It had to happen: slapping the greedy hand reaching out to sup at the trough of plenty. This CNN report details a new way colleges around the country are cutting down on food and water waste, while at the same time helping keep students hungry.

It's a simple idea really: Stop stocking college food halls with the common food tray. Colleges around the country have excised the trays from their larders and are seeing some pretty green results.

Two nationwide surveys conducted by Aramark, the country's largest university and college food servicer, found a 25-30% reduction in food waste per person when trays were not available. Makes sense -- especially when your eyes are bigger than your stomach during the lunch hour. Basically this means making students eat only what they can carry. You can imagine the cost savings for university and college food service providers.

And you can imagine the grumblings of hungry college students. Maybe they haven't learned about "going back for seconds" yet.

There are more people these days going into therapy to discuss their financial stress and how it's wreaking havoc on their lives, according to a recent article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

But the sick irony, of course, is that as people seek out help to talk about dealing with their financial stress, health insurance is paying less and less for people to see counselors and psychologists. One social worker is quoted in the story, saying, "The standard percentage paid by the insurance company used to be 80/20. Now it's 70/30 or 60/40."

It reminds me of a story a former boss of mine told me more than 10 years ago. He told me: "I was seeing a therapist, telling him how stressed I was because I didn't have enough money and could barely make ends meet. And then I said to him, 'Wait a minute, I'm paying you $75 an hour to tell you how stressed I am about my lack of money. Why am I doing that?' And I walked out of his office."

On September 3rd, Starbucks will unveil a new line of breakfast foods ostensibly featuring better nutrition and lower calorie counts than its previous fare. According to USA Today, the menu will be higher in fiber, fruit and protein with fewer of those sweet, sweet carbs found in its previous offerings.

I compared the new menu with similar selected items on the Starbucks menu from 2003, as broken down by dietfacts.com. In 2003, the chain offered a 138-gram (quarter-pounder) Blueberry Muffin that packed 450 calories, 200 from fat, with 1 gram of fiber and 6 grams of protein. The new Apple Bran Muffin has only 330 calories, 8 grams of fat and 7 grams each of protein and fiber. Definitely an improvement.

The old Blueberry Walnut Coffee Cake ran to 340 calories, 162 from frat, with 1 gram of fiber, 4 of protein. The new menu doesn't have such a beast, but offers the Baked Berry Stella. At 280 calories with 13 grams of protein and 7 of fiber, a much better choice, imho.

Gone too are is the Apricot Currant Scone (450 calories, 3 gram fiber, 7 grams protein), but new items available included the Starbucks Power Protein Plate with peanut butter, 330 calories with a hefty 16 grams of protein and 7 of fiber.

Add to these items oatmeal in various incarnations served in a disposable bowl, and other diet-friendly fare appearing on the new menu, and I think Starbucks should be commended for making real progress in its morning offerings. The corporation seems very pleased, too, that the new selections don't override the coffee aroma that it sees as an essential part of the ambiance of its shops.

Boy, were there some serious fireworks in the Dolan household over this one!

Very seldom do Daria and I VEHEMENTLY disagree on an issue...much less about something that involves things we are both passionate about -- food and good health. But we had a hot debate about this one.

Here's the issue: The state of Alabama is giving its state employees, all 37,527 of them, one year to get fit. If they don't, they start paying $25 a month for health insurance that they get currently get free.

Every day, WalletPop will be bringing you information about a fantastic freebie. Like what you see? Check back tomorrow for more!

The United States Department of Health and Human Services is offering a free 2009 Women's Health Calendar to anyone who fills out this form.

In case you were wondering where your tax dollars go. Remember: this is the federal government, so don't be expecting any bikini-clad models. There's no other information about it available all on the site, so all you can do is order it and see what it is.

Elizabeth Edwards is on the cover of the latest People Magazine and offers a candid interview inside of the anguish, pain, and decisions that she faced after learning of her husband's affair with a former campaign aide, Rielle Hunter. Recognizing that she has been diagnosed with a terminal illness that could leave her three children without a mother was reportedly a factor in her decision to stay in the marriage.

Children are one of the reasons that women stay in a marriage where a husband has strayed, but it shouldn't be the only reason. Women's income generally drops an average of 16% while a man's increases by 23% according to the NY Times. They often don't have the earning power of their spouses or may have been out of the workforce due to the demands of child raising.

Our earlier story about the Hot Pockets recall dovetails nicely with a story about the results of a recently study of our eating habits. A team of European scientists that found that, contrary to expectations, consumers eat more snacks when they are packaged in small portions than when put up in larger batches.

The study subjects were questioned about their body issues, to put them in a frame of mind sensitive to food issues, then plopped in front of televisions to watch episodes of Friends. They were told the purpose was to measure their reaction to the commercials shown during the episodes, but, in reality, the scientists were watching their consumption of potato chips.

