Got something awesome everyone needs to know about? A really rad singer? A wicked new book? Delectable and healthy snacks?? Email your “The Know” ideas to Jill@collegecandy.com or tweet me and I’ll pass them along to everyone right here, every week. Make your kindergarten teacher proud and share!

Fact: Fro-yo in the summer is amazeballs.
Fact: Fro-yo stores are often overpriced.
Fact: Every time I finish my serving of overpriced fro-yo I’m sad its over and I want more, but don’t want to be fat. Or broke.

You feel me?

Well, what if I had a recipe for a yummy fro-yo dessert that was both lo-cal and low price?! I bet you’d say, “Sign me up for that biatch.” And sign you up for that I will, thanks to my friend Sam who made a kick-ass version for my birthday last year.

Here’s what you need:
One pie crust – I recommend Oreo crust.  If pie crust isn’t your thing or you wanna make some individual treats, cupcake paper holders and a cupcake pan will work just fine.
1 container of Cool Whip
1 single serving container of breakfast yogurt of your choice (think Dannon Light and Fit strawberry, Greek Fage, coffee flavored yogurt – whatever strikes your fancy)
Toppings of your choice: chopped fruit, chocolate chips, almond slivers, granola, shredded coconut… the options are endless!

And here’s how you make your dreams come true:

1. Combine the yogurt and the container of cool whip in a bowl, spread evenly into the pie crust (or into the cupcake tins).

2. If you want, before you spread that ish into the bowl, mix the toppings in. Or just sprinkle them on top. Or do both. Or, if you went pie-crust free, put some toppings (like granola) at the bottom of the cupcake tins to make a “crust.” So many varieties!

3. Throw in the freezer and – badda boom – any time you have a sweet craving, grab a piece of pie or fro-yo cup.

Also a great treat to bring to summer BBQs, birthdays, hell, it’s good for everything. Cheap, lo-cal (depending on the toppings you use) and downright delish. And now you know how to make it happen.

I myself am stressed to the max with work and am not at all appreciative of the bags under my eyes right now (I look a little something like this). I swear I saw my first wrinkle today. And then I cried.

All I want is a little R&R so I can be fully recharged and ready for Spring Break. After all, you need to look and feel your best before you go off and party for an entire week (duh). I’d love to just take a day and chill out at the spa. Relaxing music, soothing body treatments, a little “me” time is all I really need to feel better and look a whole lot more rejuvenated.

Too bad I’m in college and have to spend all my money on tuition instead of a fancy $80 facial or $60 body exfoliate. But that’s OK, because with a few key ingredients and a couple of hours, I can bring the spa and relaxation to me. And you can too, sister.

Here are a few DIY recipes and tips to create the perfect spa day that will have you feeling less stressed and more relaxed, guaranteed!  It worked wonders for me and now I no longer look like the Wicked Witch and look (or feel like I look) more like this.

What You’ll Do
1. Turn off your cell phone. Yes, do it. I dare you. The freedom and relaxation that comes from not hearing your phone buzz every few minutes is amazing.

2. Turn on some smooth jams. I prefer Miss Norah Jones (she’s the bomb.com). But if you really want that spa ambiance, turn on Spa Radio station on Pandora Radio so you really feel like you’re at a pampered place.

3. Detox your bod by drinking tons of ice-cold water throughout the day. Add some cucumber slices for a crisp taste and spa feel.

4. Scrub up with the Lemon-Brown Sugar Body Scrub (recipe below).

5. Freshen your face with the Citrus Facial (recipe below).

6. Sit back, kick your feet up, and relax with a bowl of organic fro-yo with fresh fruit.

7. Leave the “spa” feeling refreshed, rejuvenated and ready for whatever the week has to offer.

Lemon-Brown Sugar Body Scrub
Body scrubs exfoliate the skin, which can help remove toxins from your body (like the ones from all those games of beer pong and late-night TBell runs)! Scrubs also remove dead skin, leaving your skin with a renewed, healthy, and natural glow.

What You’ll Need
1/4 cup coarse brown sugar
1 cup grapeseed oil
1/4 cup grated lemon peel

What You’ll Do
1. Mix together all ingredients. The brown sugar will help to exfoliate the skin, the grapeseed oil will moisturize the skin, and the lemon peel will create a tingly feeling that stimulates your senses.
2. Gently rub on your body.
Tip: Scrubs can be very messy and goopy, so use this in the shower or bath for easier application.
3. Rinse with water.
4. If you want to make a bigger batch, multiply all ingredients by 4 and store in a cute jar. Mason jars work best for a retro, vintage feel, and will add that extra unique touch to your homemade scrub. You can find Mason Jars at Walmart and other home stores.

