Well, that’s impossible. But what you can do is throw on the right outfit, highlight your wardrobe with the right accessories, and instantly look a few sizes smaller. Here are the secrets that celebrity stylists use to keep their clients camera-ready.
1. The Magic Of Monochrome
You don’t have to rock one color from head to toe, but do try matching colors for your shoes, skirt, and leggings. For the most slimming look, go with classic black.
If that’s too boring for you, keep your skirt and leggings matched, and incorporate bright shoes for a fun pop of color.
2. Speaking Of Skirts, Go Pencil
Pencil skirts that don’t hug the hips all the way down are naturally slimming. They create a long, lean appearance that will make you love the way you look in the mirror. Try it!
3. The Right Pants
These tips about skirts are all well and good, but what if you’re more of a jeans-and-slacks kind of lady? Pick pants that have a flat front rather than pleats—this slims the stomach and, as an added bonus, makes you appear taller.
For even more slimming power, choose pants that have at least some flare. Boot-cut is the new stretch denim. Use that to your advantage.
4. Pick Perfect Prints
Prints can be slimming or, well, the opposite, depending on one thing: the size of the print itself. Larger elements make you look bigger, but if you can find some prints where the design is nice and petite, you’ll look a lot smaller yourself.
5. Define The Waist You Want
You could look great in a potato sack with the right belt, worn just so. Pick a belt that has a bit of stretch to it. That will help to define the center of your hourglass. It may seem paradoxical, but a wider belt will create a skinnier look.
6. Throw On A Statement Necklace
You may doubt that a simple accessory can make you look thinner, but statement necklaces are designed just for the task. A long, chunky U-shape down the front of your top will make your torso look tall and thin. Besides, statement necklaces are totally in right now.
7. Use What You Have
Pick your favorite feature and dress around it. If you love your waist, wear a fitted shirt. If you’re proud of your long legs, wear tight pants. The trick here is to offset the focus by going bigger elsewhere. When you go with the tight jeans, set it off with a long top. When you wear a skin-tight shirt, pair it with flared jeans. You see what we’re getting at here?
8. Cardigans For The Win
Throw a long cardigan on to complete your slimming look. Layering is key to a stylish appearance, and cardigans that stretch at least to your waist will make you look taller and thinner. This is one of the many reasons why we’re obsessed with autumn.
9. When All Else Fails, Go Scarlet
A bright red dress has a way of accentuating the good stuff while guiding the gaze away from problem areas. Long story short, red is magic. Research even shows that men are more attracted to women who wear red, so what do you have to lose?
All parents of small children get frustrated every now and then.
While you may feel regret later on for getting angry with your little ones, remember that it’s totally normal, and it doesn’t make you a “bad parent”. At a certain point, though, many parents realize they speak to their kids harshly more often than they do with warmth. That can set up a contentious relationship, spurring your child on to disobedience and creating a downward spiral of parent-child antagonism. That’s no good.
So how do you stop these feelings of frustration even when your kid is being a little monster?
A self-proclaimed “angry mom” named Kelly Holmes, who blogs about parenting at The (Reformed) Idealist Mom, cracked the code. Her secret? Hair ties.
Holmes recommends wearing five elastic hair ties around one of your wrists. These will become your reminders—visual and tactile cues that can make it easier to break bad habits. Here’s how it works:
Put your five hair ties (or rubber bands, or bracelets—anything that will sit comfortably on your wrist will work) on your wrist before your child wakes up for the day. Every time you find yourself snapping at your kid, move a single hair tie from one wrist to the other.
Don’t panic if your “off” wrist starts to fill up.
There is a way to earn those hair ties back. You can return a hair tie to the original wrist simply by having five warm moments with the child you snapped at. Any positive interaction counts; a hug, a simple “I love you,” or a board game just for two.
The number five isn’t arbitrary. Holmes describes a parenting rule that she calls the “magic 5:1 ratio.” “Research shows that to have a healthy relationship, for every one negative interaction you need five positive interactions to balance that out,” she writes.
