Category: Nosh

McDonald’s might be one of the defining ways of life for Americans, so much so that its empire has conquered entire countries across the globe. Believe it or not though, Mickey D’s has some stiff competition waiting in the wings. Business Insider compiled a list of fast food restaurants that will usher in the revolution—take a look.

1. The Kitchenette

If you follow the happenings of the technology world, then you’re probably familiar with the Musk family. Well, as it turns out, the brother of Tesla and SpaceX giant Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk, has his own creation to be quite proud of in The Kitchenette.

Though there’s only a single location to speak of at the moment, inside Shelby Farms Park in Memphis, additional locations are in the works. Well, they will be, at some point, according to Musk’s current goals.

Though technically part and parcel of the restaurant chain The Kitchen, The Kitchenette offers much of the same as Panera Bread and other fast-food cafés. The Kitchenette aims to make the most of local food. Oh, and did we mention that everything the Kitchenette sells costs less than $5? We’re not joking. So if you want a change from pricey café fare and you find yourself down south, you might just want to try The Kitchenette.

2. Salad and Go

If you’ll be heading to Arizona anytime soon and the Grand Canyon isn’t enough to satisfy your appetite for southern goodness (it’s stunning, but really, you need something to refuel your energy after a good hike), then you might want to try this chain—a native to the state.
True to its name, Salad and Go is the perfect stop for salad enthusiasts who are in a bit of a hurry. What’s more? You get plenty of bang for your buck here where the massive salads are are all sold for under $10 (a rarity if we’ve ever heard of one). By massive, we mean 48-ounces. It sounds like a pretty good investment, right?

At the current moment, the chain has six homes, all of which are found in the state of Arizona, though there are supposed to be an additional eight come 2018. If you’re not in Arizona, don’t fret, they might come to your state by 2020!

If you like Panera Bread’s Greek Salad, which comes in at 400 calories, try Salad and Go’s Greek Salad, which is only 325 calories with dressing or 170 without. All of their salads can be ordered as a wrap, if that’s more your style.

3. LocoL

Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson, a pair of renowned chefs in their own right, are responsible for this California-based chain. While it’s not quite as low-calorie as other healthy choices, it takes advantage of its home area, as “everything is made with high-quality, locally sourced, whole ingredients.”

If you’re looking for a twist on some meaty classics like chicken nuggets, the LocoL version uses fermented barley as one of its ingredients .
Having opened in 2016, LocoL can be found at just two permanent Southern California addresses at the moment, though there are more options when it comes to ordering from one of their many food trucks in the city.

This year is going to be a big one for the chain, as they’re striving to add nine more locations around the country by the time 2018 rolls around.
If you have trouble when choosing how to treat yourself (pizza vs. burger vs. pizza—an epic battle), you might want to try one of LocoL’s specialty $5 Pizza Burgs.

4. Veggie Grill

Reformed carnivores-turned-vegans can delight in this chain, which might just serve your new favorite “burger.” Although you might have to be a fan of peas to enjoy it. This is because their main ingredient just so happens to be pea protein.

Maybe you were more of a chicken fan in your meat-eating past. If so, the pseudo-chicken sandwiches served at Veggie Grill are made up of a combination of pea, soy, and wheat protein that will surprise you with how tasty they are. This chain has a bit more of a range than the others when it comes to pricing, selling items from as low as $3.50 to nearly $12.
At the moment, only West Coasters have access to Veggie Grill, as all of its nearly 30 locations are spread across just three states: California, Oregon, and Washington. Its goal is to have double the locations by 2020, and to become a national presence once investors have contributed a modest $22 million.

If you like (or used to like) Burger King’s Whopper® Sandwich, which is a whopping (get it?) 630 calories, you could give Veggie Grill’s Grilled Quinoa + Veg Burger a try. It ranges from 560 to 580 calories, based on how you order it.

5. Eatsa

Eatsa might just be the ultimate food chain of the future, given its method for serving its vegetarian cuisine.

While the concept of ordering your fast food from an iPad isn’t entirely uncommon (as seen at Panera, for those who want to participate in their Rapid Pick-Up service), Eatsa takes that one step further. Rather than receiving meals from a waiter or an unmanned shelf, Eatsa customers are greeted by “automated cubbies.”

Meals here go for as low as 450 calories to no higher than 700. This chain, which is known for its quinoa bowls, might be small, with only four locations to its name, but it’s powerful, as every restaurant is based in an American metropolis: from San Francisco, to Los Angeles, then to Washington, D.C. as of November 2016, and, most recently, Manhattan.
If you’re big on Mexican food but want something that isn’t prohibitive in calorie count, you might want to give Eatsa’s Burrito Bowl (653 calories) or their Tres Chiles (550) bowl a taste.

6. Dig Inn

If you have a secret love of farmer’s markets and your concern for the environment goes further than just keeping your eating clean, then Dig Inn might be the place.

This is especially true for those of you planning a trip to Boston or The Big Apple. Dig Inn made its debut back in 2011, and qualifies as a “farm-to-table chain.” There are currently 14 locations, though more are to come.
Though it’s a bit more expensive than your run-of-the-mill fast food chains, which are known for their unbeatable prices, Dig Inn’s prices are pretty comparable to that of Panera Bread. Their items typically start around $8 and rarely exceed $11. The affordability is thanks to the chain’s work with farmers from the local area.

If you’re a fan of Panera’s 950-calorie Mac & Cheese, Dig Inn offers a side of Seasonal Upstate Mac with Butternut Squash, which just sounds perfect for a cool autumn night.

7. LYFE Kitchen

Ironically, this chain—which is an acronym for the motto “Love Your Food Everyday“—is the brainchild of former McDonald’s big wigs: Mike Roberts and Mike Donahue (in addition to another man, Stephen Sidwell), according to First We Feast. Roberts was the fried food empire’s global president, while Donahue had a role as the chief of corporate communications.

Though LYFE has only been around for the last few years (since 2011, to be exact), the California spot is on its way to a nationwide takeover, with 20 Kitchens across the country. They can be found in California, Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, Texas, and Tennessee. If you’re not a fan of artificial food, then this might be the choice for you.
You won’t find anything on the menu with butter, cream, or high-fructose corn syrup. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, none of the food has MSG, preservatives, or trans fats.

If you’re a fan of Panera’s 640-calorie Classic Grilled Cheese, LYFE Kitchen offers a unique version of the classic comfort food with Faye’s Grilled Cheese, which is only 459 calories.

8. Everytable

With its home base in Los Angeles, Everytable is one of the other few good things that came out of 2016, with its food—much of which is vegetarian, vegan, and/or gluten-free—coming from local vendors.

Instead of following in the footsteps of sheer, unadulterated capitalism, Everytable cares about its customers and price-adjusts based on what those in the area will find affordable.
Currently, Everytable can only be found in South L.A., though it will soon open in downtown L.A. as well, with additional Los Angeles locations not far behind and in subsequent American cities down the line.

If you enjoy Panera’s Turkey Chili (260 calories), Everytable’s menu, which is “inspired by the cultures & flavors of Los Angeles” and offers Yucatan Chili (490). This spin on the traditional chili includes zucchini, corn, and white mushroom, to name a few. Be sure to put this place on your L.A. bucket list.

9. Freshii

Alright, so this one isn’t exactly new, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive. Freshii hails from our neighbors up north in Canada and has been serving up healthy choices since 2005. Boasting over 300 locations around the globe, Freshii’s menu consists of bowls, salads, and wraps that, for the most part, are less than 700 calories—score!

As if that wasn’t enough to get excited about, the bulk of what’s served at Freshii only costs $7. Sure, that’s certainly more than you’re likely to pay for a single item at Taco Bell or Burger King, but at least you’re paying for food that’s intended to be good for you, not just your wallet.
If you like Panera’s Beet & Citrus Salad or Fuji Apple Salad with Chicken, which are 490 calories and 570 calories respectively, then you might want to try Freshii’s Market Salad. It comes in at 610 calories, though it’s also available as a 785-calorie wrap (both amounts include the calories for the sauces/dressings).

If you want to try something a bit different, as far as salads are concerned, Freshii also offers their Pangoa bowl with brown rice, black beans, avocado, and more, though it does come in at 770 calories.

In 2014, an anonymous head chef at a hospital in England felt compelled to speak out on an issue that you might already take for granted.

Hospital food, he told the Daily Mail, is horrible.

The chef had worked in food service at the National Health Service in England for decades. He used to enjoy the work. He cooked real food, experimented with flavors, and collected thank-you notes from grateful patients.

Thanks to a new round of budget constraints, though, this chef says that hospital food in England has lost all of its former magic. Once upon a time, he said, he prepared complex dishes with lots of flavor.

“My job as head chef now is to take the plastic trays out of the freezer and slide them onto one of dozens of racks inside the ‘regen trolley.’ There’s space for 30 meals. I then press a button for the trolley to ‘regenerate,’ or reheat, the meals for 90 minutes until they’re piping hot.”

“By the time this food is ready to serve,” the chef says, “it might as well be pork or chicken or beef—or cardboard. You can’t really taste or smell it to tell the difference.”

But of course, that’s over in England, where they have an overburdened socialized health system.

Things are different in the United States, aren’t they? Um…

Every now and then, a U.S. hospital will try to revamp their patient menu. They might throw in a few pieces of local produce, for instance, or experiment with microwaved tofu. Unfortunately, these programs have a rather dismal record of success.

Basically, the less-than-stellar state of hospital food all over the world boils down to two things: cost and inertia.

A restaurant owner with the unlikely name of Jesse Cool is currently heading an attempt to bring healthier meats to San Francisco’s third-largest hospital. In 2016, Cool told Mother Jones just how hard it is to disrupt a system as far-reaching and entrenched as hospital nutrition.

The current food culture in hospitals is built to “feed as many people as possible for as little as possible,” Cool said. They either buy food in bulk, the same way they order medical supplies and hospital gowns, or else they outsource their kitchens to large-scale providers like Sodexo and Aramark. The bias is toward food that ships easily, never spoils, and can be prepared with a minimum of staff and skill. In other words, TV dinners.

The supply chain for a hospital kitchen has a lot in common with the fast food industry, actually.

