With the prospects of heading to the grocery store growing less attractive by the day, a meal kit service just may be a fitting solution for healthy home-cooked meals during the current coronavirus crisis. What follows is our pre-virus round-up of meal kit services. Freshly, Blue Apron, Sun Basket, Every Plate and Gobble are all currently offering deals for new customers.

Are you looking to find the best meal kit delivery service in 2020? It seems like the variety of meal delivery service options forhealthy eatingandconveniencegets bigger with each passing month. To find the best possible options for your home meal kit needs, knowing the differences between all the delicious meal options will help you make the best decision when it comes to selecting a meal kit subscription.

If you live anywhere where it's even a little bit possible to glimpse the stoops of your neighbors, you've probably noticed cheerful meal kit company boxes from the likes of Blue Apron,Freshly,Home Chef,Sakara Life, Purple Carrot andGobble making ever-more-frequent appearances on said stoops over the last several years. The age of the meal kit food delivery service is upon us. It's a type of convenience service that combines the efforts of chefs, nutritionists and personal grocery shoppers, and delivers them into the hands of enthusiastic eaters or willing home kitchen cooks, with weekly menus and delicious, preportioned fresh ingredients including vegetables and meat for you to easily prepare. The variety of options available today is just staggering, with everything from gluten-free healthy meals to vegetarian options available and ready to ship. That means that people with special diets such as a diet for healthy weight loss don't have to exclude themselves from reading further. It's time to find the best meal kit delivery service for your needs whether you are a picky eater, vegan or on a special diet.

I once met one of the founders of Blue Apron, whose delivery box I'd become familiar with, thanks to the denizens of my apartment building. I mentioned that I thought the Blue Apron service sounded like a cool idea, but inundated him with a litany of reasons why such a thing didn't apply to me: I work in an industry where tasty meals are often provided, I'm rarely home, I'm culinary school-trained and so on. His counterargument was flawless: "Can I send you a free box?" I mean, duh.

Despite my protestations, the reasons I enjoyed the Blue Apron meal plan were plenty, and inspired me to continue my subscription with an occasional box of ingredients. Even with culinary school cred, I liked having ingredients I didn't know of or would rarely seek out when grocery shopping put directly into my hands. I was especially moved by the concept of getting provided the single rib of celery that a recipe demanded, sparing me the heartache of watching an entire head of celery languish in my produce drawer when left to my own devices.

There are now dozens of meal kit delivery programs to choose from, like Sun Basket,Martha & Marley Spoon andPurple Carrot, with a variety of niche customizations, ingredients and menus to fit special diets like vegan gluten-free, vegetarian gluten-free, plain old gluten-free, paleo, low-carb, vegetarian pescatarian, keto, plant-based, health conscious diet and just about anything else when it comes to dietary preference. You'll also often find promotional offers for new customers and convenient features like being able to skip weeks and cancel anytime. With limited or no commitment, if you're a calendar master and an account-management ninja, you can dabble in any or all of these services and choose, week-by-week, which best suits your circumstances.

Read more:Best air fryers of 2020: Philips, Cuisinart, Black and Decker and more

Home Chef boasts over 38 meal kits to choose from in any given week, including the all-new grill packs and one-pan dinners. Meal kit examples include Chipotle Chimichurri Mini Pork Meatloaves with Roasted Sweet Potato and Garlic Peppercorn Salmon Scampi with Garlic Cream Gemelli and Broccolini. Plus, you can customize the protein in your meal choices, which makes Home Chef dishes stand out from the pack. For example, with some Home Chef recipes, you can order double the protein such as chicken or meat without doubling the overall portions. With other Home Chef options, you can choose to order antibiotic-free protein instead of the standard version. Meal kits and ingredients are usually pretty standard in their offering (which is what keeps Home Chef efficient to the masses).

One new and unique offering from Home Chef is their oven-ready meals, which come with everything you'll need to make the meal including the cooking tray (no messy kitchen and no dishes). See an example of anoven-ready meal here.

Subscription: Starting at $7.99 per serving with additional premium Home Chef recipes offered at market price.

Read more:The best toaster oven is the one you'll hate the least

Healthy and fresh are common favorite meal kit descriptors, but Sun Basket goes a step further. Sun Basket is committed to organic, non-GMO, sustainably and responsibly raised products and ingredients, which it packages in 100 percent recyclable materials to boot. Basically, the box took the trip to the farmer's market for you.Sun Basket's recipes are developed by Justine Kelly, a San Francisco chef known for her work at the James Beard Award-winning Slanted Door restaurant, and for her appearance on Top Chef. All of her easy and delicious meals with organic ingredients are nutritionist-approved (500 to 800 calories per serving), and most meals take only about 30 minutes to prepare, with online Sun Basket tutorials available if you need a little extra guidance. You've got options for these nutritious meals too -- you'll be able to choose from a selection of six to 18 different organic meal recipes each week, including paleo, vegan meal, vegetarian and gluten free meals, so you'll always get what you want. Sun Basket delivery is available in 36 states, and Sun Basket shipments arrive on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. For three Sun Basket meals each week, you'll pay $74.93 for the two-person plan (or $11.99 per serving) and $143.87 for the four-person plan ($10.99 per serving), with a $5.99 shipping fee either way.

Subscription: For three Sun Basket meals each week, you'll pay $74.93 for the two-person plan (or the $11.99 price per serving) and $143.87 for the four-person Sun Basket plan ($10.99 per serving), with a $5.99 shipping fee either way.

A few of these services provide fully cooked, ready to eat meals to your doorstep, and Freshly is a good one if you desire wholesome, tasty comfort foods such as peppercorn steak, penne bolognese or chicken and rice pilaf. Meals are prepared right before delivery and are never frozen. With minimal reheating required by you, it's like having Mom cook dinner for you in your kitchen, without having Mom live with you. (Sorry, Mom.)

Subscription: $8.99 to $12.50 per serving, with up to 12 servings per week. Shipping is free.

At just $4.99 per serving and with an emphasis on delicious, hearty meal options and generous portion sizes, EveryPlate is the best plan for those whose journey into meal kit delivery is based on affordability. It keeps its overhead low by offering eight easy recipes to choose from weekly, which does mostly exclude vegetarians and those on special diets, but the eight available meals are full of variety and flavor otherwise. Get 18 meals for only $3.33 each, free shipping on your first order, plus the ability to skip or cancel anytime.