The study determined that subjects ate more potato chips when served in small bags than they did when presented in larger bags. The study concluded that people hesitate to open a large bag, but not a small one, or even a series of small ones.

Certainly the truth of this find is demonstrated on every grocery shelf. Would manufacturers push single-serving sizes if it didn't drive up consumption? This psychology works on me, I must admit. On opening a large bag of chips, I tend to eat as many as it takes to satisfy me. When I open a single serving, I eat it all, regardless of my sense of satiation. If I'm not quite full yet, I'll open another and finish that off. I'm not alone in this thinking, I know; it drives my wife nuts when I drink 2/3rds of a bottle of beer, because that's all I want.

The lesson I've taken from this study? Single-serving packaging is not a good tool for those of us trying to control our eating, because only we know what represents a single serving to us.

Also read:

Diet to save the economy

LA halts new fast food outlets

Amid growing concern about the growing problem of child obesity, the FTC's recent disclosure that U.S. companies spent $1.6 billion in 2006 on food ads targeting children comes as no surprise. To counter the ad onslaught, schools and local governments are scrambling to find programs, such as restrictive menus and information campaigns, to stem the tide of swelling waistlines.

Now some Brits are threatening a nuclear solution; the nuclear family, that is. According to The Independent, the Local Government Association (LCA), representing councils in England and Wales, is considering sending in teams of social workers to take obese children away from their parents and place them in public care facilities.

The LGA warns that parents who fail to control their children's eating habits and allow them to grow dangerously obese could be considered guilty of parental neglect, much as the parents of malnourished children.

This initiative runs contrary to the decision by England's national government recently to ban the use of the word 'obese' in warnings sent to the parents about their - plump? rotund? generously proportioned? Reubenesque? -- children.

Such draconian measures would come only after warnings and counseling, and I'd guess the Association is simply trying to whet the public's appetite for a serious discussion about the problem. England has already seen changes required due to growing obesity among children and adults, including larger school furniture, wider ambulances and more voluminous cremation furnaces.

Certainly child obesity is no joke, especially to the child. However, the problem doesn't begin with the person that empties the fridge. It starts with the people that stocks it, who are, most likely, in need of weight loss counseling as much as their children.

Also read

Obesity saving U.S. health dollars

Fast Food Moratorium

Kid's meals kid killers?

When I quit smoking, almost three years ago, my main reason for doing so was the birth of my daughter. Both of my parents had died from smoking-related illnesses, and I decided that I wanted to be around when my kid graduated from high school. Beyond that, I also wasn't a big fan of the seasonal bouts of bronchitis that I had every year, the occasional coughing fits, the lack of stamina, and the assorted other health miseries. The final nail in the coffin was the price: because of the ever-increasing taxes levied on cigarettes, it had gotten to the point where I was spending over $5 a day on my habit.

It's hard to find that ultimate reason to quit, and I have numerous close friends who simply can't make the final step to nicotine independence. With that in mind, I've been getting excited about the array of smokeless tobacco options that are now entering the market.

By combating the smoke that causes most smoking-related health problems and the taxes that bankrupt smokers, these companies are finding ways to make nicotine addiction less expensive and more socially acceptable. Of course, quitting is still the ideal, but if smokers can't find that final reason to push them over the edge into nonsmoking, these are some other options:

Several days ago, I read this terrible, gut-wrenching article about a three-year-old left in a vehicle by his mother, who apparently rushed off to work, at a hospital of all places, forgetting about her son in the back seat. He had been in his car seat, asleep, and then he woke up, tried to get out, couldn't, and because this was in Houston and in 90 degree heat, the inevitable occurred.

It's sickening, and I'm mad, and I'm not completely furious at the parents of these kids because, to a point, I get it. We live in a crazy, stressed out world, and some parents have it worse than others, and I don't feel like I can truly judge people whose lives I have no insight into. I'm saying that in part because I'm assuming they're distraught beyond belief and so why pile onto their guilt?

But I am mad, even if at no one in particular, and if you read enough of these stories (and every time I do, I wonder why I continue reading after the grim headline), you will start to sense a trend. Just about every kid who dies in a hot car really isn't in a car -- they're usually in a mini-van, SUV or a truck. In other words, a more spacious vehicle where it really is easier to forget that there is a small, vulnerable person traveling with you. I could link up to a lot of terrible recent stories from the last few years and show you what vehicles parents were driving, but that's gruesome and not the point of this post. When I started writing this a few paragraphs ago, I thought, "Boy, there have to be some ways you can prevent this..."