Both favor frozen foods that can quickly be reconstituted with predictable results. It doesn’t seem to matter that those results are, more often than not, bland and heavily laced with salt.

Cool hopes to change that. He helped to create a partnership between the Bay Area’s Stanford Health Care and a beef supplier called Mindful Meats. This organization essentially rounds up older dairy cows that check all the right boxes—organic, grass-fed, free from antibiotics and GMO corn and hormones—then butchers them, selling the high-quality beef to high-end restaurants and, now, at least one hospital.

Cool’s efforts are great if you live in San Francisco. But what about the rest of the country?

Doctors are leaking news that hospital food might not just be bland and boring. It might also make sick people sicker..

Evan Levine, MD, dished to Reader’s Digest about the problems he’s encountered with his patients and the hospital menu.

“There’s no communication between dietary and pharmacy, and that can be a problem when you’re on certain meds,” Levine said. “I’ve had patients on drugs for hypertension or heart failure (which raises potassium levels), and the hospital is delivering (potassium-rich) bananas and orange juice. Then their potassium goes sky high, and I have to stop the meds.”

The only solution is to take charge of your own health care, even when you’re cooling your heels in a hospital bed.

“Ask your doctor whether there are foods you should avoid,” Levine said. Then ask for replacements when those blacklisted foods end up on your hospital plate.

Patient health isn’t the only thing that’s suffering as a result of the super-preserved, mass-produced food that comes out of hospital kitchens.

There’s also the issue of waste.

According to research by the Guardian, more than 80,000 meals served to patients in England’s hospitals go uneaten every day. That’s an incredible amount of waste.

The people who work in these kitchens understand why they end up throwing away so much of the food they send up to patients’ rooms. After all, two-thirds of the food workers polled told the Guardian that they wouldn’t eat the very same meals they’re serving to sick people.

Hospitals say that healthy food is too expensive, that it would wipe out their entire budgets. But what’s more expensive than waste? Rather than throwing out 80,000 meals every day, wouldn’t it be more affordable to invest a little more in materials and training, then soak up the costs by throwing out less food?

As more and more medical professionals speak out about the abysmal food service available in hospitals, reformers see a chance to overhaul the entire system.

Even the American Medical Association has weighed in on the issue. Board members published a piece in the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics that took U.S. hospitals to task for the food they feed their patients.

“I believe that it is simply unethical to be serving patients’ families, visitors and our staff members the unhealthy food that is currently being sold in this institution,” said one AMA board member. “It is our responsibility as a health-promoting organization to foster all aspects of health. The hospital is a role model for our visitors and staff, and we must set high-quality standards when it comes to our nutritional offerings.”

However, not everyone on the AMA board agreed. Another member said that “when it comes down to it, it’s every person’s responsibility to make his or her own food choices.”

That same board member seemed to regard healthier, more expensive food as an existential threat to the core mission of a hospital.

“Our main responsibility as the hospital’s representatives is not to change individual behavior but to serve the low-income population in our community—and to do that we must ensure the fiscal future of our institution,” the board member said.

It’s also hard to retrain employees who are used to microwaving 100 frozen dinners every night. When Cool negotiated the partnership between Mindful Meats and Stanford Health Care, he worked hand in hand with Helen Wirth, director of Sanford’s hospitality services.

He said her job was like “banging your head against a wall.”

“We were teaching the staff to cook again,” Wirth told Mother Jones. “You have to learn how to use a knife, follow the recipe. It’s an education.”

The challenge was so great that even six months after beginning their new food initiative, “things were just completely out of whack,” Wirth said.

This brings us back to that anonymous head chef who spoke to the Daily Mail about how terrible English hospital food had become.

This isn’t just an English problem. Hospitals around the world are struggling to update their food programs with healthier options. Others, unfortunately, are content to continue pushing salty, greasy food out to patients who desperately need some fresh veggies.

“The worst part of my job is heading out to the wards with the trolley,” the NHS chef said. “I don’t want to make eye contact with the patients. If I hear someone ask, ‘Who cooked that?’ I put my head down and run past. It’s mortifying.”

Essentially, hospital insiders don’t think that the food will change without a massive top-down commitment from management, and, in many countries, even from the government.

“I know there will always be budget constraints,” he said. “But good, wholesome food is one of the simplest ways to help vulnerable people on the road to recovery. It’s a shame that the NHS can no longer see this.”

We’ve got news for this disgruntled chef: The NHS isn’t alone.

Do you remember the first time you went grocery shopping on your own? For college students or other newly minted adults, choosing your own food and deciding what to cook for the week probably seemed exciting. Unfortunately, if you’re like most people, the novelty quickly wore off.

Enter Trader Joe’s. The 50-year-old self-proclaimed “neighborhood” grocery store has grown into a national chain known for its quirky culture and delicious food. Take, for example, the chain’s famous Cookie Butter, which is basically spreadable cookies. What more could you want for your breakfast toast?
The best part of Trader Joe’s, however, is that the more you learn about the chain, the more there is to love. This video gives some of the highlights.

When you walk in the store for the first time you might think that you’ve just found a cute supermarket, but from inside jokes to special bell codes to great employee benefits, there’s a whole host of secrets hidden behind those doors.
Here are the most crazy cool secrets you might not have known about Trader Joe’s.

1. There was an original Trader Joe.

Let’s start with the basics: Where did that name come from? The chain was founded by Joe Coulombe, who opened the first store in Pasadena, California, in 1967. (You can still shop at the original location today).
Company lore has it that Coulombe, who graduated from Stanford Business School, came up with the idea for a unique market while he was traveling in the Caribbean. He thought that better-educated Americans were becoming interested in foods from other cultures, according to an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Those foods were hard to find in your average supermarket back in the 1960s, so Coulombe became a trader, bringing hard-to-find foods to his customers at great value.
Like any good trader, Coulombe knew when to sell. German entrepreneur Theo Albrecht bought the chain in 1979, but Coulombe remained on board as the company’s chief executive until he retired in 1989.

2. The theme goes way beyond the Hawaiian shirts.

Remember how the original Trader Joe came up with the idea when he was in the Caribbean? That might help explain the tiki theme found at all Trader Joe’s locations, even in the dead of winter. The staff  wear Hawaiian shirts, and you may even get a floral lei just for doing your grocery shopping.

But the theme goes beyond just what meets the eye: It also factors into employee titles. All employees are crew members, and supervisors are known as mates. As for the store manager? You guessed it: They’re the captain.

3. They sell big-name brands under their own label.

Trader Joe’s is well known for having great food sold under the store brand. You might wonder what the secret is, and the truth is that it’s all in the packaging. The company works with major brands to sell their product under the store’s label.

While that’s great for customers, sometimes it can lead to real confusion for staff.
“I remember a whole batch of yogurt coming in once in Trader Joe’s cups with Stonyfield lids,” a former employee from Massachusetts recalls. “That was crazy because we couldn’t stock the yogurt until we got new lids. Those agreements with name brands are very closely guarded.”

4. There are some exceptions to the “try anything” rule.

Trader Joe’s famously allows customers to try anything in the store, unless the product is something that has to be cooked. You would think most people would understand that, but customers still try to request free bites of everything from chicken soup to bison burgers, says Tom Wallace, who worked at a Trader Joe’s in Massachusetts for five years.
“I have certainly had customers ask if they could sample these items and had to politely explain why we couldn’t,” he says. “Although, it should have been obvious.”
However, the chain does its best to let customers try food that must be cooked by setting up tasting stations. Sometimes that’s to get people to try something new, but sometimes it’s to correct an ordering error, says Amanda Pouncy, who worked at a Trader Joe’s in Texas for two years.

“Sometimes we make a mistake on ordering and end up with a ton of an item that normally would sell one or two units a month, and we have to improvise,” she explains. Those items end up in the tasting booth.
Pouncy admitted that sometimes employees took advantage of the “taste anything” policy.
“Don’t tell my captain,” she jokes, “but we definitely used to pick out our favorite ice cream sandwiches and open them, then pretend that a customer asked for a sample, just so we could have a nice treat in the summer. Texas gets hot and sometimes when you’re pulling carts from the middle of a parking lot with no shade, all you want is a sublime ice cream sandwich.”
But it isn’t a food-eating free-for-all. Wallace once saw a customer reprimanded for getting too greedy.
“She would bring candy to the demo area and ask for a sample and then grab a handful,” he said. “Good try. She was eventually told by the store manager that she was taking advantage of the policy.”

5. But that other famous rule has no exceptions.

In addition to letting customers try nearly anything, Trader Joe’s advertises their no-questions-asked return policy. That one is 100 percent true.

“I’ve had people return dead plants before, and we did give them their money back, but we definitely talked about them in our closing circle later on in the evening,” Pouncy said.
That’s right, Trader Joe’s employees all take part in a closing circle at the end of the shift. How cute is that?
“The closing circle is when the crew gets together for a little chat about the plans for the evening after customers have left the store,” Pouncy explains. “We might try some new food, drink some coffee, and then jump head first into stocking the store for the following day of business.”

6. They operate a secret code.

If you’ve ever been in a Trader Joe’s, chances are you’ve heard the bells at the register and wondered what that’s all about.
“TJ’s does not use a PA system in the store unless it is an urgent matter,” Wallace explains. Instead, they turn to the bells.

One ring of the bell signals that more cashiers are needed up front. Ringing two bells indicates that a customer at the register needs assistance that the cashier cannot provide, and the sound of three bells signals that a supervisor’s assistance is needed for the transaction.
Wallace notes that you may not hear one bell too often, since Trader Joe’s prides itself on customer service in the extreme.
“If any crew member saw a customer waiting in line and there was an open register you were expected to check that customer out no matter what you were doing,” he says.

7. They seriously support local artists.

If you’ve ever taken the time to notice the signs in a Trader Joe’s, you’ve already seen that they are each unique. That’s because the chain has a dedication to supporting artists, who produce everything from murals in the store to the price tags on the shelves. This is about a lot more than just making a charming environment, according to one artist who has worked at Trader Joe’s for 10 years.
“I think it’s important in this day and age to connect with people face-to-face and by putting actual pen to paper or marker to board,” she says. “It reminds us how things used to be before we had so much screen time.”
Artists work on signs, murals, and the Fearless Flyer magazine that is available at stores. The artist we spoke to emphasized that this isn’t just corporate branding, but genuine appreciation for artistic connection.