Subscription:Each serving is only $4.99. Each weekly box includes three recipes with either two or four servings apiece.

Blue Apron

Best intro to meal kit delivery

Blue Apron is largely accepted to be the granddad of meal kit delivery programs in the US. The eight menu choices available weekly range from simple pastas to delicious international options, with a seafood and vegetarian option always available. Even the simplest recipes might include an unfamiliar component or two, and the website often highlights these ingredients as an educational opportunity. Recipes are tagged with helpful keywords such as "customer favorite," "quick and easy," "great for grilling" and so on. Occasional promotions include a menu from guest celebrity chefs, or recipes that highlight popular travel destinations. An optional wine pairing service is also offered.

Subscription: Price per serving ranges from $7.49 to $9.99, with options to prepare two to four recipes per week and two or four servings per recipe.

Dinnerly rolls out some pretty exciting-sounding and delicious meals such as summery chicken panzanella and risotto with asparagus and cannellini beans. But with no more than six ingredients per recipe, the damage done to your time and kitchen is minimized. Along with not overwhelming you with myriad ingredients and multiple steps, the price tag for Dinnerly puts it squarely in the budget-friendly category, clocking in with a cost per serving of around $5.

Subscription: The options include a Two-Person Box for $30, or a Family Box for $60, each with three recipes for the week.

Gobble takes the template from the old guard of meal delivery kits but speeds it up by prechopping and part-cooking many of the components so that all recipes have a prep time of 15 minutes or less. Despite the "fast food" angle, each menu has a sophisticated and worldly vibe. Weekly recipe choices are cleverly categorized into From the Range, From the Ranch, From the Sea and From the Earth options.

Subscription: Options range from $11.99 to $13.99 per serving, with options for two to four servings of two or three (or more!) recipes.

HelloFresh helpfully tags each recipe accordingly, whether you are allergic to (or avoiding) dairy, gluten, soy, nuts and so on. Familiarity of ingredients is key, even when applied to dishes from various world cuisines. A Hello Fresh's portion sizes are generous, going with its relatively high cost per serving (up to $10 a person). "dinner to lunch" element is a unique twist that provides the home cook a variation on tonight's dinner to serve as a tasty portable lunch tomorrow.

Subscription: Options range from $8.74 to $9.99 per serving, with options for two to four recipes per week and two or four servings per recipe, customizable along Classic, Veggie and Family plans.

We like Green Chef for its versatility in the different specific diet plans available. Green Chef offers paleo, keto, pescatarian, vegan, and vegetarian options as well as gluten-free meals. No matter which diet you're following (for health or personal reasons) you'll be able to find a Green Chef plan that works for you. Because it offers so many different diet plan choices, this also makes Green Chef one of the most versatile meal kit delivery services since you get a plethora of different tasty menu options per week.

Subscription: $12.99-$11.99 per serving for a two-person Green Chef subscription at three meals/week; $10.99 per serving for a four-person Green Chef subscription at two meals/week.

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The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

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The best meal kit delivery services of 2020: EveryPlate, Freshly, Sun Basket and more - CNET

LANCASTER, England Peaches, a brown-and-white Jersey cow weighing 1,200 pounds, was amiably following Edward Towers through a barn on a sunny March morning when the 6-year-old dug in her front hooves.

Mr. Towers, a 28-year-old-farmer whose family owns Brades Farm, near Britains rugged Lake District, slapped Peaches gently to move her along. She didnt budge. Already muddy from a morning herding hundreds of cows to a milking session, Mr. Towers leaned all his weight into Peaches ample backside, until she finally stepped through a metal gate that would hold her head still for an exam.

Deepashree Kand, a scientist studying animal nutrition, stepped forward with a device about the size of a grocery-store scanner. As David Bowies Changes played on a radio, Ms. Kand pointed a green laser at the cows nostril and waited for Peaches to belch.

Ms. Kands employer, a Swiss company called Mootral, is studying whether an altered diet can make cattle burp and fart less methane one of the most harmful greenhouse gases and a major contributor to climate change. If they were a country, cows would rank as the worlds sixth-largest emitter, ahead of Brazil, Japan and Germany, according to data compiled by Rhodium Group, a research firm.

It is a well-known problem that has had few promising solutions. But in the last five years, a collection of companies and scientists has been getting closer to what would be an ecological and financial breakthrough: an edible product that would change cows digestive chemistry and reduce their emission of methane.

Several companies are pursuing a seaweed-based compound, and a Dutch firm, DSM, is testing a chemical supplement with promising results. Mootral is one of the furthest along. By mixing compounds from garlic, citrus and other additives into a pellet thats mixed with a cows regular diet, the start-up has surprised scientists by significantly and consistently cutting the toxic output of animals like Peaches.

At Brades Farm, Ms. Kand kept her laser steady. Changes in the light beam would measure the methane in Peaches burps, which she produced about once every four minutes. Soon, there was a subtle flex in the cows neck, and Ms. Kands device put out a few readings: 32 to 38 parts per million.

Thats good, Ms. Kand said. A reduction of about 30 percent.

The drop was consistent with the findings of several peer-reviewed studies of Mootrals food supplement. Additional trials are underway in the United States and Europe. The product is being tested at dairy and meat farms, including a Dutch farm used by McDonalds for studying new techniques in its supply chain. The venture capitalist Chris Sacca, who became a billionaire with early bets on Uber and Twitter, has invested.

Many questions of viability remain. Mootral must prove that its product works on different breeds of cows and in different climates. It has had success in areas with mild weather, like Northern Europe, but is now conducting experiments in hotter locations.

Most urgent, the company must find its place in the coronavirus economy. An investment round that was scheduled to close in March fell apart because of the crisis. The start-ups business model depends on convincing typically conservative livestock and dairy companies that they will receive credits they can sell in the unpredictable and largely unregulated carbon-offset market for using what is basically Gas-X for cows.

But if Mootral or one of its competitors can withstand the challenges of the coronavirus era and hold up at scale, the result could be one of the simplest and fastest ways to cut a major source of greenhouse-gas emissions.

It is something, to be honest, that I never expected, said Gerhard Breves, a longtime livestock researcher in Germany who performed one of the first independent tests of Mootrals product and is now an unpaid member of its advisory board.