So even if you do lose your temper with a little one, five happy moments together will repair the damage, Holmes says.
But won’t you eventually get used to having those five hair ties around your wrist? Won’t this trick stop working, like so many other techniques that we use to change bad habits? Not necessarily.
Holmes tells us that we should only wear the magic hair ties when we’re actually with our children. When you go to work, or the kids are at school, or nap time finally arrives, take off the hair ties. This will build the association between the ties and your children, which will prevent them from becoming just another background element in your life.
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The blogger insists that this trick has changed her parenting fundamentally. “Months later, the hair tie hack is still working wonders,” she writes. “I talk to my preschooler with love and kindness in my voice instead of annoyance and frustration.”
That sounds like a worthwhile goal. If you sometimes lose your patience with your kid (and who doesn’t?) try this parenting hack. You might be surprised how much more calm and collected you’ll be when your kid does what toddlers do, which is to destroy.
In 2015, the city of Chicago faced a heartbreaking health crisis.
Not a single person ended up in the hospital due to this threat; no one missed work. Still, the suffering was unbearable.
This illness pulled a dirty trick. It went after man’s best friend.
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The H3N2 flu virus doesn’t thrive in human bodies. It infects dogs and, more rarely, cats. The 2015 Chicago outbreak saw 1,000 pets brought low with fever, fatigue, and runny noses. In other words, this virus does to dogs pretty much exactly what the flu does to people.
Veterinarians were able to treat the flu victims in Chicago, and eventually, the epidemic passed. But the virus was only biding its time. In June 2017, the dog flu resurfaced, this time in the Sunshine State. As of this writing, 12 dogs have been diagnosed with canine influenza in Florida, and those numbers are almost certain to rise. Here’s what you need to know.
1. Is your dog at risk?
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), canine influenza is caused by a newer virus. As a result, dogs haven’t yet developed immunity.
“Almost all dogs, regardless of breed or age…, are susceptible to infection if exposed to the active virus,” the AVMA states on its website. “Virtually all dogs exposed to the virus become infected, and nearly 80 percent show clinical signs of the disease.”
2. How serious is dog flu?
The symptoms of canine influenza are similar to the flu we’re all familiar with. In its most common form, dog flu causes coughing, fever, lethargy, and runny nose. In rare cases, dog flu is accompanied by pneumonia and fevers of up to 106 degrees. That’s when the illness becomes truly dangerous.
3. Is the dog flu ever fatal?
Just like its human counterpart, canine influenza rarely leads to death. However, fatalities are not unheard of. The AVMA places the fatality rate of dog flu at less than 10 percent.
4. How long does dog flu last?
The vast majority of infected animals get over the illness in two or three weeks.
5. This latest outbreak is in Florida. Are dogs in other states at risk?
The short answer is “yes.” Since its U.S. debut in 2004, canine influenza has popped up in at least 40 states. The risk of infection rises considerably when dogs have contact with each other, as in kennels, dog parks, and animal shelters.
6. What can we do to protect our pets from the dog flu?
The best way to prevent infection is to prevent contact with a sick animal. The virus spreads through nose-to-nose contact between dogs, said Keith Poulsen, a veterinarian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
However, Dr. Cynda Crawford of the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine said in a news conference that the virus “is also spread very effectively and efficiently with contact through contaminated clothing, contaminated hands, contaminated objects in the environment.”
Talk to your veterinarian. If dog flu has been a problem in your area, your vet might recommend vaccinating your pet.
“The more dogs in a community that we can vaccinate to build up community immunity, the better chance we have of keeping that virus out,” Crawford said.
It’s hard to tell when your brain is playing tricks on you.
After all, your brain is both the agent and the recipient of perception, and whoa, uh oh, we think our minds just blew up.
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Anyway, scientists and philosophers still have a lot to learn about the human brain and how it relates to subjective experience—where exactly the “subject” doing the “experiencing” is located, for one thing. Philosopher David Chalmers calls this the “hard problem of consciousness,” and if you can understand his arguments, then you should be writing this article, not us.