Citrus Facial
This facial, like the body scrub, will remove dead/dry skin and revitalize your face. And citrus is a natural ingredient that helps further detoxify your skin (plus it smells delicious!).

What You’ll Need:
1 teaspoon lemon juice (or other citrus juice!)
2 teaspoons honey
6 ounces plain yogurt
1/4 cup oatmeal

What You’ll Do:
1. Blend ingredients.
2. Apply to face and allow to dry
3. Rinse with water and bask in your freshened face!

Recipes from OrganicAuthority.com.

"Wait... that's CHICKEN?"

You’ve finished your three classes for the day, you spent an hour catching up on reading in the library and you sweat through 45 minutes on the elliptical. Now its 6:00 and you’re starving.  You know you should shower, but with only 30 minutes until the cafeteria closes, you throw on some dry sweats, grab some hall mates and run down to dinner.

You swipe your meal card, grab a tray and make your way down the line of dinner options. Your stomach growls as the smell of hot food wafts towards you. You’re so hungry you’ll eat anything. Or so you think.

As you make your way down the first row of food you grow nauseous. The platters are full of something brown and sloppy.

“Is that beef?” You think to yourself as you lean in to get a closer look. You read the card taped to the glass above it.

“BBQ chicken” it says.

There is no way in hell you’re going to eat anything that unrecognizable so you move on. Next there are soggy vegetables soaked in oil, something yellow and runny that the hair-net-wearing burly man (or maybe woman?) tells you are mashed potatoes and a vegetarian option that you swear you saw in the toilet after you drank too much on Sunday…

Unable to stomach any of the above you weigh your other options. You could go with the salad bar – again – but you know a plate full of vegetables is not going to do much for your empty stomach. Plus, isn’t lettuce supposed to be green?

Your stomach starts rumbling again and, running out of time, you decide to go with the only appetizing option left in the entire cafeteria: the Belgian waffle maker. You know it’s not healthy, but what else are you supposed to do – not eat? You promise yourself you’ll grab some fruit to go with it and get in line behind the other 8 people who couldn’t stomach the hot food.

After one failed attempt involving a little too much batter that spilled over the sides and dripped onto your furry slippers (“WTF? Why do they make the ladle so big?!”) you pull your perfectly browned waffle out of the iron (burning your fingers in the process), pour a little syrup on it and head over to your friends. Only on your way to the table where the girls are unhappily chomping away on plates of salad you spot the dessert bar. It’s filled with brownies and mini cups of banana pudding (with wafers!), all making you drool. Next to it, a student fills a bowl with rich, creamy frozen yogurt before drowning the dish in sprinkles and whipped cream.

You try to fight it (“Who eats dessert before 7pm!?”) but your stomach eventually makes the decision for you and you stop, put your tray down and grab a bowl. You feel a little guilty as you layer brownies and ice cream and sprinkles, but you remind yourself of your good workout and how you wouldn’t be doing this if the main courses didn’t look like dog poo. Then you take your waffle, apple and bowl of creamy goodness and sit down with your friends to dig into your “dinner.”

On your way out, you grab another brownie (and an apple) for later. “It’s not like this meal is gonna fill me up until bedtime,” you reason.

Yeah, we’ve all been there.
And now we know exactly where that Freshman 15 comes from.

Anyways, eating in the dining commons at my school was my least favorite option and I imagined it to be the same for every campus, until I came across an article on Yahoo about the Top 20 Rankings for Best College Food and became insanely jealous of these delicious treats.

At Wheaton College, ranked number one in this survey, Klaud Mandl, the General Manager of Food Services at Wheaton, who previously worked at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston, has a menu of Belgian chocolate homemade truffles, lavender-infused pork chops with onion gravy, and cumin-lime baked chicken with avocado cream sauce. Are you serious?!?! Homemade Belgian truffles??? The closest thing we got to that at my school was a help-yourself ice cream machine with watered down frozen yogurt.

These dishes at Wheaton are created by “The Wheaton Cuisine Team,” a group of students who represent the student body and come up with ideas, new recipes and fun ways to create a staff-student partnership with the dining commons. The Yahoo article goes on to report that the New York Times recently did a story on this topic, saying “as palates grow more sophisticated and admissions become more competitive, many top colleges are paying attention to dining rooms as well as classrooms.” Nifty. Who would have thought that food is becoming as high a demand as academic?

Is this true? Well, it sure wasn’t at my school. From the burnt burgers to the sticky, over cooked pasta, there sure wasn’t any “Cuisine Team” and there definitely were no chocolate truffles (although, that may have added to the freshman 15!).

Here are the Top 20 schools for 2009…is your school on here? If so, please dish about the uber delicious foods you are chowing down on, while I stick with my daily diet of Lucky Charms cereal.