Cows are a digestive miracle. Inside their stomach is an oxygen-free environment with a steady temperature, similar to the fermentation tanks used to make beer. Microbes decompose and ferment materials like cellulose, starch and sugars. Cows can eat just about anything grass, hay, cornstalks, rapeseed and turn it into energy for producing milk and meat.

They could live on wood, said Mootrals director of science, Oliver Riede, a molecular biologist who started his career studying vaccines and infection management.

But just as a midnight pizza can come with a gaseous cost, a cows digestive system has a way of retaliating. Methane is a main byproduct of the enzymes that help break down the food. The gas cant be turned into energy, so as it builds up, a cow must burp, sending little puffs of pollution into the atmosphere. (A small amount is released by farting.) Up to 12 percent of a cows energy intake from food is lost this way.

There are about 1.4 billion cattle globally, each emitting the equivalent of 1.5 to 2.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, roughly half the output of an average American car.

As awareness of cattles environmental impact has reached the mainstream, thanks to compelling media campaigns by environmentalists and Netflix documentaries, the meat and dairy industries have felt the effects. Sales of alternative milks and meat substitutes have soared. Vegetarianism and veganism have spread.

This is an existential threat, said Joe Towers, Edward Towerss older brother, who also works at Brades Farm. Farmers are keen to improve and show they arent the bad guys.

Mootrals main research lab is at the base of a lush valley, in a former coal-mining region of Wales. The companys work on cows dates to 2010, when a group of researchers participated in a European Union research effort to explore ways to reduce methane from cattle.

The team, working for a company called Neem Biotech, had studied garlics antimicrobial properties in humans. In lab trials, the scientists found that it also reduced methane in cows thanks to allicin, the same strong-smelling compound thats produced when a garlic clove is cut with a knife. But the company was small and didnt see a business case for the finding, so the work didnt go any further.

In 2012, Neem was sold to a life sciences company, Zaluvida, that developed over-the-counter diet and allergy supplements. One product, derived from compounds found in prickly pears, gave people the sensation of feeling full. Another helped with digestion.

Zaluvidas founder, Thomas Hafner, bought Neem intending to work on drugs for people, but during a review of past research, a colleague found the methane work in a computer file named Mootral. It explained how allicin interacted with microbes inside a cows stomach.

After becoming rich by manipulating the human digestive tract he sold the supplements business for about $150 million in 2014 Mr. Hafner saw an opportunity in doing the same with cows. By 2016, he put a team of scientists to work testing different combinations of garlic extracts.

The challenge, they learned, was finding the right balance between delivering the maximum amount of allicin without triggering adverse effects. The chemical targets enzymes in the cows gut that create methane. Too much could harm the cows ability to process food, or give the milk and meat a garlic flavor.

The first thing the farmer will ask is, What will this do to my animal? said Mr. Riede, the Mootral science director.

Allicin is volatile, and the team struggled at first to come up with a consistent blend that would work across members of a herd of cattle. In the lab, researchers used bacteria from the stomachs of sheep members, like cows, of the ruminant family to see how certain combinations would change methane levels.

Theyre still tweaking the formula. Every few weeks, Daniel Neef, a biochemist, travels to a nearby butcher in Wales to buy a stomach from a freshly slaughtered sheep. He cuts it open to extract a wet, tangled ball of grass and other feed. He squeezes the substance through cheesecloth to extract a liquid that he puts in glass milk jars making what looks like a green vegetable drink available at Whole Foods.

Want to smell it? Mr. Neef asked one day at the Mootral lab, opening the lid. It smells like fart.

The juice was filled with scores of different kinds of bacteria, which interact in ways we dont fully understand. At one point, Mootrals scientists improved results by adding a trace amount of citrus from Spanish oranges. New additives like seaweed and other different kinds of garlic are being tested.

Mr. Neef combined the bacterial juice with droplets of extracts in medical vials, which he then moved to a machine that sucked out the oxygen and reported how much methane was produced.

You overlook plants and think they are quite simple, said Robert Saunders, a Mootral scientist whom colleagues call Mr. Garlic, but when you realize the complexity going on inside them, you can exploit them and make products from this.

He added: Were not just buying garlic and putting it in a pellet. Chemistry is at the center of it.

Mootral leases farmland in Chinas Gansu and Shandong Provinces, where garlic is picked by laborers, stuffed in bags and stored in a warehouse. It is peeled, dried and milled into a fine powder at a plant in China before being sent via train to Germany and trucked to Wales, where it is mixed with other food extracts. The company recently installed a shower at the facility so staff dont have to go home reeking of garlic.

By 2017, Mootral was confident enough in its work to ask outside scientists to perform their own trials. That year, researchers in Denmark and Germany published findings saying the company had reduced cows methane emissions more than 50 percent in lab simulations. In Mootrals first tests in dairy cows on a fully functioning farm, Brades, methane emissions fell 38 percent. A California study found a reduction of about 20 percent in meat cattle.

Sixteen tests and studies are scheduled once work stoppages from the coronavirus lifts, including at Purdue University and the University of California, Davis, Mr. Hafner said. The Swiss and Irish governments are funding Mootral research. In one testing technique, the cow is put inside a tent a little like the ones that pro football players enter when injured that is outfitted with methane-detecting sensors.

There have been unexpected results. Researchers have shown an increase in milk production, possibly because cows that expend less energy expelling methane produce more dairy. The farmers at Brades said flies werent bothering their cows as much, perhaps as a result of garlic breath.

I was skeptical when we started, said Professor Breves, director of the Physiological Institute of the Veterinary University of Hannover, who has spent three decades studying livestock biology and emissions. I do not remember any other compounds having such a pronounced and significant effect without any negative effects.

Many scientists need more convincing. Hanne Hansen, who performed an early lab test on Mootral and is an associate professor at the University of Copenhagens department of veterinary and animal sciences, said more published research was needed to prove the food additive would work on different breeds and in various climates. Much of the research, she said, has been performed in labs that only simulate the chemistry of a cow. Mootral also hasnt been tested on cows at large industrial farms, like those in the United States, which are notorious hubs for methane emissions.

What happens in the laboratory is not always what happens in real life, Professor Hansen said. Mootral has potential, but we need to see more proof.