So let’s dispense with the heady question of how it’s even possible for the same organ that gives rise to both perceiver and perception to trick itself. Let’s just look at the most bizarre of these instances.
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You’ll definitely recognize some, if not all of these. It turns out that everyone’s brain is a tricky little son of a gun.
1. Earworms: The “In West Philadelphia…” Problem
We’ve all suffered from these pests. Sometimes you get just a snippet of a song—the guitar lead from Eric Clapton’s unholy abomination “Wonderful Tonight,” say—and it’s like your brain hit the repeat button and then fell asleep.
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Earworms can get stuck in your head for days at a time. Sometimes the only way to drive them out is to replace them with another earworm. “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler tends to work pretty well for us.
If you want to give ’90s kids an incurable earworm, by the way, just walk into a room and sing the first three words of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song. You’d better wear your running shoes, though, because people do not appreciate it when you infect them with an earworm.
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Psychologists are still studying this phenomena to figure out why exactly your brain gets stuck in an audio loop, but until they figure out the reasons, at least they have some advice to help get rid of them. Concentrate on something else, they say, like a crossword puzzle or decoding a list of anagrams.
2. Phantom Memories
What are you if not the sum of your memories? If the memories really do make up the character, though, humans prove to be awfully chimerical creatures.
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That’s because memory is incredibly malleable. We may remember the events of our childhoods in ways that don’t conform to truth. We may even remember things that never happened at all.
In 1997, researcher James Coan wrote booklets describing childhood events and gave them to his family members to read. He snuck a fake into his brother’s booklet—a detailed account of the brother getting lost in a shopping mall.
Later, when he asked his family to remember the stories from the booklets, Coan’s brother recalled the “lost in the mall” story as real. He even unconsciously invented his own details. As far as he was concerned, this memory was as vivid as any other childhood scene.
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We’re not sure exactly how memory works, but one thing is for sure: You can’t always trust it.
3. Believing Lies
If the “fake news” debacle of 2016 has taught us anything, it’s that facts don’t have to be true for millions of people to believe them. That’s kind of the brain’s fault, as it turns out.
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A 2016 literature review from Northwestern University suggests that there are two operations that lead people to believe blatantly untrue statements. First, when confronted with a purported fact, it’s simply easier to believe it than to analyze and evaluate it. The brain is busy. Sometimes it can’t spare the resources to consider statements skeptically.
Then, when confronted with a problem, the brain retrieves the last relevant information it consumed—even if it isn’t true.
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“We often assume sources are reliable,” said psychologist David Rapp in a press release about the study. “It’s not that people are lazy, though that could certainly contribute to the problem. It’s the computational task of evaluating everything that is arduous and difficult, as we attempt to preserve resources for when we really need them.”
4. Word Dust
Have you ever sat there and repeated the same word over and over until the meaning drained away completely? That’s a well-documented phenomenon called “semantic satiation.”
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You can blame your cortex for any discomfort this exercise may cause. When you say a word, the cortex retrieves the meaning of that word. If you repeat the word many times quickly, that neural pathway begins to weaken with each repetition. Eventually the stimulus (saying the word) ceases to cause the neural activity (the firing of a pathway to meaning).
Interestingly, scientists have found ways to use semantic satiation therapeutically. It can help with stuttering, for instance, and even with the uncontrollable use of profanity sometimes associated with Tourette syndrome.
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(FYI: Most people who have Tourette syndrome don’t exhibit coprolalia, or the uncontrollable use of socially inappropriate words, no matter what the movies say. Semantic satiation, on the other hand, is very real.)
5. Believing What You Want to Believe
If you’ve ever gotten in a political argument on an online comments thread, you’re familiar with a phenomenon the professionals call “motivated reasoning.”
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Essentially, the mind doesn’t want its precepts and assumptions challenged by a pesky thing like reality. That means people are less likely to accept statements that challenge a previously held belief. Paradoxically, these challenging statements tend to make people cling even more tightly to their beliefs.