“They’ve supported me by giving me lots of freedom to create signs, murals, and decorations for the store,” she says. “You get an opportunity to engage with the customers by what you say on the sign.”
Former TJ’s employee Pouncy added that the artists who work with Trader Joe’s have an almost mythical reputation.
“There are a few talented people in every store who practice lettering in tiny offices that no customer ever sees or knows exist, and they make amazing decorations that hardly ever get the attention they deserve,” she says. “The character that these tiny art exhibits, displays, and murals give TJ’s is unlike any store, and it’s what makes TJ’s all its own.”

8. They treat the rest of their employees well too.

Working at a grocery store may not be the most glamorous job, but Trader Joe’s employees insist that it’s a great one. Not only does the store foster teamwork by having all employees do all jobs, but it also puts its money where its mouth is.
“The pay is well above any hourly rate you would receive at a traditional supermarket,” former employee Wallace says.
Both he and Pouncy say that they received reviews every six months, which generally came with a pay increase.

“I received about four raises while I was working there, and that’s more than any job I’ve had since,” Pouncy explains.
Plus, there is always opportunity for advancement.
“Also anyone who worked hard and expressed an interest in growth could easily move into a more involved role,” Wallace says.

9. They’re a little nuts about customer service.

Trader Joe’s employees are trained from their first day on the job to put customer service first. Wallace says that he first thought the store’s protocol was a little over the top, but he soon realized that it’s how all stores should operate.
“We’ve all had the experience of wandering around a store looking for an employee to assist you and getting more and more irritated the longer it takes,” he says. “I can guarantee that this will rarely, if ever, happen at TJ’s.”

Crew members aren’t just trained to answer customers’ questions but to actively engage with customers. The dedication shows. One frequent shopper says that a Trader Joe’s employee noticed her haircut before her husband did.
Pouncy says that, in return, customers are equally enthusiastic about their favorite products at Trader Joe’s.
“When I was managing the deli section I got harassed for a good year because of an item that was out of stock and completely out of my control,” she said. “I know the soy chorizo is good but I can’t control that!”
The next time you visit a Trader Joe’s, be sure to pause to appreciate this wild and wacky culture!

If you’re like most Americans, you spend a lot of time in your local grocery market.
According to statistics website Statista, the average U.S. consumer goes grocery shopping 1.5 times per week. Those shopping trips are big business: Grocery sales generated over $600 billion in 2015.
To keep you spending, your local grocer employs some nifty marketing tricks. That’s not to say that they’re doing anything shady, exactly.

“[Marketing] used to be all about the product, now it’s all about the customer’s experience,” Georganne Bender, partner at Kizer & Bender. Her firm helps retailers design store layouts, market new products, and improve their sales. “Obviously, there’s a benefit to the retailer, but the purpose of it is to make people feel better when they’re in the store and make it easy for them.”
We spoke with Bender to find out about the methods that grocery stores use to keep shoppers moving—and how some of those techniques can compel people to buy things they don’t really need.

The supermarket starts selling as soon as you walk in the door.

Well, to be fair, the selling starts before you walk in the door, since retailers carefully control things like parking space availability to ensure a positive experience. Once you’re in, however, you’ll be immediately presented with a selection of seasonal items.

“When you go into stores, you’ll see things called merchandise outposts, which are generally tables of merchandise that is somewhere in the aisles of the store,” Bender says, “but because there’s an event or holiday coming up, they bring it out to other areas of the store. It’s called cross-merchandising.”
The merchandise outpost is a type of “speed bump,” and whether or not you buy something, you’ll likely pause for a moment to check out the new items.
“They work the same way speed bumps in parking lots work,” Bender says. “They slow you down. When you walk into a store, you’re thinking about all of the things you have to do for the day, and your list, and you’re getting your kids organized. When you walk in, they want to put something that makes you stop and look.”
If you’re moving more slowly, you’re more prone to making an impulsive purchase or adding a few items to your list.

They put the products they really want you to notice at eye level.

This might not come as a surprise; most parents already know that retailers keep candies and sweet cereals at kids’ eye levels.
[pullquote align=”center”]“Eye level is considered buy level.”
—Georganne Bender[/pullquote]
“When kids walk down the aisle, they see candy and ask Mom for it,” Bender says. Retailers also make sure that adults walk right past the must-see items.
“Eye level is considered buy level,” Bender says. “It’s exactly 5 foot 4 inches, the height of an average woman.”

Name-brand items are typically the more expensive products in grocery stores, and that’s why they want you to buy them. To help persuade you, stores place these items at eye level so you’re less likely to keep searching the shelves once you see them.
Recently, a new trend called “vertical slicing” has started replacing some eye-level positioning. The retailers lay out items across several shelves in vertical “slices,” which keeps the brand in front of customer’s eyes.

“Say there’s a display and it’s got four different kinds of liquid detergent, they’ll put a vertical slice of [each] one. It doesn’t matter which shelf the customer’s looking at, they’re going to see that product.”

They understand that you shop differently if you’re eating healthy.

“We’ve been kind of trained from the time we were little, when we went shopping with our parents, that you grab a shopping cart and you go up and down every aisle,” Bender says.

“But if you’re eating healthier, there’s a good chance that you don’t go up and down every aisle,” she continues. “You just shop the perimeter.”
Store owners know that, so they’ll place must-see items in “end caps,” which cap off each aisle.
“The end caps [near the] meat department might be something that they don’t want you to miss,” Bender says. “They’ll put the things they don’t want you to miss in areas adjacent to the perimeter, sometimes in the perimeter.”

If you’re trying to eat healthy, you might want to avoid those end caps entirely. Good luck—they’re designed to grab your attention.

The milk’s in the back, but probably not for the reason you’d expect.

Retailers typically put milk, eggs, and other essentials toward the back of the store. That’s to get people to walk through the entire store to get those must-have items, right?
[pullquote align=”center”]“I tell the retailers to put the milk in the front of the store for the convenience of the customers, and the retailers, typically, ignore my advice.”
—Burt Flickinger[/pullquote]

Well, not exactly. Milk needs to stay cold (duh), and the freezers and refrigerators are typically in the back. They could build the refrigerators in the front, but they don’t.
Why? NPR’s Planet Money interviewed a few experts to find out, but their results weren’t exactly conclusive.
“I tell the retailers to put the milk in the front of the store for the convenience of the customers, and the retailers, typically, ignore my advice and put the milk in the back of the store where they’ve been putting it for 70 to 80 years,” retail consultant Burt Flickinger told the show.
While grocery store designers carefully plan out every aspect of the shopping experience, they’re creatures of habit just like everyone else. While some might put those necessities in the back as a way of upselling customers, most simply do it because they’ve never considered the alternative.

Many stores have scent machines, and when they don’t, they improvise.

Fragrances can be incredibly compelling to shoppers. Scent marketing services like ScentAir help retailers retain their customers by pumping certain aromas through stores with discreet devices (they offer similar services for casinos and other businesses).

“It’s called aromacology,” Bender says. “When we smell something, it takes us back immediately to the first place we smelled it. So if you walk through the bakery and smell chocolate chip cookies, there’s a really good chance that that’s going to take you back to being a little kid at home with your mom or Grandma making cookies. Scents make us feel good.”
“That’s why, if the store’s not using a machine like a ScentAir machine, they’ll either have flowers right near the front door, or the bakery’s close to the front door. It puts us in a good mood. ”

That music is nice and upbeat for a reason.

Ever find yourself tapping your toe as you make your way down the aisles? Stores select music very carefully to keep you shopping. They pay hefty music licensing fees to organizations like ASCAP, and many also invest in services like SiriusXM Music for Business, which pipes in carefully tailored playlists to keep shoppers in a good mood.
[pullquote align=”center”]“Disco is the sound of money.”
—Georganne Bender[/pullquote]
“They play music because it’s comforting for you to shop with music,” Bender says, “and the type of store [determines] the type of music they play. When Rich [Kizer] and I are designing stores, we always tell them to play upbeat music like disco.”

Yes, you read that right: disco.
“Disco is the sound of money,” she says. “It doesn’t matter how old you are, the beat makes you feel good. You’ll stay longer in the store, and you’ll spend more.”
We’ve never heard disco described as “the sound of money,” but somehow, that sounds about right.
Some major retail chains are trying to change this tactic. For decades, Target hasn’t played background music, possibly because they target mothers with young children who might appreciate the peace and quiet. Recently, the chain started introducing music in some stores in an effort to revive its sales.
“When you go into those stores, it’s too quiet,” Bender says. “If the store isn’t busy and you’re walking around a giant store and there’s no sound at all.”

They don’t redesign the store just to throw you off.

One common myth suggests that grocery stores undergo redesigns just to change their regular customers’ shopping habits. Bender says that while some retailers might occasionally reorganize their products to sell them more effectively, they try to avoid massive changes—and they certainly try to make those changes easy on their customers.

“Our grocery store just did a complete re-lay, and it really messes you up for a while until you learn it again,” she says. “We become accustomed to where things are, and that’s why people become so loyal to their favorite grocery store. They know where everything is.”
Some stores try to make re-designs easier by positioning staff members at the end of each aisle. Bender notes that one store even handed out maps to visitors.

So there you have it: the truth about why grocery stores are the way they are.

Are they designed with profits in mind? Sure. But is it nefarious? Eh, not quite.
“[A lot of people] try to make retailers out to be these bad guys who just want your money,” Bender says. “They’re not. They’re just business people who want their customers to have a comfortable experience.”

Speaking of buying things and customer comfort: There are ways you can hack your shopping experience.