Mr. Hafner, who is German and has a buttoned-up manner that is more boardroom than barn, puts an optimistic spin on Mootrals prospects. If the world economy opens up in the coming months, he expects to have roughly 300,000 cows taking its supplements by next year, and 7.5 million by 2024.

Yet he is realistic about the challenges. In March, agreements with several investors were put on hold as the coronavirus spread. One group had pledged to put in 6.5 million euros (about $7 million) and another 6.5 million if certain scientific targets were met.

Has that put us in a pickle? Of course, Mr. Hafner said recently by phone from Austria, where he owns a home and spent parts of March and April recovering from what was diagnosed by a doctor as coronavirus. (He did not receive a test.) Having already put more than $20 million of his own money into the business, he added, We have a plan to weather the storm and come out the other end.

Eventually, Mootrals plan is to sell its food additive for about 50 per year per cow. Mr. Hafner, whose first job after dropping out of college was at Burger King, said it would add only a few pennies to the cost of meat or dairy. He figures that grocery stores, restaurant chains, and large milk and livestock companies will be willing to bear the cost because they are under increasing pressure to appeal to eco-minded customers and satisfy sustainability mandates from investors and governments. If Mr. Hafner hits his 2024 goal, he will have annual revenue of 375 million.

An important financial incentive for companies to use Mootral are the carbon credits it would generate. The credits could offset the companies own emissions levels or be sold to others that have pledged to cut theirs. In December, the manager of the worlds largest voluntary carbon offset program, Verra, said Mootral would be the first company able to sell credits for reducing methane from cows.

The approval means a grocery chain or fast-food brand could require meat producers in its supply chain to use Mootral, then use the resulting carbon credits to meet its corporate sustainability goals. The credits could also be sold to companies, such as Microsoft, Royal Dutch Shell and Delta Air Lines, that have pledged to buy credits to offset their carbon footprint.

The problem is that carbon markets are still voluntary in most industries, and the systems credibility has been hampered by concerns that many offsets are tied to projects that dont have a measurable effect on climate change. In 2018, the entire voluntary carbon market was about $300 million, according to Forest Trends, a research group.

Mr. Hafner is convinced demand will grow as more governments mandate reductions, particularly to meet the targets of the international Paris climate agreement. In Europe, countries have pledged to cut greenhouse gas emission levels from 1990 by 40 percent by 2030 commitments that will affect every industry, including agriculture.

We are working from the assumption that down the line every cow will be regulated to be on a methane reducer, Mr. Hafner, 56, said over a steak dinner in Wales in early March. This is going to come.

That is a risky bet. Meat consumption continues to rise globally as a result of an emerging middle class in countries like China. And national leaders have been reluctant to impose tough rules on politically influential agriculture and farming industries. Many fear climate change will take a back seat to getting the global economy back on track after the coronavirus pandemic.

Are we going to offset our way out of the problem? No, said David Antonioli, the chief executive of Verra, referring to climate change. If we all continue to eat as much meat as we do, no matter what we do with Mootral or other products, we are probably not going to address the problem.

Mr. Hafner is frustrated that Mootral and its competitors have products that could help address sea-level rise and other perils but are hamstrung by financial and political constraints.

There isnt enough urgency, he said. The scale of Covid is nothing like the climate crisis.

In Britain, Brades Farm has seen hard times before. Five years ago, it nearly closed after milk prices collapsed. Documentaries detailing the environmental harm of cattle farming like Cowspiracy, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio didnt help. At one point, the Towers brothers got so desperate that in a bid for attention, Edward became a contestant on a dating show, Love in the Countryside.

We didnt sell any milk, Edward Towers said of the experience, but Ive been with my girlfriend for three years.

Mootral provided a lifeline. Marketing its cows as low methane, Brades Farm has found a niche selling climate-friendly milk to cafes and artisanal baristas around Britain, in bottles labeled Less COW Burps.

In March, behind the barn where the cows eat and rest, the smell of garlic wafted from piles of Mootral feed. Twice a day, it is mixed with grass, maize, wholecrop and rapeseed. The additive accounts for about 1 percent of the 75 to 110 pounds of food a cow eats every day.

Just feeding this to 400 cows isnt going to change the world, but by setting an example, and being first, that can have an impact, Mr. Towers said. Thats whats cool about our little farm.

Original post:
The Business of Burps: Scientists Smell Profit in Cow Emissions - The New York Times

This article was written for our sponsor, Orthus Health.

In todays office landscape, amenities reign supreme. From on-site cafes to gyms and green spaces, employees are continuing to seek out workplaces that offer more than simply a desk and a coffee machine.

Often at the top of the amenities list? Wellness programs. In fact, according to a survey from Virgin HealthMiles Inc. and Workforce Management Magazine, 77 percent of employees felt that a wellness program provided a positive effect on the overall company culture.

At Orthus Health, the company is uniquely positioned to use its own resources to provide employees with a cutting-edge wellness program. For more than 20 years, the Raleigh-based company has been utilizing their data-driven wellness and condition management programs to not only better the health of their clients, but also the health of their own employees.

The overall mission of Orthus Health is to educate and engage employees, said Mark Ruby, vice president of Sales for Orthus Health. We provide actionable knowledge to help them understand their near-term, modifiable risk, and we support them in making healthy lifestyle changes.

To achieve this goal, individuals are paired with a dedicated virtual Orthus Health coach. Each coach is a HIPAA-trained professional who talks over health issues and goals with their clients on whatever basis they choose, whether daily, weekly or monthly. For employees of Orthus Health, the coaching program is one of the premium perks of employment.

Ive worked with the company for about a year and a half, two years, and Im a typical 30-something-year-old guy. I dont have a relationship with a doctor. Im not seeing anybody annually. Im not doing my preventive care screenings, admitted Bob Powers, an account manager at Orthus Health who utilizes the program. My coach really pushes me, Youve got to go get checked, youve got to go get checked. And so I did. Luckily, I didnt have diabetes, but I was definitely prediabetic.

Powers continued, I am able to virtually work with my coach at times that are convenient for me. My particular coach helps primarily with my diet, but we also have exercise physiologists, RNs and nutritionists. The culture here affords me the capability to say that my health is important. They want me to be here and to be able to work and do my job. And they understand that part of that is making sure Im taking care of my personal health.

As Powers mentioned, the emphasis on employee health and wellbeing is a major component of Orthus Healths overall company culture.

