In the morning, don't eat highcholesterol egg yolks, sugar-coated cereals or bagels with cream cheese. Instead, have hard-boiled eggs, separating the white from the yolk. The white has less fat and poses no cholesterol threat.

Include some oatmeal with honey or hot cereal, which are rich in carbohydrates. More importantly, oats can lower your cholesterol. Also, have some wheat toast, fruit, juice and low-fat milk.

For lunch, have tuna or lean meats like chicken and turkey. If you peel off the skin or fried coatings, these alternatives are low in fat. Best of all, make them into a salad with vegetables and a light vinegar and lemon juice dressing, which will enhance the taste better than mayonnaise or ketchup.

At dinner, stick with the pasta rather than red meat. Pasta is high in carbohydrates and low in fats, provided it is not drowned in gravy, cheese or butter. Potatoes and other vegetables are also good and balance out the meal. You should also drink water with every meal.

MORE important than watching your waist or looking ahead to spring break, there is a growing body of research that says a low-cholesterol, low-fat diet combined with daily exercise can help prevent heart disease. HUDS recognizes the importance of nutrition in its message, but many times its products fall far too short of its rhetoric.

The dining service should be applauded for trying to raise our consciousness to the important issue of personal health and well-being, but it is time HUDS met its own challenge and provided more wholesome meals. We should not always be seeking alternatives from the meals themselves in order to eat nutritiously.