Starting off with a list—extra points if it has built-in visual cues, like a full spread of items that you can mark throughout the week as you run out—is a great way to streamline the process since you can generate the list as you go, and it’ll keep you from making any impulse buys once you’re in the store.
If you want to help save the planet, bring your own eco-friendly shopping bag (or bags, let’s be honest), and if you have a grabby baby in tow, you can help distract them from all those strategically placed, eye-level goodies by plopping them in something like this Brica Go Shop Baby Shopping Cart Cover, which comes equipped with toy loops and a smartphone pouch.
Finally, having a place in your trunk to store cold items for the drive and organize the groceries once you buy them can mean the difference between eggs and cracked eggs, ice cream and just cream—these are important distinctions, especially when your schedule or your budget won’t allow two-a-day grocery trips.

You know those gorgeous, mouth-watering photos that restaurants use to lure you in? Bad news: Your food probably won’t look much like that when it arrives on your table.
That’s because professional food photographers know dozens of tricks to make food look better—even if they have to add a few, ahem, special ingredients to get the perfect shot.
We exchanged emails with Albert Hakim, a photographer working at Laserwave Graphic Design Studio, to analyze some of the food photography tricks we’ve seen floating around the internet.
Hakim says that he prefers to work with real foods wherever possible. In general, it’s a safer practice—the Federal Trade Commission Act prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce,” so food photographers can’t go too far when staging their shots.

You can cheat in Photoshop, but it’s never the same.

If they’re taking pictures of a restaurant’s salads, for instance, they’re required to use the real salads that you’d get at the restaurant. However, that doesn’t stop them from getting creative to get the perfect photos.
For example…

1. That soup bowl isn’t what you’re picturing.

Ever notice how soup bowls seem to be brimming with vegetables and noodles? In real life, those veggies would quickly sink to the bottom of the bowl.

In order for food stylists to make it appear that toppings are “floating” on the top of a soup, they’ll often use another small dish turned upside down to create a platform. One soup manufacturer even used marbles, but that led to a costly lawsuit (since the marbles made the soup appear chunkier than it really was).

2. Those refreshing ice cubes might be fake.

Sure, the soda in that soft drink ad might seem tantalizing, but the ice might not be actual ice. The reason: Real ice would melt much too quickly under those bright studio lights for someone keen on getting just the right angle.
Instead, glossy, perfectly formed, and melt-free plastic cubes like these tend to take their place and continue to convince overheated patrons that all they need to cool down is a chilled glass, topped off with, well, ice.

However, seasoned photographers can also work with the real stuff.
“They do make fake ice cubes, but if you can work fast, real ice works just fine,” Hakim says. “In my world, generally we try to shoot the actual food, on location, fresh out of the oven or freezer. The actual shot then has to happen within 5 minutes.”

3. Likewise, those soda splashes might be fake.

It turns out it’s not just the ice in the drinks that’s misleading; the drinks themselves might have undergone some trickery as well.
You know those ultra-charming splashes that never look like the mess they’re pretty sure to turn into, but some hypnotizing water show? Well, there’s a reason they say if it’s too good to be true, it usually is.

For some ads, those big splashes are actually constructed with plastic. That would explain why it looks so perfect.
Not all photographers want to fake it, though. According to Hakim, it is possible to capture a real splash, but photographers need to use natural lighting and very fast cameras.
“I would use reflected sunlight, so I can shoot at a much faster shutter speed to capture the action,” Hakim says, “much like [with] sports photography.”

4. Those grill marks might look a little too perfect.

Good grill marks are essential for selling a steak. Of course, they’re not always real. Photographers sometimes draw grill marks with eyeliner, but it’s often easier to add the marks with a soldering iron or a charcoal starter.

Why not just cook the meat on a real grill? That seems like a much more reliable way to get good grill marks.
Well, there’s a problem with that…

5. If you see a cut of meat, it’s probably not cooked.

Technically, the meat from a photo shoot is edible, but you’d probably want to avoid it—unless you’re a fan of raw foods.

When meat is cooked, it shrinks slightly, and it can take on unpleasant textures in high-definition photos. Completely cooking the meat is, therefore, out of the question. Instead, the food stylists will craft the outside of the meat with a blowtorch.
“Just the top needs to be cooked, or slightly burnt or singed,” Hakim says. “Coarse spices help with realistic texture.”
This doesn’t necessarily apply to burgers, by the way. We’ll get to that in a minute.

6. To show texture, photographers get really inventive.

Texture plays a huge role in the culinary arts, so when a restaurant or food brand wants to sell a product, they need to represent textures perfectly—cereal manufacturers, for instance, need the milk surrounding their product to look creamy and delicious.

Dynamic lighting and reflecting is very important to capture gloss, texture, and depth.

There’s just one problem: Milk doesn’t really look thick and creamy in real life. To get around this, some food photographers use glue, according to a food stylist quoted by The Guardian.

To make the cereal pop out of the milk, photographers might fill the bottom of the bowl with shortening, then put a thin layer of real milk on top. Hakim says that, wherever possible, he tries to work with the real thing.
“[Elmer’s glue] seems unnecessary,” he says, “[but] dynamic lighting and reflecting is very important to capture gloss, texture, and depth.”
To give texture to savory foods, Hakim uses coarse spices and oil sprays. He’s also ready to improvise if a food doesn’t “pop” in the right way.
“A good photographer must be able to think fast and act fast to make adjustments for a great photo,” Hakim says.

7. Fast food burgers are on a whole different level.

There’s absolutely nothing better—or more misleading—than a hamburger ad from your favorite fast-food chain. Of course, the food in the ad is completely different from the burger you’d get at your local restaurant, right?

Actually, no. By law, McDonald’s has to use the same stuff it sells. However, the chain can pick out the best-looking burgers, perfect buns, and top-notch condiments from the ingredients their locations normally use.
Staging the burger can take hours, and since photographers only take pictures from one angle, stylists work exclusively on that side of the sandwich. In other words, if you see onions and tomatoes spilling out of a burger, the other side probably looks completely bare.

For smaller restaurants and food brands that don’t have the multi-million dollar McDonald’s budget, there’s no real secret to getting great photos of a big, delicious burger.
“Start with a big and delicious burger,” Hakim suggests. “Spray some vegetable oil on it to look more juicy. Good grill marks help…[but] be ready to shoot the subject very quickly. If you want to spend two days shooting a hamburger, everything [would] need to be fake.”

8. The pancakes are real, but the syrup…

If you think those delicious pancake photographs with the syrup dripping off the edges look too good to be true, you’re right! To learn two simple tricks to up your pancake photography game, watch the video below.

9. Those fresh berries aren’t so fresh, after all.

The easiest way to get a great photo of a bowl of fresh berries is, of course, to pick some. But that’s not always an option, particularly if the berries aren’t in season.

To bring out the color of the fruit, food stylists will rinse each berries in cold water with lemon juice. They might also add coloring, but they’ve got to be careful if the dish is appearing on a menu; while stylists can add lipstick or fingernail polish to get more of a pop, that’s considered false advertising if the berries are the primary focus of an ad.

10. That steam might not actually be steam. And it probably isn’t coming from the food.

Steam doesn’t stick around for too long, so during an extended photo session, photographers have to get creative. They’ll sometimes use sticks of incense to capture a steady stream of steam.
Hakim says that, in a pinch, a drizzle of boiling water can work just as well.

“You can also cheat in Photoshop,” he says, “but it’s never the same.”
According to Hakim, the best staging tricks are no match for a skilled photographer with plenty of experience.
“Use colorful composition where applicable,” he suggests. “…Make sure hot things are hot, cold things are cold, and be ready to shoot the subject very quickly.”

How much money do you spend on restaurants? Take-out? Fast food? (Excuse me, “quick service”?)

If you’re like most of us, the answer would be nearly half of your food spending. We devote just shy of forty-five percent of all of our food dollars to foods prepared outside of the home. That number has nearly doubled since 1970. In fact, some more recent surveys have found that in the past two years we may have actually crossed that line where food purchases of prepared foods officially exceeded those of groceries.

Restaurant meals may not be going out of vogue anytime soon in our overbooked, never-home-long-enough-to-catch-our-breaths lifestyles, but that presents quite a problem for the health-conscious consumer. A recent analysis posits that pretty much every single meal from large-chain and local restaurants (actual number: 92%) provide more calories than the average person needs. The average caloric content of these meals topped a whopping 1,205. Some contain even more calories than the average adult needs in an entire day. The worst offenders? American, Chinese, and Italian.

A lot of the issue with restaurant meals stems from sheer volume: the portions are consistently supersized. That’s why, though quick service chains get a significantly worse health rap, they tend not be quite as over-the-top when you sit down to analyze them nutritionally; portions are at times larger than recommended, but rarely as downright obscene as the ones you find in sit-down establishments. However, even moderately-portioned prepared foods have their woes. Chefs are heavy-handed with their use of butter, salt, oil, and sweeteners, packing quite the punch into even smaller-portioned meals.

So what are you to do if you’re looking to nourish your body without being a slave to your kitchen 365 days a year?

I’ve got you covered.

First, decide if it is a truly special occasion.

It’s clearly inadvisable to ever consume a day’s worth of calories in one sitting, but doing it once every blue moon is not a big concern. Doing it regularly, of course, has its share of consequences.

To determine whether or not the meal in question is truly special, ask yourself a few questions:

Why are you at the restaurant? Is it your daughter’s wedding? Your fifth (or fiftieth!) anniversary? Or is it just the fifth time you’ve decided not to cook this month? The less often you go out to eat, the more unique the situation is, and the less of an impact it will have on your overall health.

How special is this restaurant to you? How much do you look forward to the food they serve? When was the last time you were there? Let’s face it: there are restaurants we find moderately enjoyable but choose more for convenience; there are those we suffer through because it makes our family members happy; and then there are the ones we wait all year to frequent.

Can you get this same food elsewhere, or is it unique to the establishment? Is it burgers and generic pizza? Chicken parm? Beef and broccoli? A lot of restaurants have nearly identical menus to others serving similar cuisines. Now, quality may differ; you may prefer one establishment’s generic pizza over another; but really ask yourself if this is a unique experience.

I never advocate for choosing foods you actively dislike for the sake of nutrition, but if this isn’t a truly special occasion, you may want to factor health into your meal selection more carefully.

Next, be prepared.

Whenever possible, do a little recon work before you head out. Most venues these days have their menu online. Your preferences the moment you sit down may change based on specials, other foods in your diet lately, or even the weather; but knowing your options ahead of time helps you formulate a game plan. We’ll get to how to read a menu for key words in just a second, so hang on to that.