“If we believe something about the world, we are more likely to passively accept as truth any information that confirms our beliefs, and actively dismiss information that doesn’t,” wrote reporter Joe Keohane in the Boston Globe.
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This works both ways. You’re more likely to believe false statements that support your worldview. You’re also more likely to reject true statements that counter your worldview. Given that these tendencies are baked into the mind, it seems, any hope of a less-contentious political landscape seems pretty unfounded. Fortunately, if you have that hope, you’re likely to ignore, refute, or reframe the implications of motivated reasoning.
6. Altered States
In 1978, Paddy Chayefsky published a novel about sensory deprivation. His character had a series of stronger and stronger hallucinations upon entering the sensory deprivation tank until he eventually turned into a monkey, which is the really weird part.
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That’s why we always carry a copy of Altered States into the waiting room at the floating spa downtown (that’s a thing now). So far the staff hasn’t said anything to us, but you know it makes them uneasy.
Anyway, that novel, and the cult film that it inspired, are actually pretty accurate. Well, except for the monkey thing. A 2009 study threw 19 subjects who had no existing known mental illness into an “anechoic chamber,” which is basically a room that dampens sound and blocks out all light.
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The subjects sat there with nothing but their thoughts for 15 minutes. Afterward, five of them said they saw faces in the darkness. Six saw nonexistent objects. Four smelled phantom odors, and two sensed an “evil presence” nearby. Nearly all of the subjects said that they “experienced something very special or important” in the darkened room.
7. When Two Become One
You are yourself and others are ot
hers, right? Well, it’s complicated. A 2013 study in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience suggests that people who love each other actually blend identities.
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We don’t mean they start listening to the same music and wearing the same clothes, although that might happen too. On a neurological level, we identify ourselves as our loved ones.
Later, they threatened the subjects’ friends and loved ones with electric shocks too. Finally, they applied the threat to a stranger. The brain activated incredibly similar areas whether self or friend was threatened. When the stranger was threatened, though, the brain seemed indifferent.
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“The correlation between self and friend was remarkably similar,” said one of the study’s authors, James Coan. “The finding shows the brain’s remarkable capacity to model self to others; that people close to us become a part of ourselves, and that is not just metaphor or poetry, it’s very real.”
It’s not easy to prepare gourmet, world-class meals.
If it were, everyone would do it, and we wouldn’t need so many celebrity chefs.
The fact is that a lot of people make the same mistakes over and over. These common errors might just make your time in the kitchen a little less enjoyable. They might even ruin your entire cooking project.
If you love to cook, pay attention. Here are some things that most people get wrong.
1. Cooking Cold Meat
Meat that goes straight from the refrigerator to the frying pan has a hard time cooking evenly. Some parts stay colder and take longer to get up to the right temperature.
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The solution is to leave meat out at room temperature for a half-hour or so before cooking it. When the meat is a consistent temperature all the way through, it will cook more evenly, which means it’ll taste better, too.
2. Using the Wrong Knife
We all know people who chop their vegetables with a bread knife. The serrated edge might be attractive when you have to get through a dense, woody sweet potato.
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A better solution is to invest in quality knives, though. Keep your blades sharp. And when it’s time to dice the onions, don’t reach for the bread knife. That task is better handled by a nice sharp chef’s knife.
3. Sautéing Wet Vegetables
The secret to a great stir fry is to let your veggies dry before throwing them in the pan. If they’re covered in excess water, they’ll steam rather than actually sautéing. That means they’ll be limp and mushy, and they’ll lack that tasty brown coating that you get from a proper stir fry.
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It’s especially important to let greens dry out thoroughly before cooking them. There’s nothing worse than soggy, limp greens. After you rinse them, let them dry in a colander or spread them out on a kitchen towel and roll it up to remove excess moisture.
4. Cutting Meat Too Soon After It Finishes Cooking
That steak may look appetizing right out of the pan, but don’t start carving it immediately.
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Chefs recommend letting meat sit out for a few minutes after the cooking process is complete. It all has to do with moisture. When a slab of meat cooks, all of its juices migrate toward the center of the cut.