Since many office jobs are sedentary according to U.S. News & World Report, around 86 percent of American workers sit all day at their jobs the company encourages employees to stay active and focused on their health. Not only does this benefit them in the long term, but it also makes the workplace more positive overall.

Just by participating in wellness activities relating to exercise and diet and nutrition, you become much healthier, but then that also flows over to your whole life, so not only your personal life, but also your professional life, Ruby said. When you come into work, you have energy, youre not dragging in, and just the atmosphere and people are very happy. They feel better, and then obviously that leads to higher productivity.

In addition to coaching access, being an employee at Orthus Health also means getting an inside look at the latest innovations in wellness before theyre launched. Before the company released their mobile app, employees were able to test it before opening it up to the general public. The app engages employees with personalized digital wellness, empowering them to avoid emerging risk or better manage chronic conditions.

More and more people are used to using mobile apps, so we have a very robust mobile app version of our wellness platform, Ruby explained. Theyre able to basically do everything there register for onsite screenings, fill out the disease risk assessment and even tie in their Fitbit or Garmin. Theres a wealth of information on weight management and how to manage diabetes and heart disease too.

Although Ruby is a relatively healthy individual, he still takes advantage of the apps features, like step challenges, and diet and exercise trackers. By utilizing Orthus Healths resources to make his wellness a priority, Ruby was even able to continue working during his cancer treatment.

I was diagnosed with cancer, and I had to go through chemotherapy. One thing the physician said is, each individual should be investing in their health, because you dont know when youre going to have to pull on those reserves, Ruby said. For me, by using Orthus Health tools and Ive used them for quite a few years I was able to have a pretty good health status and that made a big difference in managing my cancer and chemotherapy. In fact, even during chemo, I was able to work.

You just dont know whats around the corner, you know? Ruby finished. Maintaining your health pays dividends down the road in different ways.

This article was written for our sponsor, Orthus Health.

Try a free risk assessment, powered by Orthus Health. It is anonymous, quick and easy to complete, requiring only basic information about your current lifestyle, nutrition and health conditions. The results will provide you with scientifically-validated insight into:

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Raleigh company uses its own wellness services to improve the health of its employees - WRAL Tech Wire

As Mothers Day approaches, the celebration of our Mothers is overshadowed by the mounting Covid-19 casualties. Donald Trump is incapable and unwilling to provide the leadership needed to deal with the deadly pandemic attacking our communities. While we cannot afford to slow efforts to challenge the President and our Members of Congress, it is important to take a bit of time and reflect on what our parents, and in particular our mothers, have done and continue to do for their families.

I describe this sentiment in theRalph Nader and Family Cookbookabout nutritious food and its relation to our upbringings.

My mother and father and their four childrentwo girls and two boysall ate the same food. There was peace and time for family discussions at the dinner table. To my mother, meals provided a daily occasion for education, for finding out what was on our minds, for recounting the traditions of food, culture, and kinship in Lebanon, where she and my father were born. At the dinner table, my mother would ask us what we had learned from our teachers each day at school. Small talk and gossip were not high on her agenda, though she knew those had their place, too.

Our mother cooked her nutritious and delicious recipes from scratch. There were no processed foods on our table. We were expected to eat everything on our plates.

She believed keeping it simple and everything in moderation were two good guiding principles for our dinner table. It allowed her to efficiently prepare food. Holidays and birthdays featured more elaborate entrees from Mothers busy kitchen. One family favorite is called sheikh al-mahshi (the king of stuffed food), a baked eggplant stuffed with minced lamb, pine nuts, and onions, garnished with tomatoes and served on long-grain rice with a tossed salad. Every Friday we had baked fish with tarator sauce, reflective of a Christian tradition in Lebanon.

Mother did not believe in regular snacks between meals, but occasionally, she liked to surprise us with some labneh with olive oil, tucked inside whole wheat pita bread, to take to school.

Diet is viewed by both consumers and physicians as more and more significant in an individuals weight, energy level, and overall health.

Sometime in the 1970s, having seemingly run out of criticism of my consumer protection work, theWall Street Journalastonishingly devoted an entire editorial to how puritanical my mother was, forcing chickpea snacks on us instead of, presumably, candy. TheJournalwas particularly incensed at my mother quietly scraping the sugary frosting off birthday cakes once we had blown out the candles a practice that had become a family joke. Mother reacted with amusement. Cakes had plenty of sweetness, she would say, without loading up on frosting that was pure sugar.

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She knew that meals were about much more than food. For Mother, the family table was a mosaic of sights, scents, and tastes, of talking, teaching, and teasing, of health, culture, stimulation, and delight. For Dad, it was a time to ask us challenging questions to sharpen our minds and our independent thinking. Such as: Do the great leaders make the changes in history or do they reflect the rising pressures from people at any given time? Is it better to buy from a local family-owned business than from a large chain store? When can a revolution be called a success? What were you taught in school that you found out not to be true?

A major inspiration forThe Ralph Nader and Family Cookbookis to celebrate my parents. Another stems from people always asking me what I eat, prompted in part by my work on food safety laws. Also, the growing popularity of Arab cuisine, backed by the scientific research into its exceptional nutrition, has broadened the audience and market for what was once seen as an exotic menu.

Diet is viewed by both consumers and physicians as more and more significant in an individuals weight, energy level, and overall health. Medical schools, which traditionally havent featured nutrition very prominently in their curricula, are now more systematically focusing on diet.

As is reflected in the recipes chosen for this book, we were mostly raised on Arab cuisine more specifically the food of the people who lived in the mountains of Lebanon. Todays nutritionists have pronounced this Mediterranean diet to be just about the healthiest diet in the world. It is heavy with varieties of vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, spices, and lean (but not too much red) meat, mostly lamb.

The recipes are healthy and are reasonably low in fat, salt, and sugar (the latter given leeway in the desserts). The dishes are easy to prepare, with a few exceptions and their ingredients are relatively inexpensive. For sure, much of our upbringing happened in our comfortable kitchen tucked between two pantries at our family table. That is why the recipes in this book evoke memories of their broader contexts and celebrate our good fortune in having such wonderful parents.

A selection of our family recipes are available for you to review and sample at:Nader.Org/Recipes.