Larger establishments even have nutrition information available online. I don’t live and die by calorie counts, but we are far too blasé about what we put into our bodies these days. You can ultimately make whatever decision you want, but don’t do it with your head buried in the sand. Does your favorite appetizer provide over a thousand calories? Is that pasta dish able to feed a family of four comfortably? Does one salad dressing have half the sodium of another? Do any of the dishes have trans fats? Some places also include ingredient information, which can give you an added layer of knowledge.

Additionally, if you have very strict or unique dietary concerns, call ahead for accommodations. Towards the end of his life, for example, my grandfather had a very low salt restriction and had trouble at most restaurants; however, one steak house was willing to set aside unsalted foods during their prep if my grandmother called early enough in the day. Other reasons to call ahead include food allergies, food intolerances, and religious or ethical preferences. Knowing that your unique concerns have already been addressed can lower the pressure felt during the dining experience and improve the nutritional quality of your meal.

Set yourself up for success that day.

Skipping meals often backfires, but it’s not unwise to pay extra-attention to how nutritious your other meals are. Focus particularly on balancing the high sodium restaurant meal with plenty of water and potassium (think fruits, veggies, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and yogurt), and limiting how much salt you take in.

Do your best to plan your other meals and snacks so that you’re sufficiently hungry but not ravenous for the restaurant. Hunger is a good thing; it means your body is ready for food and you will enjoy the experience more. Pushing it too far, however, makes you more likely to devour that bread basket in record time. Really late dinner reservations, for example, may call for an extra snack in the late afternoon; while really early lunch dates might warrant a lighter, smaller breakfast.

Next, reaffirm your goals. If you’ve decided already that the occasion is not truly special, and you’d prefer to stick to your wellness goals that meal, remind yourself of this and why that’s important to you. You could even confide your goals for the meal in someone going out to eat with you, but make sure they are supportive and trustworthy. You’re looking for encouragement without nagging.

Lastly, keep yourself calm to reduce the likelihood of stress-ordering. Get your aggression out earlier in the day with some good, old fashioned exercise; do a mind-body scan before you leave the house to check in with yourself mentally and physically; or do some deep breathing before getting out of your car. All of these things re-ground you and help you approach the meal with a deeper understanding of what may influence your ordering decisions.

Finally, you’re at the restaurant, and it’s time to decide what you’d like to eat.

Before you open up that menu, however, pause. If you could have anything in the world right then and there, what would you choose? How would it be prepared? What would make you feel best emotionally and physically? Once you have your vision, peruse the menu to see if anything they offer is similar, or if they honor special requests. The only caveat to this is that on an incredibly busy night, it might not be the best time to get too creative.

When reading the menu, remind yourself whether you’re trying to stick to a mostly healthy meal or if you’re relaxing your priorities a little this time. If health is a consideration, then note that generally, words like steamed, baked, roasted, and poached signify lighter options; words like crispy, smothered, fried, creamy, or breaded often coincide with higher caloric density.

Consider, too, how hungry you are. Maybe ordering a few sides or an appetizer as an entrée is enough, or maybe not. This requires you additionally to prioritize calories. Calories are units of energy, and if we consistently take in more than our bodies can burn, we will start storing that unused energy and our body weight will steadily rise. One large meal won’t have much impact beyond some acute sodium and fluid retention, but do it too often, and it will. So, decide what’s worth it to you and what isn’t. Do you definitely want dessert? Is alcohol important to you? Choose accordingly.

Lastly, consider any specials that the waiter reviews with you and decide if they change your mind.

Place your order like a pro.

Don’t be afraid to ask for substitutions. The worst they can do is say no (or maybe give you a funny look). This could mean asking for double veggies, swapping grilled chicken or salmon in for crispy chicken on your salad or sandwich, or asking for baked potatoes instead of fries. It could mean asking if a pasta dish that appeals to you can be made with marinara instead of cream sauce. It could mean ordering dressings, toppings (like butter), and sauces on the side; or requesting that unwanted garnishes, like powdered sugar on waffles, be left off altogether. This allows you to be in charge of what and how much you eat.

If you don’t want to be tempted to eat something that you know you’ll munch on if it’s there, make sure it doesn’t come on your plate. This extends beyond those small garnishes to things like fries or chips that come alongside a sandwich or a lackluster bread basket that comes with the table. Again, if you’ve decided that the chips, fries, or bread are where you want to prioritize your calories because you think they are the bees knees, cool! But mindless munching because they’re staring at you is not the same as savoring a special food.

Oh, and a word on drinks: in general, the recommendation would be to stick to water. Other solid options include unflavored seltzer with lemon or lime slices added, or unsweetened iced tea. Of course, if a cocktail or soda is part of your vision for enjoying the special occasion, then I certainly won’t argue against it, but see if you can nurse (“savor”) that one serving the whole meal.

Set your intentions while you wait for your food to arrive.

While you wait for your order, make a conscious decision about munching. This means those chips or bread left on the table, which often fill you up before your meal even arrives. If you love a restaurant’s bread basket (some of them are really top notch), consider cutting back on a carb elsewhere in the meal for balance. If the bread is pretty generic, though, consider skipping it. I can get warm dinner rolls pretty much anywhere I go, so I personally tend to forego the pre-meal munching altogether (save for a few special places). You may choose differently.

This is also when you want to decide how full you want to feel at the end of the meal. This sets an intention and gives you a reference point moving forward. On more special occasions, you may choose to sometimes eat beyond the point of satisfaction; but most of the time, nutrition experts recommend stopping at around a five on a 10-point hunger scale. That’s actually not very full at all! You may even get an urge at this point to continue eating, but usually this passes if we sit peacefully with it for a few minutes.

When your meal arrives, request that a to-go container be brought out simultaneously. Portion out the food you want to save for later. It’s easy to say that you only want to eat a small portion of a meal at the start, but it can be hard to stop mid-way through. Pack it up immediately instead; remember, you can always choose to go back for more if you change your mind.

Now, it’s time to eat!

But wait! First, take a few deep, grounding breaths. This is not a race, but rather something to be enjoyed. Who wants to get carried away by excitement and realize that they have devoured their portion without hardly even noticing it? Start the meal off mindfully, paying attention to the sight, aroma, flavor, and texture of it all. Take small bites, chew slowly, and put your fork down between bites. (If you are getting the next forkful ready while you’re still chewing on something else, you’re not focusing on the food currently in your mouth.)

Pause for sips of water and to enjoy the conversation. It takes time for your brain to catch up with how full your stomach is feeling, so give it a chance to register all you’re eating. This also takes the focus away from the food and shifts it to the whole experience.

Check in periodically with yourself to see how you are feeling, too. Compare this to how full you wanted to be at the end, and decide how much more you would like to eat.

Notice how your appetite and appreciation of the food changes over time. Taste buds become desensitized to flavors with repeated exposure, but when we eat very quickly, we get stuck on the memory of the first few bites rather than the reality of how it tastes towards the end. Instead, slow down and you may notice your interest waning as you continue to eat more and more. This is your body telling you that it has had enough, and you may find yourself satisfied if you stop before your plate is empty.

Bring the meal to an end.

No matter what happens, view it as a learning experience. There is no room for guilt or even disappointment!

If you ate so much that you now feel uncomfortably full, or you know you made less nutritious choices than you had intended, figure out what obstacles stood in your way and how you can work around them next time.

If you were a bit overcautious and wound up not eating enough, leaving you munchy or downright hungry later on in the day, make a mental note of what you ate and how much so you can adjust up next time. Maybe you were missing a major nutrient, like carbs, protein, or fats; or maybe the meal just didn’t have enough calories or fiber in it.

And of course, if you accomplished your goal, pat yourself on the back! You can think back to this small victory in the future if you ever feel discouraged about your progress or your capabilities.

Remember, your next opportunity to nourish yourself and listen to your body is just one meal or snack away.

No one meal will ever break you. It will never turn you into a failure. A meal is just another part of life; sometimes it will be nutrient-dense, and sometimes, not so much. The important thing is to decide which you want it to be, weighing the pros and cons, so that you can feel confident that whatever choice you make is the right one for you in that moment. If you do that, you will never feel regret and will be taking your practice of self-care to a whole new level.

Bon Appetit!

We walk into the supermarket with the best of intentions. We’re brought face to face immediately with vibrant fruits and vegetables, and we cart our treasures home to arrange attractively on the counter or to fill up our refrigerator crisper drawers.
And then a week or two later, after we’ve forgotten about them or gotten busy, they start to look a bit, well, sad. Wrinkly. Limp. Moldy, even. We shrug or make a face of disgust, toss them absentmindedly into the garbage, and wash our hands of the whole situation.
Next week, will we do it all over again?

Food waste affects more than just your wallets.

The number 40% has been thrown around a lot these days by environmentalists and foodies alike. It’s the estimated amount of U.S. food that goes to waste. This waste can happen in restaurants, at supermarkets, and all the way back at the farms. It’s a complex issue with a plethora of consequences.
We talk about the urgency of finding a way to feed the world’s growing population, investing millions in biotechnology and other controversial endeavors because we “just aren’t growing enough.” But what if we could make better use of what we already do grow? It may not independently end world hunger, but shifting the way we approach food versus waste could be part of the solution.
When we waste food, we also waste water, an increasingly grave concern. We devote so much water to grow crops that are then discarded in the field, trashed in a processing facility, sent back to the kitchen by restaurant-goers, or left to rot in our homes. The 1.3 billion tons of food wasted annually translates to about 45 trillion gallons of wasted water.
Food waste in landfills presents a third problem: rotting food significantly contributes to atmospheric methane, damaging the Ozone and hastening climate change. Pretty big flipping deal.
Of course, financial considerations of food waste are serious, too. Instead of complaining about how much healthy food costs (side note: it doesn’t really), why not identify areas where you could save a little money? One option is simply finding ways to use more of what you already buy.
Read on for some of the ways to turn what we view as food “trash” into food treasures.

