As for the emphasis on dieting and losing weight that was brought up in earlier comments, I have to say I didn’t get that at all from this post. This book does provide some great alternatives to some REALLY unhealthy restaurant foods. For example, I LOVE the Southwestern Egg Rolls at Chili’s, but they have so many calories it’s just ridiculous. This cookbook provides a great version of these that actually leave you some calories to eat other things during the day.

Love the book, love the post! Nice job, Colleen! (For the record, I recommend the Chicken Fajita Lettuce Cups and the super super yummy Pineapple Cupcakes from this book!)

However, in reading the other comments, I’m finding that a few ladies are a bit offended by the cookbook and the message that is coming across to them from the post.

I have to say that one of the things that has me checking CF several times a day, is that it is the one place I can come to feel great about fashion, budgeting as a college student, and body image. When Zephyr was solo, I felt like she might as well have been a body image spokesperson for all of us 20 somethings. She was always encouraging us to try different outfits no matter our body types, and to rock skinny jeans, even if we did gain the freshman 15, if those were the jeans we loved!

I think the other writers realize the message of this site as Zephyr created it, and uphold it beautifully. Bravo!

I’m glad there is a site that encourages me to embrace who I am as a college student and lover of fashion, and thankful for the healthy cooking (snack) tips as well. Keep up the great work ladies!

Chelsea Morgan

However, Hungry Girl is not a substitute for eating real food, with all natural ingredients, at any calorie level. Once one is ready at the Hungry Girl stage to transition forward, one should really consider the change! Its much more filling and nutritious, and as one gets better with making food, the substitutions to make a 200 calorie snack or more calories meal will come easily, and there will be no fake sugar and artificial other stuff!

M makes a good point about how HG seems to rely a little bit on artificial things like Splenda, but still — I’m definitely going to check out her pumpkin pie recipe for the break. Thanks, Colleen!

And Zephyr, I really didn’t realize how accusatory that “editing is a little rough” comment came off. I remember we’d talked about this stuff before in previous threads (I’m not sure if you remember — you must have your hands full with so many posts every day), and I just meant something along those lines.

It feels ridiculous just to mention specific instances, but I guess I just meant that I’d seen a couple more typos, like you’d said, along with little grammatical stuff that I hadn’t noticed when it was just you. But maybe it’s also that there are just so many new posts now (which is obviously awesome; I’m pretty much checking this site several times a day now!), so proportionally, there are just more mistakes than there were before.

Again, I don’t mean at all to bash the effort that all of y’all are putting into this — I obviously check this site so much, and it’s just taking me some time to readjust to the new style of everything. But I love CF and again, I hope I didn’t offend anyone! Happy T’giving, everyone!