The latest hub-bub in Ohio and around the country has been the push for all employers to offer paid sick days to all of their employees. The proposal, currently working its way through state legislation, is under fire because many see it as yet another area where the government is stepping into the business sector.

This may be true, but this time I am behind the intrusion as long as the lawmakers can draft a law which provides some minimum of mandatory sick days to employees, while also allowing for many of the notable exceptions included in the new minimum wage law. Hopefully it will also provide some flexibility in there as well. All that, and it has my yes vote!

This is a good idea for one simple reason. The first thing you hear from teachers and school administrators is to keep your kids home when they are sick so that whatever they have isn't spread throughout the entire school. This same principle applies to small businesses, maybe even more so because a good deal of them do not have the capacity to carry on with five employees all out since Jayne didn't stay home with pink eye because rent was due next week.

One of the latest and greatest "ideas" for a new burden to put onto businesses is paid sick days. Local governments are discussing mandates for sick leave, which would require employers to give all employees sick days.

I'm not opposed to the idea of sick days in general. It's a nice benefit to give to people who have actually earned it. The sick days come in handy when someone in the family is sick. The person can skip work without missing out on the pay.

Yet it's insane to require employers to give this benefit. Benefits are exactly what they sound like: earned rewards at jobs that are provided at the option of the employer. Some jobs offer benefits, some do not. Those who wish to have benefits have every opportunity in the United States to work hard, get training and education, and move up to a job that offers benefits.

But it seems that plenty of politicians don't care if employees earn their benefits or not. You see, the market dictates what a job is worth. If a good employee can do the same job elsewhere for more pay and more benefits, she or he will probably quit and go elsewhere. The market tells the employer how much to pay and what to offer. But politicians and activists don't care about the free market.

I'm not really looking for a vacation, but every so often I see a great deal and find myself contemplating a trip to someplace where the sun is brighter, the meals are included, and the pools are cool and refreshing.

If you find yourself suffering from the same syndrome and are also somewhat strapped for cash, you might want to take a peek at the Sandos Caracol Beach Resort and Spa, located in Cancun, Mexico. Throughout the fall, they are offering rooms from $69 per person, per night. These fares are based on double occupancy, so you'll probably want to take someone with you!

The resort features a wide array or restaurants, as well as a huge spa, three swimming pools, numerous fitness classes, extensive beaches, a theater, a disco, and several other things to keep you busy. Your $69 buys access to all the facilities, most equipment rentals, unlimited alcoholic beverages, and meals. The spa treatments (many of which I don't recognize) come with additional charges.

Now I can't stop thinking about Cancun. I wonder what an "Eco-massage" is...

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. His last visit to Mexico was in Tijuana. Cancun sounds like a lot more fun!

When I was a kid, my father's mother was what some people (my sisters and I, for example) would call a battle-axe. She could never pass me a plate of hamburgers without warning me about what would happen if I dropped it, and even her sweetest compliments were tinged with the piquant flavor of sharp criticism.

One of her favorite complaints involved my posture. Grandma always jumped on me about my supposedly slumped shoulders, sunken chest, and generally dissolute appearance. Much of my time in her presence was spent with shoulders back, stomach sucked in, and spine ramrod-straight. I used to parody her ideal, walking like an honor guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. Somehow, she never got the joke.

Now that Grandma's gone to that great chiropractic office in the sky, my posture has suffered somewhat. Every now and again, when I hurt my back or am applying for a job, I will revert to form and demonstrate my amazing Marine guard impression. Most of the time...well, I'm only a little slouchy. Now, however, modern technology has done the impossible: it has replicated my grandma. The iPosture, a futuristic little disk that you wear around your neck, detects when you have allowed your posture to deviate from its ideal. If you slouch for more than a minute, it will deliver a slight vibration, warning you to stand up straight. At only $99, it could save a fortune in back surgery!

Now if they can only invent a machine that will criticize my clothing choices...

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. Sometimes, late at night, he imagines his grandma getting her hands on a bunch of Emo kids. He then cackles quietly to himself.

The brightly colored Crocs were all the rage a year or two ago. Originally designed for gardening, their popularity quickly spread to toddlers, teens, teachers and other professionals. It was not uncommon to see Crocs at the mall, at work and even in church. But now, the company that couldn't keep up with demand has Crocs piling up in warehouses. The stock price has fallen dramatically from its heights earlier this year, when it was trading around $75, and the stock plunged nearly 51% in July after the company lowered its second-quarter guidance. There is even a new escalator warning cautioning folks not to wear Crocs on escalators. Apparently a few people have had exposed toes stuck in the steps.

What happened to Crocs? They simply were a victim of success. They became so popular, they are no longer unusual or unique. No one stops to ask you where you got them or if they are comfortable, because they are everywhere and they also probably own a pair. Crocs changed from being "cool" to being "dork."