Food In Jars and Containers

Aquafaba: It sounds fancy, but it’s nothing more than that goopy liquid in a can of beans that you generally wash down the drain. This water contains some of the nutrients, including starch, from the beans, allowing it to take on some interesting properties. Aquafaba is famous for its capabilities as a vegan whipped topping alternative, as it forms stiff peaks like whipped cream when beaten, but that’s only the tip of the recipe iceberg.
Other condiment brines: The oil left in a jar of sundried tomatoes could be used as a cooking oil or incorporated into a dressing; and a few tablespoons of pickled jalapeno brine can add a pop of mild heat to a stir fry or rice dish. To balance the sodium found in many of these condiments, add less to the rest of the recipe and be mindful how much you use.
Almost empty nut (or seed) butter containers: They’re the perfect size for a single serving of overnight oats! If the jar is glass, you can even pop it in the microwave to warm up the next morning, softening the nut butter and making it even easier to get every last bit! Once I’m done with my overnight oats, I wash out the glass jars well to re-use, allowing me to all-but phase out my plastic storage containers.
Tomato paste: Many recipes only call for a tablespoon or two, and that half-used container is likely to sprout mold before you get around to finishing it. Instead, spoon the leftover paste into ice cube trays and freeze. Each cube is about two tablespoons, which will be quick to thaw when you ne

Past-Their-Prime Fresh Foods

Stale bread: I usually keep my bread in the freezer, but if you’ve left bread out on the counter a bit too long, it doesn’t have to be tossed automatically. As long as it’s not moldy, there are a dozen ways to put it to good use.  Try a healthy twist on bread pudding, croutons, or even bread crumbs (unused bread butts are particularly great for this)! And if you’re wondering if this same idea applies to other stale, bread-like products (such as bagels, cereal, and starchy snacks), the answer is a resounding yes.
Limp vegetables: Fruits and vegetables are made up primarily of water, but over time, they start to lose that moisture content. Crisper drawers and proper storage strategies help slow this process down, but if you find yourself with limp or wilty vegetables, have no fear! Celery and carrots perk up when soaked in cold water, while asparagus prefers a warm bath (but only submerge the ends, not the tips). Slightly wilted greens are great for soups, casseroles, and pesto.
Over-ripe or bruised fruit: Just because an apple has a bruise on it or a banana is browner than you prefer for general snacking doesn’t mean it’s time for the trash! Bruises are easy enough to cut around (or, honestly, just eat), but it is important to use bruised fruit quickly, as structural damage can make bacteria and spoilage more likely. If you’d prefer, use them for baking or making apple and fruit sauces. Bananas past their prime are excellent candidates for the freezer, and make creamy additions to smoothies, baked goods, and “nice” creams.

Skins, Peels, Zest, and Rinds

We tend not to eat the outsides of many foods, especially fruits and vegetables, but with a little creativity there is a lot that we can do with them!
Watermelon rinds: These can be pickled, candied, juiced, or incorporated into any number of food or drink recipes, including vinaigrettes, salads, pies, and slushies!
Cheese rinds: Any Italian chef will tell you they make famously good additions to soups and stews, imparting a salty flavor to the broth. You can also add them while cooking grains or beans and, as long as the rind does not have a waxy coating, you can even grill it to use as a topping for bread.
Citrus zest: Never let the peel go to waste, as it imparts an incredibly fresh flavor to dishes of all kinds. Try adding it to your oatmeal, yogurt, dinner grains, marinades, and salad dressings! You can also use citrus zest for candying, drying for tea, infusing liquor, and with fireplace kindling.
Apple peels: You can avoid waste altogether by using them even if a recipe tells you not to; usually if you grate the apple as opposed to chopped or slicing, it comes out just fine. If that’s not your style, consider making some apple peel tea, DIY cleaner, or jelly. (That last one uses the apple peel and core, by the way!)
Potato peels: These can also often be left on in recipes: try a heartier “smashed” potato over a super-creamy mash, for example. There’s also nothing quite like a potato skin that’s been allowed to crisp up in the oven and drizzled with just a touch of oil and salt. Potatoes, as it turns out, are one of the most wasted foods, and it’s a shame, as there are so many options for using them!

Cores, Bones, Stalks, and Stems

Corn cobs: If you’re able to throw yours outside, the wildlife will love you. This does keep them out of landfills and help with biodegradation, but we can do better than just that. They are also used for soup stocks, jelly, and as fire starters!
Bones: Stop spending an arm and a leg on cartons of bone broth that someone else made for you, while you throw away the very basic ingredients you need to make some yourself! (As an aside, the slow cooker is great for this! Add a splash of vinegar to help pull the collagen into the broth.)
Broccoli stalks: I never throw these in the trash. Instead, I peel away the extra-tough outer layer, trim off the very end that gets a bit dried out, and slice the rest to roast or steam with the florets! You’ll get pretty much the same nutrition, plus an extra serving that you already paid for at the store!
Asparagus ends: These guys are too woody to enjoy on their own, but if you simmer them in stock or broth until tender and then blitz in a high-powered blender, you can make a great asparagus soup! I prefer to strain mine before serving, as even with a Vitamix it can wind up a touch pulpy.
Chard stems: This tougher end of the leafy green is great for sautéing, but be sure to add to the pan at least five minutes before the leaves, as they’ll take longer to tenderize. I generally add them along with any other hardy vegetable the recipe calls for, like onion or Brussels sprouts.

Leafy Greens

We tend to think of our greens as isolated vegetables sold in convenient clamshells or bags at the store; yet so many of the other veggies we buy naturally grow with their own set of greens attached, too! Many of these greens are perfectly edible but may be a bit gritty or sandy, so take care to wash them extra-well. I’ll usually put them in a salad spinner and fill with water, soaking and changing the water at least once. The strainer basket in the spinner makes it easy to change and drain the water, and the spinning function helps them get particularly dry.
Beet leaves: These leafy greens are excellent sautéed or steamed, as are their stems; but remember, as with the chard above, the stems will take longer to soften and should be started first. Add the greens to wilt.
Cauliflower leaves:  Try roasting them!
Carrot tops: No, they’re not poisonous, and in fact can be turned into a variety of dishes, including pesto, salads, and chimichurri. (And no, they’re not poisonous!)
Fresh herbs: Recipes rarely if ever call for an entire bunch, but don’t let that stop you. Wash, dry, and chop up the leftovers before they go to waste. I freeze them in little baggies just like that, but other recipes will tell you to blend them with oil and freeze in ice cube trays.
An added benefit of buying these vegetables with their greens still attached is that you’ll often find them without any packaging. This isn’t the case with cauliflower, which always comes with its greens attached and is often wrapped in plastic; but it’s certainly true for beets and carrots. Less packaging means even less waste in our landfills and waterways!

A Change in Perspective

Beginning to adopt a mindset of reducing food waste requires a shift in the way we think about and prepare food.
Change how you shop: So much of our produce is thrown away because consumers falsely equate minor blemishes or irregular shapes with inferior quality. It’s also important to not jump to toss slightly wilted or lackluster produce. Make sure, as well, that you meal plan and work to reduce how much you buy that you can’t use or don’t really need. Keep shopping lists so that you don’t double up on ingredients you already have.
Change how you cook: Planning a “leftovers” night at the end of the week of stir fries, soups and stews, pasta, and “tapas” style meals are all great options for using up a random assortment of fresh ingredients that aren’t going to last much longer. You can also get in the habit of cooking plainer, versatile ingredients, which can be reused throughout the week without feeling stale or boring. For example, cooking up some plain chicken and rice at the beginning of the week could become an Asian stir-fry one night, a Mexican burrito bowl another, and an Italian casserole a third.
Change how you serve: Focus on small servings, since you can always go back for more but can’t easily reuse half-eaten food left on someone’s plate. You can also portion meals into freezer containers immediately after cooking and cooling, so leftovers don’t get shoved to the back of the fridge and forgotten. Lastly, drinking straight from multi-serving cartons and dipping multiple times into condiments, ice cream, and peanut butter promote bacterial growth and will hasten the spoilage of the food.

Become A Trash-Versus-Treasure Expert

Learn the terminology: Familiarize yourself with the nuances of package dates, as most refer to general product quality and have nothing to do with safety concerns. If you’re worried about the flavor or freshness deterioration, know that the dates are ultra-conservative to protect companies from dissatisfied customers; I bet you won’t be able to tell a difference. The one exception is the sell or freeze-by date on meats, which should be adhered to pretty strictly and does refer to product safety. If you aren’t sure, check out the Still Tasty database.
Identify foods that are unsafe to eat: Spoiled foods will typically smell rancid and they will certainly taste off. And when it comes to mold, you’ll definitely want to seriously consider whether the product is still usable. The more moisture is in the food, the more dangerous it is to eat. With harder products like potatoes, carrots, and hard cheeses, you can cut widely around the mold areas and still use the rest of the product. Sometimes you can also pick off a moldy berry, and perhaps the few that surround it to be extra-safe, and still be fine; but don’t buy food that’s already visibly moldy in the store and don’t mess with liquid or softer products that have grown mold.
Compost what you can’t or won’t use: Lastly, seriously think about how you dispose of the perishables that you can’t salvage. Composting is a sustainable option available in both rural and urban areas, thanks to new innovations and a little creativity. The biggest things to avoid composting are oils (or grease in general) and animal products, including both meat and dairy.
It might take a little practice, but remember this if it ever feels overwhelming: it doesn’t matter how big or small you start; just try something. Choose one product or practice to tackle and get familiar with it. Once you realize how manageable it is, you’ll be hooked!

When you hear the words “baby food,” what comes to mind is probably something along the lines of a small glass jar of pureed sweet potatoes or carrots purchased from a grocery store shelf. Or, maybe you’re thinking of a slice of toast with the crusts cut off.

You almost certainly aren’t envisioning a quarter of an avocado, a scoop of sauerkraut, eggs fried in coconut oil, and a small serving of steamed vegetables…but that’s exactly the sort of breakfast that Brisbane, Australia, mother Shan Cooper serves her infant daughter on an average morning.

Eating Like a Caveman

Grace, Shan Cooper’s daughter, has eaten according to the paleo diet since birth. The controversial diet, originally created in the 1970s, but more recently popularized in Australia by celebrity chef Pete Evans, centers around eating the sorts of foods that “cavemen could scavenge for,” as Cooper tells the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail.