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The Uplifting Magic of Mothers Day in These Perilous Days - Common Dreams

For my parents generation, catering for vegetarians was certainly not the norm. In fact, vegetarian wasnt a recognised term like it is today plenty of people had never met a vegetarian before, and to embrace that title was to identify yourself as completely outside of the mainstream. Since then, social stigma has greatly improved and its rare to not find mushroom risotto on a restaurant menu, let alone expect a look of confusion or even repulsion from friends or family as a free side-dish accompanying their order.

Veganism is also gradually being accepted. Whilst its rare for someone to say they are vegan without being scrutinised for their dietary choices or posited counter-arguments, the situation has swiftly improved as it becomes more accepted and options like cheese alternatives and egg substitutions become available. I distinctly recall one particular lunchtime in year 10 when my best friend had mince thrown in her face and plate by a boy shouting various abusive terms; she had just turned vegan and was the first in our entire school. At the time, no one questioned his actions, and I was told off for demanding his apology. This all followed an ordeal with the catering staff who tried to serve her bacon-wrapped chicken with gravy. Even after repeating that no, she really didnt eat meat, they offered a plate of chicken without the bacon, and for about a month she made herself content with oily chips.

That was four years ago. Now, most people would (hopefully!) not tolerate such actions, let alone perform them, and would respect my friend for her choices regardless of their own beliefs. Figures from a survey by The Vegan Society indicates veganism is also gaining popularity, with approximately 600,000 vegans in the UK in 2018 just over 1% of the population[1].

But in the background is another diet that receives less attention: raw foodism.

I have to admit that I was completely ignorant of what a raw food diet actually meant before writing this article. What follows is a disclaimer: having never actually met anyone who follows this diet, Google quickly became my best friend.

BBC Good Food seemed the most logical place to start. Here I learnt that a raw diet consists of unprocessed, untreated and unrefined foods that have not been cooked more precisely, never heated above 48C (although figures vary between sources). Apparently it all began in the late 1800s after a doctor named Maximilian Bircher-Benner cured his jaundice by eating raw apples, stimulating a series of experiments into the effect raw foods have on human health. Few people follow a 100% raw diet, and it ranges from raw vegans to raw omnivores who eat uncooked or dried meat, unprocessed dairy products and even raw eggs. Generally speaking, however, dieters avoid pasta, bread, pastries, alcohol (maybe this explains why Im yet to meet a raw student?), chips and table salt (which rules out Hassans perhaps another reason), refined sugars and flours, pasteurized dairy the list goes on. Not even coffee or tea are permitted. Ovens, microwaves, hobs, barbeques are all ruled out and replaced instead with juicers, blenders and dehydrators.

So to summarise, raw foodism is based on a principle of eating unprocessed and uncooked foods. So what do people like Woody Harrelson actually eat?

Depending on how strict you are, the list includes fresh fruits and raw vegetables, dried fruits, nuts, seeds, raw nut butters, nut milk, coconut milk, coconut oils, fermented foods like sauerkraut, seaweed, (for some) raw fish like sushi and raw or dried meats, and soaked and sprouted beans, legumes and grains (for easier digestion).

Placed in context, here are a few examples of what a day could look like eating only raw foods:

Now for the critical question: what are the benefits, if any?

As it turns out, the benefits are few and far-fetching. Supporters argue that raw foods have higher nutritional values as some minerals and vitamins are destroyed during the cooking process, in particular the water-soluble ones like vitamin B and vitamin C. For example, tomatoes lose approximately 10% of their vitamin C content when heated above 57C for just two minutes. However, other fruit and vegetables benefit from cooking by breaking down the cell wall, making nutrients easier to be digested and absorbed, such as beta-carotene found in carrots and sweet potatoes (a compound converted to vitamin A in the body). Likewise, bonds in the tertiary structure of starch and protein are broken into smaller and easier to digest chains.

It is also argued that vital enzymes needed for digestion which are found in our food are denatured during cooking when heat breaks the bonds holding together the polypeptide chains that maintain an enzymes shape. Im no scientist, but doesnt our body produce its own enzymes for digestion? Besides, enzymes found in food are denatured in the acidic environment of the stomach, so scientists believe this argument is fairly weak.

I came across one raw food advocate called Fully Raw Kristina who was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes aged 16, and decided two years later to convert to a completely raw food diet. She ate peaches for two weeks straight when I began, and two years later she no longer diabetic. Since then, she started a business entailing a YouTube channel, recipe books and FullyRaw Retreats in Bali and St. Lucia. But and heres where the numbers really crunch to benefit from her recipes, answers to FAQs, meal plans and shopping lists, you have to join the Inner Circle costing $47/month. This subscription roughly equates to 38/month, adding up to a grand total of 450/year. Now also seems an appropriate time to say that there is limited scientific evidence that support the claim of preventing or controlling diabetes.

A raw diet does make the national five-a-day goal seem like a walk in the park meaning individuals benefit from a higher intake of minerals, vitamins and fibre. It also means you avoid processed foods containing chemical food additives to lengthen shelf life and added sugars and saturated fats to cater for the sweeter tooth of modern ages both have long been associated with negative health impacts. Studies note that raw food diets seem to lower blood cholesterol, as well as lowering the number of carcinogens consumed which increase cancer risk. A raw diet is also effective for people trying to lose weight, although some doctors online have said the demands and restrictions of the diet make it hard to maintain in the long run which can lead to more weight gain after coming off. More importantly, one group of researchers found that about 30% of women under 45 developed amenorrhea, a term for when menstrual periods stop due to insufficient calories.

There are, in fact, plenty of health concerns, especially in those following the diet strictly or over a long time period. For starters, without taking supplements, individuals have a lower intake of vitamin B12, vitamin D, iron and calcium. And whilst omnivores obtain their protein from meat and fish, vegetarians from eggs and vegans from legumes like lentils, chickpeas and beans, raw foodists mostly rely on nuts. Furthermore, there is a significant danger of food poisoning from Salmonella bacteria for those that eat raw eggs and meat, as well as from Listeria bacteria in unpasteurised milk.

Other drawbacks include the expenses. Organic ingredients are usually more costly and some people may be required to travel much further afield to find a grocery or speciality store that stocks a wide range of raw and organic products. Then there are the appliances: from blenders to juicers to dehydrators to food processors for slicing, grating and shredding, a quick search on Amazon indicated these run from 80 well into the hundreds.

