Most students really can't boil an egg OR slice a pepper

They may be our hope for the future and some of the finest minds in the land but ask a student to boil and egg and he or she will more than likely be utterly flummoxed.

Yes, it's that time of year again when a new flood of undergrads head to halls armed with a toastie maker and a student loan and a nation of parents collectively scold themselves for failing to impart vital information about egg boiling and rice cooking.

In this particular survey, by Sacla, almost 80 per cent of students admitted to egg boiling ignorance and half said they didn't know how to make mashed potato or boil rice.

Almost half did not know how to slice a pepper.

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None of this is new. Even decades on from uni many of the Yahoo team have an ongoing battle with rice. But that's besides the point. What is worrying is that three quarters of students said they simply couldn't cook a healthy meal for themselves, admitting that they survive on a diet of snacks, ready meals and takeaways.

Half of them eat two or more takeaways a week, which may be good for the local economy, but not so good for the students' bodies or brains.

And it's not that they don't know it. More than a third thought their bad diet was responsible for their lack of energy and around a quarter blamed it for weight gain (what did we say about finest minds?), and inability to concentrate.

A third also put their susceptibility to illness down to bad diet too, and with freshers' flu looming, they're right to be concerned.

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Parents are also worried. Almost three quarters wish their children were better at cooking and 14 per cent even fear their extreme inability to make dinner will lead to food poisoning.

These concerns leave a quarter of parents feeling very guilty about not passing on these skills before their offspring fled the nest. Let's assume the other three quarters are in denial.

To help banish the terms ahead of bad food, Sacla has created the Sacla's Student Cookery School, which is bringing in Italian mammas to five university cities over the next few weeks to help students swot up on their kitchen skills. Find out more on Facebook.