Who cares if Hamburger Helper is overpriced pasta - it's unbelievably bad for you, especially if you're using it as a dietary staple. Not to mention, the powdered sauce packet that comes with it will do more to raise your cholesterol than anything you listed as eating regularly - there's enough sodium in it to melt ice on sidewalks.

Having been through the whole poor-living-alone thing, I developed my own style of eating that ended up being fabulously healthy and fairly cheap. Here's some tips:

- Protein is your friend. It takes longer for your body to digest protein, so you feel full longer. Not to mention, riding your bike and exercise will do you no good if you don't have lots of protein in your system to build muscle with. Protein doesn't have to be expensive or cholesterol-raising. Frozen chicken breasts are you friend. You can get a big bag for around $10 at most grocery stores, and if you cut the chicken up into pieces, you can stretch it quite a bit. Not to mention, black beans are also an excellent source of protein (and fiber, and tons of other stuff) and are sold cheap by the can. Be sure to drain them before you use them, tho.

- White flour pasta will keep you fat. It has virtually no nutritive value - it's comparable to eating white bread. Whole-wheat pasta is more expensive, so why not start exploring the wonderful world of rice (or see if there's a Trader Joe's near you - they sell whole wheat pasta *cheap*)? Brown rice is cheap and incredibly good for you - not to mention it's a complex carbohydrate, so you burn more calories digesting it than refined white rice. It's also more flavorful than white rice or pasta - a slightly nutty taste, smells like popcorn when you cook it. Cooking rice is a pain in the ass, though, so sometime you should spend $20 and buy a rice cooker. Cooks rice fast and perfect every time - well worth the investment.

- Do not ignore vegetables. People say vegetables are expensive, but they're really not - they only get expensive when you buy too much and they spoil before you use them. Even fresh vegetables are affordable if you plan things right. Frozen ones work, too - but try to steam them whenever possible, so they keep their entire amount of flavor and nutrients.

- Buy yourself some basic spices. Sea salt, pepper, oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, garlic powder, etc. They tend to be $1-2 a bottle, but one bottle will last you quite a long time. Do not be afraid of them - try anything and everything. I went into the whole teaching-myself-to-cook thing with the memory of a wise quote from a friend: Everything is edible with enough ranch dressing. So that was the rule - cook something, and if it's terrible, cover the flavor with something you like (like ranch dressing, for me) and choke it down, and then try it different next time.

My fail-safe cheap food recipe was as follows: Cook a cup or two of brown rice. Bake (or grill, if you have a George Foreman Grill or something) a couple chicken breasts (go ahead and season the chicken breasts, too - salt, pepper, oregano, basil and garlic are a good basic mix). Buy yourself a red onion, a zucchini, a red, a green and a yellow pepper and chop them up and throw them in a pot. Add some frozen broccoli, some frozen peapods - any other vegetables you like, really. Add a healthy dose of extra virgin olive oil (another staple - it's very, very good for you) and lots and lots of spices. Saute everything until the onions are translucent and the rest of the vegetables are brightly colored but still somewhat crunchy - overcooking them will make them soft and mushy and unappetizing, as well as removing much nutritive value. You may have to give the vegetables a few tries before you get it right, as frozen vegetables will take longer to cook than fresh ones - you'll get the hang of it. Finally, mix together the vegetables, the brown rice and the chicken (chopped into pieces) into the pot. Add some grated parmesan cheese if you want for a bit more flavor, and you have enough food for many, many meals that freezes well. Not to mention it's worlds healthier than Hamburger Helper, and probably comparable in price.

Dunno if my wisdom was helpful or even wanted, but I was kinda horrified at what you've been eating, and wanted to help.

First, don't get the impression that I'm living on a nightly diet of Hamburgerless Helper. There are other foods in my fridge, freezer, and cupboard, but I don't have any clever tips for how to get the most out of them without letting them kill you... so I didn't say anything about them.

Second, I think you may be confusing blood pressure and blood cholesterol. Granted, you're right that the sodium in your typical Hamburger Helper package is very high (which is true of just about any packaged food), but that's no threat to anyone's cholesterol levels. The typical Helper box has little-to-no fat and cholesterol in it; that comes when/if you add beef and butter... which is why I don't. The unhealthy sodium level in Helper sauce is one of the reasons I "cut" it by adding enough rice/pasta (depending on what kind it is) and veggies to spread it over two meals. I don't even own salt, because I know I already get more than enough sodium from stuff like this. And for what it's worth, my blood pressure's OK, so it seems I've found a balance that works for me.