Food preparation is also more time consuming, accounting for the time spent sprouting seeds, germinating nuts, dehydrating foods and juicing and blending. One online recipe for raw granola takes three-days with steps like soaking raisins and dehydrating the entire mix.

Above all else, the diet strikes me as very isolating. Its hard to eat out unless you can find a speciality restaurant because even a salad may have a dressing which contains ingredients that arent raw or natural. Staying around a friend or relatives house would likely be very challenging for them to cater for you unless they too were raw foodists, so it would be easy to find yourself feeling guilty or even cancelling plans due to your inconvenient dietary choice. Dont get me wrong there seems to be an entire online community supporting one another, but as the diet is far more limiting than vegetarianism and veganism its not nearly as popular and so chances are you wont have an immediate social network of raw foodists.

It would seem that the negatives far outweigh the benefits, some of which lack strong scientific evidence. This doesnt discount the diet entirely as we could probably all benefit from eating a few more vegetables and fruits, but balance is key. Raw foodism is an overarching concept interpreted differently depending on the dieter, with the degree of strictness varying between individual. But there is clearly a reason why doctors ask pregnant women, young children and seniors, people with weaker immune systems and chronic medical conditions like kidney disease to avoid this diet, and why many dont recommend to anyone. Raw foodism seems to me to be an example of where too much of a good thing isnt good anymore.

[1] https://www.vegansociety.com/about-us/further-information/key-facts

Image Credit: Sasha Gill

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The Raw Revolution - Oxford Student

environment

We mustlearn Covid-19's lessons for our relationship with the planet and help nature restore the living systems on which human life utterly depends, writes Rod Oram

(This is the first of three articles at Newsroom in conjunction with Pure Advantage and the Edmund Hillary Fellowship on the importance of regenerative agriculture. Tomorrow: The Good, the Bad and the Opportunity, by Alina Siegfried.)

Natures rebound is one of the upsides of the otherwise calamitous Covid-19 crisis. Atmosphere and waters cleared, land quietened, and birds, fish and animals returned. When we took our foot off the neck of nature, she responded with renewed vigour and resilience. But we gave nature only a temporary reprieve while lockdown lasted.

Speed is another surprise about the virus, in ways frightening and uplifting. It is spreading with astonishing speed through the human population. Harmless to the bats it came from, it is deadly to some people it attacks. Yet, people have responded fast, individually and collectively, magnificently and abysmally. One way or another, humankind is getting through this crisis.

We could choose to ignore these lessons of nature and speed. We could carry on the way we were before the virus struck. If so, nature would respond ever faster to the destructive pressure we humans put on it. Climate catastrophe, species extinction, ecosystem destruction and degradation of air, water and soil would all accelerate with frightening speed. With every species we eliminate, we break one more thread in the web of life.

Or we could choose to apply these lessons to our relationship with the planet. If we did, we would help nature restore the living systems on which human life utterly depends.

We could make our towns and cities healthier and more productive, in terms human and natural. Ways to do so include travelling less by relying more on virtual communications and walking, cycling and public transport; by restoring our urban rivers and coastal waters; and by bringing more of nature back into our urban environments to help us feed ourselves and restore our urban ecosystems.

Beyond our towns and cities, we could help nature rebuild its diversity and vitality, resilience and fecundity in all of Aotearoas land, waters, atmosphere and oceans. Ways to do so include eradicating predators from our native bush; helping threatened species recover; making infrastructure compatible with natural environments; ensuring tourism and other human activity dont degrade pristine places; and using natural resources in ways that help renew and regenerate the ecosystems which provide them to us.

An inexorable logic runs through these great ambitions. We must learn how to work with nature, not against it. In all we do.

One expression of this is the regenerative economy. This is a radical change from the exploitive economy which has driven human progress through the two centuries of industrialisation to date.

The bankruptcy of the exploitive economy is abundantly clear. One measure of its ecological failure is our breaching of some of the nine planetary boundaries defined by Earth systems science. One measure of its economic and social failure is the UNs Human Development Report.

Of all the enormous challenges of creating a regenerative economy, the greatest is learning regenerative ways to use land to grow food. Yet, doing so will have multiple benefits to the planet and people. It is the bedrock on which we can build sustainable human societies.

For the past century or so, the industrialisation of food production has had its triumphs. It has made much more food available to far more people at prices ever more affordable for many of them.

But such farming systems are the greatest human drivers of changes in land use, in ecosystem degradation and species extinction. Cumulatively, they are the greatest single cause of climate change, which only compounds and accelerates the other problems they create.

Moreover, some industrialised food consists of empty calories,those which provide energy but little or no other nutrition. Consequently, there are now more obese people (from a number of causes, not just nutrition) in the world than malnourished. This is causing a health crisis.

Overweight and obesity are linked to more deaths worldwide than underweight. Globally there are more people who are obese than underweight this occurs in every region except parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, the World Health Organisation reported recently.

The twin goals of healthy people and a healthy planet are inextricably linked. But we cant achieve them by incremental improvements in existing systems. They are too broken, their damage is too great and our time too short. Only radical, fast reinvention informed by nature itself will work.

A wealth of investigations, initiatives and organisations have embraced this essential truth in recent years. They range from long-established bodies such as the World Economic Forum and The Commonwealth,to new alliances such as the Food and Land Use Coalition, which published a report last September entitledGrowing Better: Ten Critical Transitions to Transform Food and Land Use.

One of the best guides to how we can feed a healthy diet to 10 billion people (the likely human population by 2050, up from 7.8 bnow) within the planetary boundaries is the work of the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health. This joint venture between a Scandinavian NGO and a British medical journal published its definitive report early last year.

Its starting point was to establish healthy reference diets, then to work out how much the shift to them would reduce the environmental impact of current food and farming systems.

Transformation to healthy diets by 2050 will require substantial dietary shifts, including a greater than 50 percent reduction in global consumption of unhealthy foods, such as red meat and sugar, and a greater than 100 percent increase in consumption of healthy foods, such as nuts, fruits, vegetables, and legumes.

The reports data, analysis and graphics are compelling. For example, red meat consumption in North America is five times the recommended healthy intake per person; in Europe and central Asia it is three times. Dairy consumption in those three regions is only moderately above the recommended intake. But the adverse environmental impacts of dairy production per serving are similar to red meat so they share the same transformational challenge.