1. Wheaton College (IL), Wheaton, IL

2. Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME

3. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA

4. St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN

5. James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA

6. Colby College, Waterville, ME

7. Franklin W. Olin Col. of Engineering Needham, MA

8. Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO

9. University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN

10. Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, MN

11. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

12. University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

13. Scripps College, Claremont, CA

14. Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT

15. Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA

16. Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA

17. Miami University (OH), Oxford, OH

18. College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, ME

19. Bates College, Lewiston, ME

20. University of Georgia, Athens, GA

[photo by JFKlibrary.org]

…Especially now that TCBY is inviting us to celebrate Waffle Cone Wednesday!

Doesn’t it have a nice ring to it? Wednesdays and Waffle Cones belong together…like me and Christian Bale. Although, since Christian is a little busy with his work (and family), waffle cones will have to do.

Head to a participating TCBY location (which aren’t too easy to find these days, but LOOK!) and get a jumbo waffle cone filled with your favorite flavor (I prefer boring Vanilla) and pay only $.99 cents! Could there be anything better?

Somehow Friday doesn’t seem so far off when you have yogurt dripping down your arm.

Yum.

Everyone’s favorite summer snack is ice cream; its cold goodness sliding down your throat eases that sweet tooth every single time, am I right? The chunks of chocolate or swirls of caramel create an orgasmic explosion in your mouth. One problem with ice cream, though (like that frightening cup above!): it’s full of fat, sugar and calories (no lie – Chubby Hubby has 330 calories and 20 grams of fat…yikes!?!).

While it tastes amazing, adding those extra pounds on your thighs during bathing suit season is never a good thing. Here’s my low-fat, low-cal, highly-delicious alternative to ice cream.

You’ll need:

One Tub of Fat Free Cool Whip

One packet of Colored Sprinkles

One Gallon of Stonyfield Farm or Dannon Light & Fit Fat Free, Strawberry Yogurt

One Packet of Frozen Berries

One Pack of Red/Blue Plastic Cups (generic Beer Pong cups work perfect for this)

Glad Press ‘n’ Seal

Directions:

In a large bowl, pour out all of the yogurt and cool whip, and stir it together to make a thicker mixture. Once combined, pour some frozen berries into the mixture (as desired). Then, spoon the concoction into plastic cups, filling about half to three quarters of the way full. Shake a small amount of sprinkles on top, cover with glad press and seal and stick in the freezer. Give it about 25 minutes, and you’ll have some of the most delicious, low-fat treats that taste like ice cream without all the pesky fat!Of course, if you don’t like Strawberry, any flavor yogurt works. If you’re not a fan of frozen fruit, throw whatever you want into the mix. Just remember, throwing in crumbled up Oreo’s (which are YUMMY!) will add to the calorie and fat in-take (although it’s still better than ice cream!).

Enjoy!

(Photo courtesy of yepper.com)

And so, I bring you a ridiculously easy Yogurt Mousse to curb that sweet tooth without giving up on the flava.

What you will need:

½ cup plain nonfat yogurt

½ cup light Cool Whip

1 capful flavored extract of your choice (Vanilla or almond are great, lemon and orange aren’t bad if you’re craving fruit)

Sprinkle of Sweet and Low to taste

How to do it:

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and add Sweet and Low as desired (if desired at all). Yeah, it’s that easy.

Mix it up:

If you want it lighter and fluffier, add more whipped cream. Feeling adventurous? Add sliced/chopped berries to the mix, or go with a flavored yogurt rather than using extract. To make this even more delicious, pop a bowl of the mix in the freezer. If you want a little pie, buy a pre-made graham cracker crust (or make your own) and spoon this mixture in it, then freeze until hard.

It’s quite literally mouthwatering.

[Image courtesy of photobucket.com]

The Top Three are the very three foods I would choose if I were given only that many to eat for the rest of my life with no detrimental effects on my health or waistline. Yes, I hypothesize random things like this on a semi-regular basis. Judge away. You can justify yours however you want, but here are mine and why I love them so:

1) Movie theater popcorn. I can’t say no. If I go to a movie and don’t overpay for that greasy, glorious popcorn, it’s not a real theater experience for me. I would substitute it for a meal. Clearly this is horrible for you, so my fix when I’m being calorie-conscious is to make 94% fat free and douse it in I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Spray. If this doesn’t do the trick, and I’m really craving the grease, I’ll sometimes melt light butter/something to the effect of the low fat buttery spreads in a bowl and drizzle over my popcorn. Yes, I’m adding unnecessary fat, but at least I know how much I’m putting in and I’m controlling it. I don’t have one of the oil dispensers in my apartment, and therefore have to behave a little bit.