Third, I want to repeat your Foreman grill suggestion. I smiled politely when my sister gave me one for Christmas a while back, thinking it was just another useless celebrity-endorsed as-seen-on-TV gizmo. But the durn thing works great for grilling chicken breasts, and even transforms a patty of ground round from "suicide" to mere "self endangerment". It's a breeze to clean, to boot.

Fourth, thanks for the suggestions. The more ideas, the better.

Another tip, if you can't stand to let the meat portion out of your ____ Helper (though, frankly, I reverted to straight pasta a while back, but I also like cooking to some extent) is to use ground chicken or turkey instead of beef. Preferably just the white meat (I actually just found out a couple days ago they *had* such products). Of course, to drop the sodium aspect of the Helpers, just make regular pasta and flavor it yourself. Check the ingredients on the box and it'll tell you what flavors are in the packet - buy the things that aren't unpronounceable and experiment.

Additionally, white bread and pasta AREN'T empty calories. Not completely, anyway. I mean, they essentially are if you don't have any whole grains in your diet (which leads to popcorn - who knew that was a whole grain?), but they give you some things your body needs that whole grains don't give you. Which I can't think of off the top of my head (note that I'm not the one paid to remember things like this; my girlfriend is (she's a dietitian, all newly RD'ed and idealistic)).

PBJs on whole wheat bread are a really cheap way to get a bunch of good stuff into your system; two servings of whole grains, one of protein, and... okay, use preserves instead of J and you have at least a little goodness from that, too. And you should probably use the PB you have to mix, not stuff like Skippy or JIF or whatever brand is popular where you are.

For preparing pasta, you can cut the red sauce - use an olive oil based sauce instead. For example, I'll put a couple tablespoons of olive oil into a pan, then throw in a variety of veggies (garlic, onions, tomatoes, squash, mushrooms... whatever). Or you can just put in the olive oil straight and go the frozen veggie way (which is a better way to get the veggies anyway). This latter is obviously much simpler and won't involve cutting fingers.

Probably the most healthy thing that can be done is replacing junk food snacks (chips, candy, whatever; but not popcorn! whole grain! Just don't overdo the butter or salt ('course, I hate popcorn)) with fruits and veggies, like you've done for bringing food for lunch. I generally stick with bananas right now, but carrots, celery, apples, orange slices, raisins, and dried plums ("the fruit formerly known as prunes") are all excellent as snacks. For that matter, dried fruit in general can be really good for you - all the nutrients and fiber, none of that filthy water stuff (note: drink water with dried fruit, it makes it taste better).

Finally, I wanted to address the juice and pop thing. Your options are good, but doing straight water is the healthiest and cheapest way to go (provided you don't buy bottled water - get a filter and you've done what many bottled water companies do, anyway). Why not juice? Because juice doesn't fill you up. It gives you calories (and nutrients), but doesn't fill you up nearly as much as eating the equivalent of that type of fruit. This leads to overeating if you're not watching yourself (read: using the juice as a food). So yes, cutting juice with water is probably better than straight juice, but straight water is the best way to go.

Yeah, about peanut butter: the "natural" kind is definitely the stuff to buy, even though it costs more. That's because peanut oil is actually good for you, and the other kind is loaded with sugars and oils that aren't. With either kind you need to watch the calories, because it's loaded with them. It's on my "from time to time" shopping list, because if I kept it on the shelf, I'd eat too much of it. (Same reason I don't buy beer by the case.)

As for the J side of the sandwich: "preserves" are best, "jam" is OK, and "jelly" is nutritionally just a step above Jell-O. Again, you gotta pay more for the healthier stuff. {shrug}

The great part about PB&J is that, regardless of how much they are relative to other PB & Js, they're still cheap on a per-meal basis, so spending the extra $.20 or $.50 per jar isn't as big a deal as, say, eating fresh shark instead of canned tuna on a regular basis (unless you fish for the shark yourself; in which case, rock on!).

I have to admit to keeping a steady supply of PBJ in my fridge, but I'm also on a high-calorie diet due to how much I exercise. I only wish whatever weight I gain in the winter didn't decide to congregate in my gut.