In addition to changes in diet, new forms of food will play a crucial role too. Two alternatives to red meat and dairy products, for example, are substitutes made from plants or grown from stem cells. Both have significantly reduced environmental impact compared with the farmed versions, as do plants grown aeroponicallyand in other forms of indoor horticulture.

Here in New Zealand, our red meat and dairy sectors argue they have two advantages over their farming competitors abroad: they are more efficient, and their pasture-based systems have lower environmental impacts compared with feedlot farmers overseas. Thus, they believe they will always have plenty of consumers overseas who are willing to pay high prices for their high-quality products.

But thats as logical as if Volkswagen said it will always have plenty of customers for its high quality, reliable, safe and relatively low emission fossil fuel cars. Quite the contrary. It is designing thelast range of fossil fuel engines it will ever make. They will go into production in 2026 to tide it over until electric, hydrogen and other zero-emission technologies are ubiquitous. Along the way, Volkswagens customers are gaining substantial economic and environmental benefits.

Our farmers need to make a similar transition. Yes, they will keep producing quality meat and milk, just as Volkswagen will keep making cars. But how can they transform their science and practices to turn their farms from sources of greenhouse gas emissions into carbon sinks? This would help turn their farming from an extractive system to a regenerative one. And with zero nutrient losses due to the improved soil filtration of more diverse pastures with longer roots, their farms would be more productive and environmentally sustainable.

Transitioning rapidly to regenerative systems, our farmers would build ecological and economic resilience and establish this new competitive advantage, even over such farmers overseas. Our farmers will have a deeply compelling story to tell about their pivotal role in restoring Aotearoas unique ecosystems and species, and in encouraging urban Kiwis to bring true regeneration to their built environments and economic activity.

By helping nature rebuild the ecosystems on which their farmingdepends, they will be agents of positive change. Doing so, they will build far closer relationships with their customers at home and abroad, and with their fellow Kiwis who would applaud and support such a transformation.

A growing number of Kiwi farmers are already on the journey, as Pure Advantageand the Edmund Hillary Fellowshipexplore in their newly launched initiative Our Regenerative Future. This column is part of that series of articles laying out principles, practices and case studies of regenerative agriculture in New Zealand. Alina Siegfried is the lead author of the series, edited by Simon Millar at Pure Advantage and Im an EHF Fellow.

This is absolutely the right time for us to begin to regenerate. The virus crisis is forcing us all to think and act better and rewarding us for doing so. Nature is showing us the way.

Tomorrow: The Good, the Bad and the Opportunity, by Alina Siegfried.

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Rod Oram: Nature is showing us the way - Newsroom

A month ago, I invited you, my punderful readers, to submit your best original preys on words. Within hours, a punami of more than 50 original puns poured in, and by the deadline for submission, I swam in a torrent of more than 200. From start to finish, every day was Punday.

Such a response demonstrates that a good pun is its own reword. Heres a sample of the top puns. Ive posted a lot more on my website: http://www.verbivore.com. Lets get right to wit:

After my dinner date with Bo Derek, my cannibal co-workers at the electronics lab said, You know, that was attenuate. Erik Hanson, South Park

Letting those darned seals overpopulate down at the Childrens Pool really defeats the porpoise! Todd Hoover, La Jolla

What do you call a waffle at the beach? A Sandy Eggo. Bryant Berk, Normal Heights

The new movie with Harrison Ford about the love life of a misplaced garden tool is titled Ardors of the Lost Rake. Michael Punaro, Encinitas

Sometime in the late 1980s, I was covering the Masters golf tournament for the Union, sports columnist Barry Lorge at my side. As we worked on our stories, Barry suddenly asked, How do you spell cirrhosis? I answered, possibly correctly, and added, In these fast-paced, deadline-pressured circumstances, it can be helpful if you just stop to spell cirrhosis. Hank Wesch, La Mesa

Did you hear about the Boy Scout who started a business fixing broken car horns? He called it Beep Repaired. Patrick Elms, Carmel Valley

A donut baker bemoaning his girth lamented, I cant believe I ate the hole thing. I should cut down this roll around the middle. Linda Gross, Carlsbad

A mycologist wanted to add to her mushroom collection, but due to spore planning, it was such a sporgasbord, there wasnt mushroom for anything new. Claudia Lopez, Oceanside

A doctor insisted on stitching up his own wound. The nurse said, Suture self. Christopher Boyle, Glendale, Ariz.

What did one Neanderthal say to the other regarding a misunderstanding about the local flora? Him peach meant. Dawne Adam, National City

Whats the difference between me and garbage? Garbage gets taken out once a week. Mary Jo Crowley, Escondido

Did you hear about the swami who was in a fender bender? He was having an auto-body experience. Tim Hart, Carlsbad

Even though baseball players are on furlough, umpires are still working from home. Doug Miller, La Jolla

Why did the ghost win the pie-eating contest? Because he was the best at goblin it up. Lara Hardin, Escondido

Why didnt my husband go outside when he got dizzy? Because he didnt know vertigo. Vee Weaver Roebuck, Kearny Mesa

What do you call a one-of-a-kind trumpet? A unicorn (unique horn). John Silcox, Serra Mesa

I bird-proofed my home. Now its impeccable. Matt Strabone, North Park

Hurrying to get to the airport on time, Giovanni backed his Alfa Romeo out of his garage and drove over his suitcase containing his clothes. Anguished, he shouted, Mama mia! I have a flat attire! Howard Crabtree, Coronado

All this social distancing has given me an inferiority complex. Staying at home used to be enough, but now I have to go hide in abasement! Andy Tao, Los Alamitos

I attempted to eat a clock the other day. It was really time consuming. Carl P. Hennrich, Encinitas

Im a very skeptical person. The doctor recently told me that I needed a diet that was low in sodium. I took the advice with a grain of salt. Abraham Perez, San Ysidro

One mans meat is another mans poisson. Judith Leggett, Escondido

Why did the former vice president have to give up dancing? Because he couldnt find his Al Gore rhythm. Ren Halloran, Rancho Bernardo

When the HOV lane goes underground, it becomes a carpool tunnel. Peter Lawson, Carmel Mountain Ranch

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Jest for the pun of it, pun for all and all for pun! - The San Diego Union-Tribune