2) Ice cream. I could probably eat myself sick on Moose Tracks or anything Ben and Jerry’s. But I can’t eat ice cream without guilt, and so have made an easy transition to frozen yogurt. For one, it’s ridiculously easy to find, in Manhattan alone there are at least three or four chains off the top of my head, not to mention stand-alone shops. For two, it does the trick. It’s light, cool, creamy, sweet, and satisfying. If I need something richer, I go for gelato, which is portioned smaller for you. If I need something fruity, I’ll go for sorbet, which is a healthier bet yet. Fruit clearly is better for you than anything tasting like fudge or caramel, but I can only be so strong.

3) Potatoes. Mash them, fry them, bake them, do what you will, but I could live off of potatoes. If, you know, I didn’t really need protein or anything. The best part of these guys is you can incorporate them in any meal without being detrimental to your waistline. In case there was any question, yes, fries are terrible for you. But a baked potato, or the little red ones (sometimes called “new potatoes”) boiled and served with butter/spray butter and light sour cream, a little salt and pepper, are delicious.

You can also cook potatoes with onion in non-stick cooking spray in a frying pan and eat with ketchup for a great breakfast or brunch side, or add them to your plate if you’re grilling. My dad’s trick is to grill potatoes along with whatever meat he’s cooking. Take a sheet of tinfoil and grease it (Pops has no concern for his health and uses straight-up butter, but you can use nonstick cooking spray and light butter/buttery spread), then adding cleaned, chopped potatoes and chunks of onion with a few dabs of butter/buttery spread to keep them from charring. When they’re done, they’re just roasted deliciousness that sometimes doesn’t even need ketchup.

How does my list size up? What couldn’t you live without?

As I took another bite of my own frozen yogurt, I couldn’t help but feel guilty for suggesting ice cream. She had only mentioned it in passing once, and I had completely forgotten about her allergy.

My friends are just regular twenty-somethings, not people my parents’ age who have a million and twelve other health problems. They work and play just like the rest of us, but it’s just not quite so simple. Digestive problems can be embarrassing, especially if you’re young and feel like you should be living as though you’re invincible. While you may not want to ‘miss out’ on things because of your allergy, making your mantra “No pain, no gain,” stop and think about it before signing on for a horrendous stomach ache. No one wants to see their friends hurt, and no one wants to be an enabler to that process by demanding you join them for pizza at 3 AM when you’re going to be in agony later.

An allergy can take the fun you may have associated with food and kick it aside. Every meal is a calculation, its own challenge, and eating becomes like work. What sounds good? Okay, now what sounds good but has no dairy? It seems so easy to say “avoid dairy products,” but think about the list you’re dealing with. It’s not just saying no to ice cream and grilled cheese. It’s kissing butter, milk (even in tea or coffee), cheese, yogurt, chocolate, frosting, sour cream, cream cheese, and foods made with them in excess, goodbye, and spending hours trying to figure out how exactly to replace them. No wonder vegans are so thin, there’s almost nothing they can eat. And the dairy replacements are expensive.

Fortunately, books like Skinny Bitch (which we’ve talked about before, and admittedly isn’t for everybody) serve as a great resource for people who need to find alternatives to the foods they love. Just because you have an allergy doesn’t mean you should have to spend every meal eating foods you hate. You just have to get a little creative, which isn’t necessarily fair, but at least leaves you with some options.

The Food and Drug Administration has a website devoted to explaining lactose intolerance in full, and there are forums online for people affected by this allergy, such as these here at Topix and here at Revolution Health. Please let us know how you or people you know have kept a food allergy from holding you back!

But the second time, after eating an entire medium cup filled with the “original” flavor (don’t call it vanilla, they get oddly pissed) and a few scoops of fruit, I thought, it kinda tastes like cold yogurt. Cold yogurt…but better!

Since then, I’ve been a regular customer at this low fat, low calorie chain. So regular, in fact, that I actually felt sad when the New York Times recently confirmed my suspicious that things which seem too good to be true — are.

Seems that even though Pinkberry totes itself as all natural, it really, really isn’t.

“The list [of ingrediants] includes at least five additives defined by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as emulsifiers (propylene glycol esters, lactoglycerides, sodium acid pyrophosphate, mono- and diglycerides); four acidifiers (magnesium oxide, calcium fumarate, citric acid, sodium citrate); tocopherol, a natural preservative; and two ingredients — starch and maltodextrin — that were characterized as fillers by Dr. Gary A. Reineccius, a professor in the department of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota and an expert in food additives.”

Damn you, Pinkberry! Damn you for letting me think I was eating a natural, low calorie snack when what I was really doing was stuffing myself with low calorie chemicals that will most likely cause my liver to shrivel and heart to explode in like 8 years.

Why didn’t you just stay in LA?!