Stew of the Week

(Healthily?) Eating Free Food in College: The Ultimate Dilemma

Ok, so it's hard enough to eat even remotely healthily in college, but it just gets worse when they toss tons of free, (sometimes) delicious, totally not even disguised as healthy food in your face all the time. It's even harder when you're a graduating senior and you know you'll never get this kind of treatment again. Unless you work on a TV/film set, in which case, good luck with that.

So, here are some tips to, again, attempting to eat healthily despite the free college food overabundance.

1) If you know that there's only going to be unhealthy stuff, you haven't eaten in a few hours, and you honestly don't think you'll be able to only eat "a little," then just don't go. "Forget" when the event is, and just do something else that's fun.

2) If it doesn't taste fantastic, don't eat it. This, for me, is one of the hardest, because I'm always like, "But it's FREE!" Who cares? If it's a mediocre, plain bagel instead of a kick-ass, whole wheat one, why eat it?

3) If it is F'ing delicious, totes eat it. If, in whatever zany twist of fate, your school has brought to you something that tastes like ambrosia, eat it! Clearly, this is not a food you get often and it's super great, so enjoy it now and eat extra healthy for the next few days.

4) Go on a full stomach. Don't go to the event hungry. Go after a legitimate meal, preferably, or at least a good-sized snack if you have time for much else. If you're full, you at least won't have hunger cravings in addition to just "I want that!" cravings.

5) Try and find out beforehand what kind of food they'll be having, so you know what to expect and if you should even bother. If it's just donuts and coffee and you don't drink coffee but you LOVE donuts, definitely avoid the area or make sure you've eaten a ton and don't have anything to stash a donut away in. Just enjoy one there and get out ASAP.

6) Differentiate between legitimately healthy foods and "healthy" foods, so you'll know what to eat/avoid when you're there. Here are some tips: if the food they've got is something you know is healthy usually but you a) don't like it that much and b) it's been prepared in a totally unhealthy way (i.e. lots of cheese, mayo, butter etc) then you'll know it's a poser and pass, but if you do like it a lot and it was healthily cooked, you're set!

Good luck guys. Just keep thinking: we're almost out of for the summer: no more loud parties and musicals. Although, you have to admit, the loud parties and musicals were pretty fun.