Does this post make me look fat?

Food. Every college student dreams of it. The rare weekends when mothers visit and cook dinner cause vegetarians to rebel and eat 3 pieces of chicken. Thanksgiving is euphoria. I'm sure you're all wondering, what DO college students really eat, besides ice cream and pizza? Well, I can't say I'm the norm when it comes to my diet, but I would say I'm by no means the exception either, so here is my limited insight into the dietary habits of Homo sapiens collegians.

A typical day in the stomach of an American college student:

Breakfast: On the go! granola or fruit. I try to grab a granola bar or a fruit cup on my way out the door in the morning. String cheese will also suffice as suitable breakfast material.

Lunch: Sandwiches and Quesadillas. I usually go back to my apartment for lunch. It seems like I mostly eat turkey sandwiches and cheese quesadillas. Surprisingly, in the three months that I have been at college, I have only had two PB&J sandwiches.

Dinner: Nuked "Space Food". Hannah calls frozen food "space food", but I think it tastes much better than anything that you could buy in outer space. Sometimes I'll go all authentic and have real food. Like chicken out of a can. Or Ramen noodles. If I make the chicken tortilla with lettuce, or the Ramen on the stove, then it seems more like actual food. And sometimes we splurge and Kelby makes delicious stir-fry with real vegetables.

Snacks: The foods I eat the most are probably eggs, toast, and juice. I love eggs. Fried, scrambled, boiled, any way you can think of. Except raw. Bread/ grain is "the staff of life", and so to keep myself alive, I eat bread, and we all know that toast is bread but a million times better. Toast is like the Michael Jordan on the basketball team of bread. And juice is just plain awesome. I really like orange juice. And this delicious pomegranate limeade juice that's like there's a party in my mouth and all my tastebuds are invited.

Toast personified.

Occasionally, I'll get this feeling that I just need something healthy. So I grab my 48 ounce bag of baby carrots and eat half of them. The next day my skin has orange-ish tint, but it's worth it. Carrots are good for your eyes, so maybe if I eat enough of them I won't be so blind anymore. If no carrots are available, I'll eat a piece of fruit. But this never turns out as well as I hope. I'll slice it open, or worse, bite into it, and then realize I bought it two weeks ago and it's all brown and squishy and I have to throw it away and have something frozen.

Nutella: Nutella deserves a category of its own. Nutella, from what I have seen, is the staple food of college dorm rooms. Forget about corn or wheat, it's Nutella. You can eat that stuff on anything. It's delicious on toast. Supreme on bananas. By itself? Still awesome. Just make sure you "eat not in excess", or you will feel sick the next day and you will have to eat carrots. And I hear that it may or may not liquefy your bowels.

It feels like it's healthy because it says "Hazelnut spread with skim milk and cocoa". You read that and think, "Oh! It's like peanut butter, and they use SKIM milk! So it has less fat!"

On-Campus Food: There are a lot of things to eat on campus if you have money. If you don't have money, there are a lot of friends on campus who have money to buy things to eat. That's what dates are for, right? To get a decent meal?

Vending machines: The vending machines on campus make BANK. They sell everything from crackers to cake to burritos to bagels. If a food can be packaged in individual servings, it's probably sold in a vending machine somewhere on campus. They even have microwaves so you can buy more frozen food, in case you are having withdrawals since the last time you were at your apartment.

The Cannon Center: All-you-can-eat. Pretty expensive (okay, it's like $10, but that's a lot for poor starving college students), unless you have a meal plan that covers it. But you can sit there all day and just keep eating if you want. So if you're really desperate, go panhandling one night. Make sure you get $10. And then go the next morning and just keep eating all day. If they try to kick you out, pass out. From "exhaustion" and "starvation". They'll pity you and let you stay. Or else want to keep laughing at you all day, and let you stay. Either way, you stay.

The CougarEat: In the Wilk, the CougarEat has a bunch of little restaurants like Subway and Taco Bell. Also in the Wilk, there is a little grocery store called "The Twilight Zone", which is pretty inexpensive. They have good sandwiches and bagels.

While in college, I have experienced many food-related firsts...

Ordering pizza for the first time.

Craving vegetables.... (Weird, right?)

Grocery shopping for myself- it's harder than it looks!

And of course, eating ice cream out of the carton for the first time. It was basically amazing.

That's about it. So now you know. Yep, we pretty much eat crap.