As the temperature of the meat slowly returns to normal, the juices distribute themselves evenly across the entire piece of meat. That means every bite will be moist, tender, and delicious.
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How long you should wait depends on how much meat you’re dealing with. A single serving, like a steak or a chicken breast, probably only needs about 5 minutes to get its juices flowing. For larger cuts, such as a whole chicken, duck, turkey, or turducken, you’ll probably want to let the meal rest for half an hour before you start carving. Hey, that’s what appetizers are for!
5. Using Extra Virgin Olive Oil for Everything
Extra virgin olive oil (or EVOO if you’re Rachael Ray) has become something of a celebrity in its own right. Doctors tout its health benefits. Chefs love the flavor.
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But the fact is that although olive oil might be great in salad dressing, it actually makes a pretty poor cooking oil. That’s because olive oil has a relatively low smoke point, which means that it starts to burn and smoke at temperatures commonly used to pan fry a meal.
If you want an oil to cook with, choose something with a higher smoke point, such as grapeseed or sunflower oil. For deep frying, go with a less expensive option such as vegetable, corn, or peanut oil.
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We’re not saying you shouldn’t keep a bottle of high-quality extra virgin olive oil in your kitchen. You should. It’s the go-to oil for salad dressings, marinades, and sautéing. Just don’t expect it to do everything itself.
6. Cutting Meat With the Grain
You might have noticed that meat has its own “grain.” The proteins and tissues simply grow that way naturally.
Some folks are tempted to cut along with this grain, figuring that it must be there for a reason. That’s a mistake.
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When you cut against the grain of a slice of meat, those proteins don’t bind together so much, resulting in a nice, tender cut. Grain-cut meat tends to get tough and chewy.
7. Flipping Meat Too Much
Generally, the less you flip a frying piece of food over in the pan, the better it will turn out. The next time you make a steak or a burger, resist the impulse to flip it over every other minute.
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Instead, let one side cook until it gets the sear you’re looking for. Then flip it. If you only flip your burgers once throughout the whole cooking process, all the better. That just means you’re getting it right.
8. Oversalting
We’re definitely guilty of this one. You want your meals to be flavorful, and the simplest way to add more flavor to a piece of food is to up the salt content.
Unfortunately, while this does add a lot of flavor, it’s not that good of a flavor. With salt, less is more. Just remember: You can always add more seasoning if you find that you were a little light on your first try. It’s a much harder thing to get flavoring out of a piece of food that’s already been salted to kingdom come.
9. Boiling Pasta Without Enough Water
Here’s the spaghetti hack you’ve been waiting for. The more water you put in the pot, the less sticky your noodles will be.
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Experts recommend that you boil a pound of pasta in at least 5 quarts of water. That’s a little over a gallon! We hope you have a big stock pot in your pantry.
10. Putting the Garlic in Too Soon
A few cloves of diced garlic can improve pretty much any savory dish. Don’t make the mistake of adding it too early, though. Garlic burns easily. When it burns, it develops an unpleasant bitter taste.
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If you want to avoid burning the garlic, you can’t cook it very long. If you sauté both onions and garlic in the same pan, put in the onions first. Only after everything else is close to done should you add the garlic.
11. Substituting Dry Herbs for Fresh Herbs in a 1:1 Ratio
We understand; you don’t always have a fresh sprig of thyme lying around. That’s what dried herbs are for. But if you’re following a recipe that calls for a teaspoon of fresh herbs, don’t substitute a whole teaspoon of dried herbs. The dried stuff is much more potent.
To safely substitute dried herbs for fresh ones, only use about one-third of the amount specified by the recipe.
12. Forgetting to Taste Your Own Dishes
This one may seem obvious, but when you’re following a complex recipe and you’ve got four pots on the burners, it can be easy to forget.
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Taste your meals frequently. Taste them before you add seasoning. Taste them after the salt goes in. Most importantly, taste them just before you go to serve them to friends and family. If something needs a little tweak, you want to find that out before people dig in.