The idea behind the diet is that human genetics haven’t yet caught up to the changes in our diet caused by agriculture and industry. So, according to Evans’ logic, humans should eschew the foods that have come about as the result of these technological advances.

Foods to avoid include those such as cereal grains, dairy, refined sugars, legumes, refined vegetable oils, and salt—basically anything that couldn’t have been hunted or scavenged by our ancient ancestors. Instead, Evans’ diet tells us, we should consume only foods that were available during the Paleolithic era (the prehistoric era of history which lasted from the first use of stone tools by humans roughly 2.6 million years ago, until the dawn of the Mesolithic Era, about 12,000 years ago). This includes foods such as grass-fed meats, fish and other seafood, fruits and vegetables, eggs, nuts and seeds, and a small set of non-refined oils like olive and coconut oil.

Proponents of the diet claim that it presents a slew of advantages to those who follow it, including weight loss, reduced the risk of disease, increased energy levels, reduced sensitivity to allergies, and and even improved brain functioning, among a variety of other boons.

Critics of the diet point to factors including increased grocery bills, negative effects on energy resulting from lack of grains and dairy, and the diet’s lack of protein sources for vegetarians. Cooper has decided to press on.

A Day in the Life of a Baby Caveman

Considering the fact that an infant’s teeth can’t exactly handle a regular diet of raw vegetables and steak, you may be wondering to yourself, you may be wondering exactly what Grace does eat. So what does the paleo lifestyle look like for a 13-month-old child?

Cooper says that when it comes to feeding Grace, she does deviate from the usual paleo diet restrictions in one small, but enormously important way: She violates the restrictive diet’s strict prohibition on dairy consumption by breastfeeding Grace twice daily. Aside from breastmilk, Cooper gave the Daily Mail an example of what Grace’s meals might consist of on an average day.

Cooper says that breakfast usually starts with a couple of eggs cooked in coconut oil (generally fried, scrambled, or poached). Alongside the eggs, Cooper serves Grace leftover vegetables from the previous evening’s dinner—this might include roasted sweet potatoes, carrots, potatoes, and steamed broccoli. On Thursdays, Cooper supplements the eggs and roasted vegetables with a small scoop of sauerkraut and quarter of an avocado.

For lunch, Cooper says she feeds Grace organic roasted chicken, and more leftover vegetables from the previous night’s dinner.

When it comes to the daily afternoon snack, Cooper feeds Grace a small serving of fresh fruit. While she says she aims for variety, Cooper admits that Grace’s favorites are strawberries and bananas.

For dinner, Cooper says she feeds Grace spaghetti Bolognese prepared with organic beef. Zucchini noodles take the place of traditional grain pasta noodles, and the tomato sauce is all organic.

In case you were wondering about dessert, Cooper says that Grace generally doesn’t eat dessert, though Cooper did make her a strawberry panna cotta with coconut cream for her first birthday.

Staying Healthy

Cooper, who has a degree in agricultural science, has written an e-book of healthy recipes—in addition to maintaining her popular healthy-eating website, “My Food Religion.” She claims that the diet she serves her daughter has strengthened Grace’s immune system and prevented her from getting sick as frequently as other children whose parents feed them a more conventional diet. According to Cooper, Grace has only been sick once in her life, and that even then, it was a minor cold that passed quickly.

In an interview with Daily Mail Australia, Cooper is quoted as saying of Grace, “She spends a lot of time around other kids who are sick all the time—who have snotty noses, coughs, colds—but she just doesn’t pick it up.”

She continues, “It’s certainly not because I’m shielding her from any of that stuff. I absolutely think a nutrient-dense diet is giving her a strong immune system.”

Cooper, while she’s always been health-conscious, didn’t adopt the paleo diet herself until around five years ago, when she read a book on the subject. She had been suffered ongoing problems with food allergies for years and, as a result, had already imposed many of the paleo diet’s primary restrictions on her diet, including avoidance of dairy, gluten, and eventually all processed foods.

“I just got sick of not feeling great,” Cooper says of her decision to go paleo. “That had been my normal and (I decided) that wasn’t going to be normal anymore.”

When Grace was born a few years later, Cooper felt that it only made sense to not only continue to eat according to the paleo diet, but also to extend her paleo lifestyle to her newly born child.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

While more than the first year of Grace’s dietary life has been spent either breastfeeding exclusively or abiding by the strict meal plan her mother has set up for her, the prospect of friends’ birthday parties filled with cakes, candy, and sugared-up soft drinks looms just over the horizon for the Coopers. In spite of the fact that preparing the diet she feeds both herself and her young daughter takes a ton of time and effort, Cooper says that she’s not too worried about the inevitable day when Grace is exposed to non-paleo foods.

Questioned on the subject, Cooper says, “I’m not going to not let her go to kids’ parties,” according to Daily Mail Australia. “I’m never going to go to Grace, ‘You can’t eat anything at this party—but I packed you some Kale. Here you go.’”

All jokes aside, Cooper seems surprisingly laid-back about Grace’s diet in the future, considering the tightly regimented meal plan by which the two currently abide at home.

“(What she eats now) is not anything strange, that normal people wouldn’t eat. She loves it,” Cooper tells Daily Mail Australia. “I don’t feed her toast or cereal or anything like that. Again I think, ‘Sure that stuff is not going to kill her.’”

Cooper says that by the time Grace is old enough to go to parties, “She’ll be old enough to know she can choose whatever she wants to eat,” continuing, “She’ll probably come home all jacked up on sugar and cake and say, ‘Mum I don’t feel very well.’” Cooper continues, “And next time instead of eating 12 cupcakes she might only eat three.”

A Philosophy of Food

Cooper has her own distinct way of thinking about how humans learn to interact with food. Her reasoning is that kids are purely intuitive eaters, eating the things that make them feel good physically and avoiding the things that don’t, since they haven’t yet had the opportunity to develop emotional associations attached to food. Cooper also believes that humans begin to eat more emotionally as they reach adulthood, consuming foods that make them feel a certain way emotionally, rather than physically.

When you consider ubiquitous childhood experiences like receiving a lollipop as a reward for a doctor visit or being rewarded with ice cream for good grades, the idea does begin to make some sense. Cooper says she hopes to teach her children what foods to eat to make themselves feel good by both providing a positive example and setting up positive habits early on.

Despite how strict the diet Cooper curates for herself and her daughter seems, she says that there is a certain level of flexibility. Cooper says, “I don’t think eating a piece of bread is going to kill me. When I go out to dinner with friends…I’m just going to eat what’s on the menu. I’m not going to be a jerk about it.”

Cooper also tells Daily Mail Australia, “I don’t want there to be any disordered eating around here,” continuing, “Females particularly have enough problems with eating disorders. I want Grace to eat what makes her feel good.”

When it comes to Grace’s dietary development Cooper says that, with the dietary foundation she’s provided, Grace will “also learn what makes her feel good and what doesn’t.”

“That’s the reason I eat this way,” she says.

What the Experts Say

While Cooper’s confident that her dietary decisions are the right choice for Grace, at least one dietician has some reservations about her feeding Grace according to the paleo diet.

Dr. Rosemary Stanton, a respected dietician says that she would offer a word of caution to other parents considering following Cooper’s lead, telling Daily Mail Australia, “It’s really not usually a good idea to put a child on such a restricted diet, particularly when there’s no grounds for it.”

Stanton goes on to say that she hopes Cooper “knows an awful lot about nutrition.”

Stanton says her greatest concern about Grace’s nutrition centers around two specific types of foods not included in the paleo diet: “Depriving her child of grains and legumes will make it much more difficult to achieve a balanced diet.”

Dr. Stanton does approve of Cooper’s choice to breastfeed her child despite the dairy restrictions of the paleo diet, saying that it “helps a lot.” Cooper also says that she may introduce other dairy into Grace’s diet further down the line.

While Stanton doesn’t outright denounce the dietary choices Cooper is making for Grace, she does have a few words for other parents thinking about doing the same for their your children, saying, “I’d certainly sound a note of caution [to other people considering following her].” Stanton emphasizes that parents looking to feed their children according to a diet as restrictive as the paleo diet should first consult with an accredited dietician.

In response to such criticism, Cooper reacts with a mixture of indignation and confusion. “(Why) eating real food is such a scandalous topic is just bizarre,” she says, questioning why those who feed their children fast food aren’t subject to the same criticism.

“If you want to feed your kid one of the most nutrient-void pieces of crap ever, knock your socks off.”

Another Controversy in Child Nutrition

While Shan and Grace Cooper provide an interesting example of tension between different ideologies when it comes to parents’ responsibilities regarding child nutrition, they’re far from the only difference of opinion about making sure that kids are getting all the nutrients they need for healthy development.

Back in the U.S., controversy about kids’ nutrition has even involved high-profile figures such as First Lady Michelle Obama. In 2012, in a move championed by the first lady, the USDA rolled out new requirements for school lunches which required students taking part in the federal lunch program to choose either a vegetable or a fruit alongside the rest of their meal.

Critics of the program anticipated that those students with pickier eating habits would just throw away the fruits and vegetables, contributing to greater waste. Supporters of the program, on the other hand had greater confidence in children, saying that opponents should give the kids more credit and that they believed children would make good dietary choices when presented with the opportunity and a gentle push in the right direction.

Unfortunately for the program’s supporters, a study completed and published by Public Health Reports in 2015 confirms the fears of the plan’s detractors. According to Sarah Amin, the study’s lead author, “The basic question we wanted to explore was: does requiring a child to select a fruit or vegetable actually correspond with consumption. The answer was clearly no.”

In fact, while children took nearly 30 percent more fruits and vegetables than before the program’s implementation, consumption of those same items actually went down by 13 percent. Perhaps even more worrisome was the fact that students were throwing away 56 percent more food than before.

A Problem With Unclear Answers

According to most studies on the subject, the prevalence of childhood obesity as measured by body mass index (BMI) has been steadily rising since 1999. The World Health Organization says that a minimum of 41 million children throughout the world are currently obese or overweight, approximately 10 million more than a quarter-century ago.

