiest way to cut costs is to start making your own food at home. You google a few meal prep recipes, buy your first pyrex set and a couple of mason jars (for the cold brew coffee which will replace Starbucks), and you're on your way.

At the start, you’re really proud of the $3.78 you’re spending on every meal, but by your fourth day of chicken breast and brown rice you’re already craving a burger from Copa. By week three you’ve given up on your Sunday trips to the farmer’s market and by the second month of classes you’re back to your old ways of shoveling Wawa mac & cheese into your mouth like the degenerate you always knew you were.

Meanwhile, it feels like your roommate Emil has been living off of leafy greens and photosynthesis for two years, but he’s "oh so supportive" of your meal prep plans and would totally be willing to share his forty spreadsheets with you on how he stays on budget. You don’t want to feel bad about yourself, so you head to Smokes to drown your sorrows while Emil stays at home, sipping the Kombucha he started brewing last month.

It’s a tale as old as time, but the shame you feel about your roommate’s amazing meal prep discipline is totally natural. It’s been scientifically proven that, on average, people like Emil are 4% better than the average college student. “We’ve finally been able to prove it in a controlled laboratory environment: people who prep their own meals have such high levels of self control that it counterbalances the constant air of mild condescension that permeates their lives,” a Penn researcher told UTB, before pulling out the kale salad lunch he’d made for himself last Saturday night.

This finding is sure to shake up roommate relations campus-wide, but it probably won’t get your other roommate to do the dishes he’s left in the sink for a week.