13. Not Leaving Enough Empty Space in the Pan
Pans aren’t designed to be completely filled with food. The problem is that when the entire surface of the pan is filled, the food itself traps moisture. That leads to steam. Steam leads to soft, limp food without a satisfying seared surface.
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Leave a little extra space in the pan next time you fry something. You’ll be amazed at the difference it will make!
Cool weather is a welcome relief after days of being drenched in sweat after a quick dash to the mailbox, but lower temperatures are not necessarily kind to our skin. As the humidity drops, our skin loses moisture and before we know it, we’re relying on generous amounts of lotion to soothe our dry, cracking hands. Although our feet aren’t directly exposed to the uncomfortably frigid weather, being buried in socks for several months leaves them looking a bit parched as well. Podiatrist Eric Reynolds, DPM, of the Washington Institute of Dermatologic Laser Surgery in Washington, D.C. could recommend dozens of prescription medications to make your peeling feet pretty again, but he let WebMD in on a little secret–mouthwash works just as well!
How to treat your feet with Listerine antiseptic mouthwash:
There’s a lot to love about this home remedy, but the fact that it has something of a spa-day feel is one of our favorite factors. Applying ointment to your feet isn’t fun (just the word ointment makes us cringe), but soaking them automatically adds a soothing element to the experience.
Step 1: Pour Listerine and water into a wash basin. There should be twice as much water as there is mouthwash. The Listerine will soften your rough skin.
Step 2: Submerge your feet in this mixture, and allow them to soak for 15-20 minutes. Remember, use this time as an excuse to relax. Grab that magazine or book that’s been calling your name and read a few pages as the mouthwash works its magic.
Step 3: Once you’ve dried your feet, it’s time to moisturize. It’s perfectly fine to purchase a moisturizer of your choice or utilize one you already have; however, it needs to have a hydrating urea component to its formula. Dr. Reynolds recommends Eucerin Plus Intensive Repair Foot Creme.
This is a once-a-week treatment, but you can do it twice a week if your feet need it. Because Listerine is a strong antiseptic, it doesn’t only help restore the quality of your skin, it prevents and fights fungus as well!
Excessive earwax can be as irritating as the common cold or a house fly; it’s a pest that pops up without warning. Frequently we’re not even aware we have wax buildup until–seemingly out of nowhere–everything isn’t loud and clear anymore, and the softer sounds become, the more miserable we feel.
These symptoms are often accompanied by the dreaded question: “When am I going to find time to go to the doctor?” Fortunately, you don’t need to! An obstructed eardrum can be treated conveniently and inexpensively from home.
Before we explain how you should treat this condition, (please) take note of how you shouldn’t! Write this down: Never attempt to dig out excess earwax on your own. All too often, people shove cotton swabs into their ears to “clean” them out. Not only is this counterproductive, it’s dangerous. This could cause the wax to become more impacted as it’s inadvertently jammed deeper inside. Worst case scenario, you could actually harm your eardrum or ear canal. Say sayonara to this harmful habit. Relief is only three perfectly safe steps away.
(Please note you should not try this DIY remedy if you have tubes in your ears or if there’s a hole in your eardrum.)
Step One: Soften the wax
Earwax is hard. That imagery certainly doesn’t evoke happy thoughts (we’re sorry), but this is the reason why the first part of this at-home treatment is necessary. Placing a few drops of baby oil in your clogged ear will help soften the wax. If you don’t have any baby oil, then hydrogen peroxide, glycerin, or mineral oil are just as effective. All of these items will require time to work their magic. Wait a day or two before moving on to the next step.
Step Two: Irrigate
Once the recommended amount of time has passed, fill a rubber-bulb syringe with warm water. Squirt it into your clogged ear and tilt your head until it’s in a position that enables the water to flow into the canal with ease. After a minute or two, tilt your head in the opposite direction so the water can drain out.
Step Three: Dry your outer ear with a towel or a hair dryer on a low-heat setting.
Simple enough, right? This technique may not work on the first try. As we mentioned, the wax is quite stiff and may require a few treatments to loosen. If you repeat this process two or three times with no sign of improvement, then it is time to pay your doctor a visit. Although earwax removal kits are available for purchase, it’s best to ask a medical professional to walk you through the process before proceeding. Better safe than sorry!
Recently, I went to the supermarket to purchase strawberries for a pie. The price was a little discouraging, but I ignored it. Then I saw a pile of avocados, which made me dream of guacamole. But when I looked at the price tag I had a mild panic attack. No way was I paying $2.50 for one avocado. I meandered over to the store-made guacamole. The fresh guac was $5…was this a joke? Then I saw the pre-packaged, pre-made, manufactured guacamole coming in at a manageable $3. Now that was something I could handle.
See what just happened? I passed up the healthier option of homemade guacamole for something that was most likely squeezed out of a tube and full of enough sodium for a whole country.
Which brings us to the crux of the problem: Is healthy food more expensive than unhealthy food, and if so, by how much? Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have delved into the numbers and concluded that healthy eating costs about $1.50 more per day than unhealthier diets. Although this may seem like a small amount, it quickly adds up, especially for families already struggling financially. On a larger scale, that’s approximately $550 a year, which obviously can be a huge burden.
Why are healthy foods so expensive? Is it because of the cost that farmers incur in harvesting crops? Not necessarily. The BMJ (British Medical Journal) did a little bit of investigating on their own and came to these conclusions. Essentially, current policies in place focus on producing large quantities of inexpensive foods (this adds up to $300 billion in government subsidies, to be precise). The way these foods are farmed, stored, and marketed is all aimed toward the consumer. Sales are favored for these highly processed foods for the greatest industry profit. There has been talk of raising taxes on these unhealthy foods to deter consumers from purchasing them, but that is still up for debate.
So, where is this $1.48 difference seen? For starters, unhealthy meats and proteins are considerably cheaper than their healthier counterparts, as discussed by The BMJ. There’s a 29-cent difference between the two, and that number is conservative. There is a much smaller gap (three cents) in the cost of healthier versus unhealthier grains; dairy is 0.004 cents cheaper, and the list continues. It’s not just your imagination. Unhealthy foods are cheaper.
Just Kidding, They’re Not
On the other hand, there are reasons to believe that cheap food is actually more expensive. When you eat unhealthy food, you’re not only polluting your body and setting yourself up for future health problems, you’re also hurting the economic security of our country.
Unhealthy foods are loaded with fats, sugars, and ingredients that I can’t even pronounce. While you’re purchasing that frozen, gooey lasagna, or eating a Big Mac and fries, you might not be thinking about what’s actually happening inside your body. Not to mention that the obesity rate has skyrocketed, as more and more pre-packaged foods are introduced in our stores. More than one-third of Americans suffer from obesity, which ends up costing them money. Obese individuals visit their physicians 40 percent more than average-sized patients, and they account for 7 percent of lost productivity at work because of an increased use of sick leave and disability programs.
Overall, on a day-to-day basis, healthy food is pricier. There’s no denying that. But when you look at the bigger picture, you’ll realize that the consequences vastly outweigh the money you’re saving now. It’s been established that our government has a hand in making unhealthy food so accessible, and advocates have been clamoring for change. But until this occurs, what can you do to ensure that you’re eating healthy on the cheap?
Frozen Versus Fresh
I typically have regarded frozen food as one of the unhealthier choices, and in some situations it is. Pre-made pot pies and enchiladas cannot be good for you. They’re laden with chemicals; you can taste this when you sink your teeth into them. However, there are benefits to buying frozen products. For example, frozen veggies and fruits are much cheaper than fresh produce.
Let me address a common concern: How well is nutritional value retained? Isn’t fresh produce preferable, better, and healthier? Here’s the thing: The fresh fruits and vegetables at your local grocer aren’t necessarily as nutritious as you’d hope. Within three days of when vegetables are removed from their vines or pulled from the ground, their nutritional value begins to diminish, with 80 percent of vitamin C being lost, for instance. With our current technology, freezing doesn’t damage food; it actually preserves the vitamins and minerals.
The caveat is that some foods freeze better than others. The Daily Mailhas a list of the “do”s and “don’t”s for all your freezing questions. Red meat freezes better than white meat because it has a larger amount of fat. This fat means there’s less water content, thus the pesky ice crystals that cause freezer burn won’t be forming on your ground beef. Chicken, on the other hand, has high water content, so it’s recommended that you only freeze white meat for six months or less. Generally speaking, if you’re freezing food for a reasonable amount of time you should be good to go. Frozen produce may not be ideal when you want to eat your vegetables plain, but if they’re an ingredient in a stir-fry or casserole, they should be your number one choice.
Splurging Can Be Okay
Sometimes you have to splurge if you want to eat healthy. With careful budgeting, it can be done. Personally, I’ve reduced the amount of meat I consume so I can have healthier organic meat and produce options. A good guide is trying to avoid “The Dirty Dozen” at all costs. It’s a funny name but scary truth: The Dirty Dozen is a list of fruits and vegetables that test positive for high pesticide residue. Try to find organic versions of these items when you can:
How exactly can we cut costs when it comes to buying healthy food? Prices of seasonal fresh produce are considerably lower during summer months. When winter arrives and prices creep up, it’s time to turn to frozen veggies. Frozen meats can be found year-round, but it’s best to find items that are organic or have minimal additives. This can present a significant challenge, but stay on the lookout for organic frozen food when you can.
Another cost-cutting option is a no-brainer, but does take some effort. Don’t forget about coupon clipping, menu planning, and sale shopping. Coupon clipping is pretty obvious, but most people don’t think about menu planning. Figuring out what you need for the week and writing it down is a fantastic way to keep from making impulse purchases. Also, it’s good to have a few recipes in your back pocket. If you go to the store and chicken breasts are full price but a pork tenderloin is on sale, go for the tenderloin. Another way to save money is by purcha
sing store brands; they’re typically less expensive than name-brand products.
It may take a bit before you get the hang of buying healthy food without destroying your budget. A great resource for purchasing cheap healthy food is your local grocers themselves. They’ll typically tell you when items are going on sale and what’s the best bang for your buck. If you build a rapport with your butchers, they may even give you discounted prices. If you take the time and make the effort to shop for deals, you’ll be healthier and happier before you know it.
While the practice of pec popping has been around for a long time, it wasn’t until the vaudeville acts of the late 19th century that it became a form of entertainment. Who knew?
The Rock didn’t just follow his dreams. Instead he’s done everyth
ing in his power to turn his dreams into a reality. By training routinely in the gym he’s developed the ethics of success!
For the movie “Hercules,” The Rock had to workout 6 days a week, and get to the gym at 4 a.m since he was on set all day. However, even when The Rock is not filming he actually loves going to the gym between 3 and 5 a.m.
Have you ever heard the phrase Get your head in the game from a coach or trainer when you’re slacking? The Rock is living proof of what can be achieved when focus and concentration are applied diligently.
A postpartum photo from an Arizona mother has caught the attention of millions. Danielle Haines never intended for her picture to create such a stir, but instead it was meant as a gesture of thanks to all that had helped her since the birth of her little one.
Haines hadn’t gone to sleep since labor and now she was home, with her son, while her partner was at work. She was having difficulty sleeping and when her friend showed up at her door she broke down in tears. Her friend calmed her and then stated that she looked absolutely beautiful and wanted to know if she could take a photo. Haines agreed and posted it a few days later asking other mom’s for insight on how to deal with the first few weeks postpartum.
Instantly a floodgate of mothers began commenting, sharing their own stories of pain, aches, and tired happiness for this new chapter in their life.
Haine’s son is now one-year-old and brings her constant joy, but her message remains long after her sleepless nights. All women struggle with postpartum in their own, personal way.
“It takes a village to raise a baby. We need the human family. It can’t be just the partner and it can’t be just your mom. We need our peers as well.”
The raw and emotional photo has stirred many hearts and serves as a reminder that motherhood is hard, yet beautiful, every step of the way.