Experts also emphasize that there are numerous negative consequences of childhood obesity. In a recent statement, Sania Nishtar, co-chair of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity says, “Overweight and obesity impact a child’s quality of life, as they face a wide range of barriers, including physical, psychological, and health consequences,” going on, “We know that obesity can [have an] impact on educational attainment too and this, combined with the likelihood that they will remain obese into adulthood, poses major health and economic consequences for them, their families, and society as a whole.

There is some cause for optimism, though. While childhood obesity rates both in the United States and around the world continue to grow, some progress has been made on the small scale. According to one report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, some U.S. states and cities are displaying declines in overall childhood obesity rates. The study specifically cites the cities of New York and Philadelphia, along with the states of Mississippi and California as leaders in the downward trend.

The study also illustrated, however, that there are still significant disparities between racial and socioeconomic groups when it comes to progress on childhood obesity.

Chili and chocolate. Maple and bacon. These are just a few examples of incredible food combinations that you might not expect to work well together. However, while you can often combine two foods together for an unexpectedly great result, the same isn’t usually true of many different food and drug combinations.
Most people are aware that there are some things you shouldn’t mix, usually because the warning is usually right on the medication label, but there are a few terrible combinations out there that aren’t well-known.
Additionally, what many people don’t know is that you don’t have to be taking a prescription medication for it to interact badly with another substance, even another medication. Over-the-counter drugs can be just as likely to cause negative interactions with certain foods as prescription drugs and, in some cases, the effects of either type of interaction can actually be fatal.

According to Jack Fincham, a professor at the Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy in Clinton, South Carolina, “This is a big issue and a lot of people aren’t aware of it.”
Because so many of these combinations aren’t well known, it’s important to speak with your doctor about any potential interactions a new medication might have with any other substances, whether it’s the smoothie you plan on drinking for breakfast or the migraine pill you take before bed.
In some cases, it could just be that a certain combination makes your medicine less effective, while other mixes could actually be causing you harm.
Fortunately, the solution could be as simple as a quick change to your diet—well, simple depending on what it is that you’re going to have to cut out. Here’s what you need to know before taking that next pill.

1. Cough Syrup and Limes

Most people have heard that grapefruit can cause a variety of unwanted reactions when taken with certain medications, but did you know that’s true for many different citrus fruits? Thankfully, the standard naval or Valencia orange aren’t typically culprits, but another common citrus fruit is—the lime.
Along with Seville oranges and pomelos, limes can react with certain cough medicines by blocking the production of a particular enzyme that breaks down dextromethorphan, a common cough suppressant. This causes the medication to build up within the bloodstream, which can then increase your risk of certain side effects from that medication, according to Mary Ellen Gullickson, a Marshfield Clinic pharmacist in Wisconsin.

For dextromethorphan in particular, these side effects can include drowsiness and hallucinations. If you eat limes while taking this type of medication, any of the gnarly side effects you experience could last for at least a day, so it’s best to just avoid the combination altogether.

2. Black Licorice and Heart Medications

Thankfully, there aren’t a lot of people out there who actually enjoy black licorice, but those who do need to be careful if they take certain medications. Digoxin is a medication that is typically given to patients with heart failure and issues with heart rhythm.

Black licorice contains a compound called glycyrrhizin which, when combined with digoxin, can lead to an irregular heartbeat—consume enough of the compound and the effects could even be fatal. In addition, the compound can make other medications less effective, including certain types of birth control, pain relievers, and blood-pressure medications.
Artificially flavored black licorice candy won’t have any effect, however, so a digoxin user is free to consume this to their heart’s content.

3. Caffeine and Bronchodilators

Bronchodilators, more commonly known as inhalers, are devices that are used to treat a number of different conditions, including asthma and chronic bronchitis. The medication they contain is used to relax the person’s airways during an asthma attack so they can breathe without any obstructions.

It should be a no-brainer, but something used to relax your body mixed with something used to energize your body isn’t the best idea. For those that use inhalers for whatever reason, it’s best to avoid caffeine as much as possible, but especially after you’ve taken your medication.

4. Dairy and Antibiotics

When taken with dairy products, certain antibiotics can bind to things like iron and calcium in the dairy and prevent the medicine from being properly absorbed by the body. If the antibiotics you’re taking aren’t fully making their way into your system, they’re not going to be as effective when it comes to fighting an infection and it won’t go away as quickly.

Two specific classes of antibiotics, tetracyclines and fluoroquinolones, are most well-known for interacting with dairy, so it’s important to avoid things like milk, yogurt, and cheese two hours before and after you take your medication. Supplements that contain calcium and iron can also have the same effect, so be aware of when you take those, too.

5. Soy and Thyroid Medications

Soy doesn’t necessarily interact with thyroid medication itself, but instead interacts with the actual thyroid gland. Compounds contained within soy can have a wide variety of effects on the thyroid gland, causing it to function either too much or too little, though the exact reason why this happens isn’t well understood at this point.

Soy is also considered to be a goitrogen, which means that it can enlarge your thyroid gland to the point that it’s considered a goiter. For people taking thyroid medications, eating too much soy can affect how your body absorbs those medications, even rendering them useless.

6. Smoked Meat and Antidepressants

This one might sound a little strange, but a certain amino acid often found in smoked foods can interact with a specific class of antidepressants called monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), which includes medications like Nardil, Emsam, and Parnate. Smoked foods contain tyramine, an amino acid that can interact with these medications and cause an increase in blood pressure that can sometimes be life threatening.

Foods that are out? Smoked salmon, summer sausage, aged or smoked cheese, and soy sauce, among others. Fortunately, many newer antidepressants aren’t really affected by tyramine according to Nicole Gattas, and assistant professor at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy just be sure to ask your doctor about your specific medication.

7. Chocolate and Ritalin

Chocolate not only contains caffeine, but it also contains another stimulant called theobromine. For those who take ritalin for conditions like attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), combing a stimulant medication with a food that contains two other known stimulants can easily lead to serious side effects, including extremely erratic behaviors and even seizures.

The good news when it comes to coffee and chocolate for those who take ritalin is that you can still have it you may just have to have to test yourself to find out how much you can handle before you start to feel shaky, irritable, or nervous. Every person is different, though, so tread lightly at first.

Apple Juice and Allergy Medication

If allergies have you running for your bottle of Allegra, you’ll need to avoid apple juice for about four hours afterwards, according to Gullickson. Why? When you take this type of medication, your body produces a peptide that helps transport the medication into your bloodstream.

Apple juice, however, will prevent this peptide from being produced and prevent the medication from having an effect. In fact, it can make the medication up to 70 percent less effective when it comes to putting a stop to your symptoms. Gullickson also says apple juice can affect other medications that are absorbed using the same peptide, including antibiotics, asthma medications, and thyroid medications.

Cinnamon and Blood Thinners

If you’re taking a blood-thinning medication like warfarin, you might want to skip that morning bowl of cinnamon-dusted oatmeal, as delicious as it may be. Well, depending on what kind of cinnamon you have, that is. Cassia cinnamon is rich in a compound called coumarin that also acts as a blood-thinner, and it can lead to excessive bleeding when it’s mixed with a blood-thinning medication.

Eric Newman, M.D. of Baltimore’s Mercy Medical Center recommends that anyone taking this type of medication use only Ceylon cinnamon, which contains far less coumarin than cassia cinnamon. Ceylon cinnamon might be a little bit harder to find than cassia, but it’ll be worth the search if you just can’t give it up.

Grapefruit and Statins

Statins are a type of prescription drug that are typically used to lower cholesterol. They work by preventing your body from making cholesterol and helping the body to reabsorb what cholesterol it already has. For those who take two specific statins, Zocor and Lipitor, it’s important to avoiding eating grapefruit or drinking grapefruit juice.

Grapefruit contains furanocoumarin, a chemical compound that can prevent the body from absorbing statins, which means that they stay in your bloodstream longer. When this happens, it makes them less effective and can also cause side effects like digestive issues, liver damage, and high blood sugar levels.

Bananas and ACE Inhibitors

Angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitors are a type of drug that treat certain heart conditions, mostly congestive heart failure and hypertension. These medications can cause an increase in your potassium levels, which can eventually cause someone to have an irregular heartbeat or develop heart palpitations. For anyone taking this type of medication, it’s important to avoid eating too many foods that are known to be high in potassium, one of the most common being bananas. Other foods to avoid include oranges, salt substitutes, sports drinks, and leafy greens.

Kale and Blood Thinners

We can understand why someone might want to add a daily kale smoothie into their diet, but make sure to have a talk with your doctor first if you use blood thinners. Kale is touted as the king of all superfoods, so you might not imagine that there are any downsides to eating it. However, anyone who takes blood-thinning warfarin should stick to romaine lettuce in their salads, because kale could make the medication less effective.

In addition to kale, foods like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, spinach, and cabbage contain large amounts of vitamin K, which can interact with warfarin and make it less effective at thinning the blood. Depending on your condition, this could lead to severe complications, including blood clots.

Walnuts and Thyroid Drugs

Walnuts are another great-for-you food that aren’t so great when mixed with certain thyroid medications. Walnuts are fairly high in fiber, which most people would consider to be a pretty great benefit. However, high-fiber foods can prevent your body from absorbing thyroid medications like levothyroxine, meaning that you’ll need more of the drug for it to be effective. Other high-fiber foods that can cause a similar effect include soy flour and cottonseed meal.

For those who need thyroid medications but aren’t too keen on changing their diets, studies suggest that the medications will be better absorbed if you take them before bed, rather than taking them in the morning before eating.

St. John’s Wort and Various Medications

Supplements can interact with different medications just as food and drinks can, and St. John’s Wort is one that can cause negative interactions with a few different substances. When mixed with certain antidepressants, migraine medications, and over-the-counter cough medications, St. John’s Wort can cause a dangerous condition called serotonin syndrome.

When it’s severe, serotonin syndrome can cause extreme symptoms including confusion, drastic changes in blood pressure, seizures, unconsciousness, and even death. Along with St. John’s Wort, it’s important to tell your doctor about any supplements you are taking before you begin taking a new medication to avoid any serious complications.