Saying that the cafeteria is only for eating is like saying that your bedroom is only for sleeping, or your underground secret prison is only for being an evil mastermind. The lunch room is more than just a place to chow down on industrial-grade food and prepackaged cupcakes. It is a room of mystery and wonder. In fact, the cafeteria is not about food at all. It's about life. And it needs a more accurate name. May we suggest:

You’ve all heard that old adage “You are what you eat”; in fact, someone probably said it to you while you were scraping Rainbow Chip icing out of the container with a handful of Doritos. But what does it actually mean? Well, we at SparkLife are just as confused as you, so we took it upon ourselves to conduct a shoddily-constructed and entirely inaccurate investigation as to what your snacking style says about you. Bust out your peanut-butter-and-spaghetti-salad and prepare to wash it all down with an ice cold glass of ridiculous metaphors.

Everybody knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But maybe you’re bored with the usual offerings. Corn Flakes. Raisin Bran. Grape Nuts. Wheaties. They’re so general. So old school. Do these cereals really understand you? Do they know what you’re going through day after day? How could they? They’ve been around for literally hundreds of years and were probably made for people who had to ride 90 miles on a limping horse to get to and from school. People who had to keep dipping their pens in pots of ink to learn cursive, and completely stop what they were doing every 20 minutes to go throw a log on the fire to keep the seven-year-olds at the back of the classroom from getting the croup.

This is not the world in which you are eating your breakfast.

We always suspected the cheeseburgers were controlling us! And finally, new research vindicates all us junk food addicts. A study by UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas discovered that fat from certain foods (ice cream and burgers, yummm) heads right to the brain. The fat molecules make the brain tell the body to keep on eating, even if we are full. Who knew food was that sneaky? Here are some other controlling foods to watch for.

It's time to bust out your fancy clothes: Homecoming (and other such formal dances) are just around the corner! Even though dances are supposed to be fun, they can also be pretty stressful. First, you have to worry about finding a date. Then you have to decide what to wear. There's that whole picture taking fiasco with all the parents swarming around and directing you to "look like you like each other!"

But one of the most stressful parts of the evening can be figuring out what to order at pre-dance dinner. You don't want to order something that will leave remnants in your teeth, but you also need to eat enough to keep your stomach from rumbling midway through the slow dance. We know, it's tough. So we came up with a menu of potential dishes for your consideration. Bon appetit!

We thought we were the only ones who used to park ourselves in a booth at the back of Applebee's on Saturday and Sunday afternoons in high school. But it has come to our attention that chain restaurants are a favorite teen hangout all across this great nation, ranking only behind 7-Eleven parking lots and mall food courts.

Maybe it's the flair. Maybe it's the bottomless Cokes. Maybe it's that the waiters don't give a rat's bottom how old you really are. Whatever it is, these havens of homogenized hospitality are the perfect place to slip away from the world for two to twelve hours.

Which chain restaurant is the best hangout? SparkLife examines four faves:

Earlier this month, we posted a handy quiz to help you figure out whether you’ve had an adequate amount of fun this summer. Many of you passed with flying colors, some of you made the cut exclusively through the consumption of meats on sticks, and a few of you pointed out (and rightly so) that you failed only because we’d left off some pretty important Elements of Awesomeness. (But really, if your summer included international travel, we’re pretty sure you don’t need us to tell you whether it rules. Yeesh. Have some confidence!)

College is the best time in a lot of people’s lives—they meet lifelong friends, fall in love, and are forced to read Nietzsche. It really is worth the hype. For those of you about to pack up and head off to college, though, it’s good to realize there are things about home that you are going to miss far more than you expected. Obviously, you will miss your friends and your dog, but here are three things from home you don’t know you are going to miss. A lot.

Many unexpected, happy accidents have resulted from simple goofing around in the science lab—innovations from Penicillin to Silly Putty to low-cal/melt-free chocolate. What's that you say? There's no such thing as low-cal/melt-free chocolate. Oooooh, you are so wrong, friends.

Here's the story: Swiss scientists were playing around in the lab—working on some useless project completely unrelated to low calories or melting—when they realized that they had created (read the following in a Swiss accent, for maximum effect) "a very special chocolate, of a crispy, light consistency, like an airy foam, and we thought let's see if we can develop this further." They did develop it further and the result is Vulcano, a chocolate variety that contains 90% fewer calories and only melts above 131 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 55C for our pals across the Atlantic, and 328.15K, for those of you too smart for your own good). Which means no more chocolate-covered homework like the kind you get when you forget that you threw a Hershey's/Dairy Milk in your backpack.

Not living at the mercy of your cafeteria lunch lady for three months sounds pretty good until you realize you have no idea what to eat, much less how to make it. What was that about a food pyramid?

You manage to survive on three bowls of Cocoa Puffs for breakfast and lunch until it hits 3:00 and your blood sugar plummets like Britney Spears' chances of ever making a comeback and before you know it, you're in the throes of a snackcident.

Summer Activity Series to the rescue! Per Super Sparkler sagegugg's request, we're pleased to bring you instructions on how to make the world's best sandwich.

SASsy Sandwich Making: