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Watch The First 54 Seconds. That’s All I Ask. You’ll Be Hooked After That, I Swear.
Who cares what it smells like? It's what it sounds like that matters.
07.18.13
A woman cooking up a nice pot of pasta.
Over the past few years, rising supermarket prices have forced many families to make compromises on ingredient quality when shopping for meals. A recent study published by Supermarket News found that 41% of families with children were more likely to switch to lower-quality groceries to deal with inflation.
By comparison, 29% of people without children have switched to lower-quality groceries to cope with rising prices.
Despite the current rising costs of groceries, O Organics has enabled families to consistently enjoy high-quality, organic meals at affordable prices for nearly two decades. With a focus on great taste and health, O Organics offers an extensive range of options for budget-conscious consumers.
O Organics launched in 2005 with 150 USDA Certified Organic products but now offers over 1,500 items, from organic fresh fruits and vegetables to organic dairy and meats, organic cage-free certified eggs, organic snacks, organic baby food and more. This gives families the ability to make a broader range of recipes featuring organic ingredients than ever before.
“We believe every customer should have access to affordable, organic options that support healthy lifestyles and diverse shopping preferences,” shared Jennifer Saenz, EVP and Chief Merchandising Officer at Albertsons, one of many stores where you can find O Organics products. “Over the years, we have made organic foods more accessible by expanding O Organics to every aisle across our stores, making it possible for health and budget-conscious families to incorporate organic food into every meal.”
With some help from our friends at O Organics, Upworthy looked at the vast array of products available at our local store and created some tasty, affordable and healthy meals.
Here are 3 meals for a family of 4 that cost $7 and under, per serving. (Note: prices may vary by location and are calculated before sales tax.)
O Organic’s Tacos and Refried Beans ($6.41 Per Serving)
Few dishes can make a family rush to the dinner table quite like tacos. Here’s a healthy and affordable way to spice up your family’s Taco Tuesdays.
Prep time: 2 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Total time: 22 minutes
Ingredients:
1 lb of O Organics Grass Fed Ground Beef ($7.99)
1 packet O Organics Taco Seasoning ($2.29)
O Organics Mexican-Style Cheese Blend Cheese ($4.79)
O Organics Chunky Salsa ($3.99)
O Organics Taco Shells ($4.29)
1 can of O Organics Refried Beans ($2.29)
Instructions:
1. Cook the ground beef in a skillet over medium heat until thoroughly browned; remove any excess grease.
2. Add 1 packet of taco seasoning to beef along with water [and cook as directed].
3. Add taco meat to the shell, top with cheese and salsa as desired.
4. Heat refried beans in a saucepan until cooked through, serve alongside tacos, top with cheese.
O Organics Mexican-style blend cheese.via O Organics
O Organics Hamburger Stew ($4.53 Per Serving)
Busy parents will love this recipe that allows them to prep in the morning and then serve a delicious, slow-cooked stew after work.
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 7 hours
Total time: 7 hours 15 minutes
Servings: 4
Ingredients:
1 lb of O Organics Grass Fed Ground Beef ($7.99)
1 ½ lbs O Organics Gold Potatoes ($4.49)
3 O Organics Carrots ($2.89)
1 tsp onion powder
I can O Organics Tomato Paste ($1.25)
2 cups water
1 yellow onion diced ($1.00)
1 clove garlic ($.50)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tsp Italian seasoning or oregano
Instructions:
1. Cook the ground beef in a skillet over medium heat until thoroughly browned; remove any excess grease.
2. Transfer the cooked beef to a slow cooker with the potatoes, onions, carrots and garlic.
3. Mix the tomato paste, water, salt, pepper, onion powder and Italian seasoning in a separate bowl.
4. Drizzle the mixed sauce over the ingredients in the slow cooker and mix thoroughly.
5. Cover the slow cooker with its lid and set it on low for 7 to 8 hours, or until the potatoes are soft. Dish out into bowls and enjoy!
O Organics baby gold potatoes.via O Organics
O Organics Ground Beef and Pasta Skillet ($4.32 Per Serving)
This one-pan dish is for all Italian lovers who are looking for a saucy, cheesy, and full-flavored comfort dish that takes less than 30 minutes to prepare.
Prep time: 2 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Total time: 27 minutes
Servings: 4
Ingredients:
1 lb of O Organics Grass Fed Ground Beef ($7.99)
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp garlic powder
1 can O Organics Diced Tomatoes ($2.00)
1 can O Organics Tomato Sauce ($2.29)
1 tbsp O Organics Tomato Paste ($1.25)
2 1/4 cups water
2 cups O Organics Rotini Pasta ($3.29)
1 cup O Organics Mozzarella cheese ($4.79)
Instructions:
1. Brown ground beef in a skillet, breaking it up as it cooks.
2. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and garlic powder
3. Add tomato paste, sauce and diced tomatoes to the skillet. Stir in water and bring to a light boil.
4. Add pasta to the skillet, ensuring it is well coated. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Remove the lid, sprinkle with cheese and allow it to cool.
O Organics tomato basil pasta sauce and extra virgin olive oil.via O Organics
Imagine you're working at a school and one of the kids is starting to act up. What do you do?
Traditionally, the answer would be to give the unruly kid detention or suspension.
But in my memory, detention tended to involve staring at walls, bored out of my mind, trying to either surreptitiously talk to the kids around me without getting caught or trying to read a book. If it was designed to make me think about my actions, it didn't really work. It just made everything feel stupid and unfair.
But Robert W. Coleman Elementary School has been doing something different when students act out: offering meditation.
Instead of punishing disruptive kids or sending them to the principal's office, the Baltimore school has something called the Mindful Moment Room instead.
The room looks nothing like your standard windowless detention room. Instead, it's filled with lamps, decorations, and plush purple pillows. Misbehaving kids are encouraged to sit in the room and go through practices like breathing or meditation, helping them calm down and re-center. They are also asked to talk through what happened.
Meditation can have profoundly positive effects on the mind and body
Photo from Holistic Life Foundation, used with permission.
Meditation and mindfulness are pretty interesting, scientifically.
A child meditates
Photo from Holistic Life Foundation, used with permission.
Mindful meditation has been around in some form or another for thousands of years. Recently, though, science has started looking at its effects on our minds and bodies, and it's finding some interesting effects.
One study, for example, suggested that mindful meditation could give practicing soldiers a kind of mental armor against disruptive emotions, and it can improve memory too. Another suggested mindful meditation could improve a person's attention span and focus.
Individual studies should be taken with a grain of salt (results don't always carry in every single situation), but overall, science is starting to build up a really interesting picture of how awesome meditation can be. Mindfulness in particular has even become part of certain fairly successful psychotherapies.
After-school yoga.
Photo from Holistic Life Foundation, used with permission.
Back at the school, the Mindful Moment Room isn't the only way Robert W. Coleman Elementary has been encouraging its kids.
The meditation room was created as a partnership with the Holistic Life Foundation, a local nonprofit that runs other programs as well. For more than 10 years the foundation has been offering the after-school program Holistic Me, where kids from pre-K through the fifth grade practice mindfulness exercises and yoga.
"It's amazing," said Kirk Philips, the Holistic Me coordinator at Robert W. Coleman. "You wouldn't think that little kids would meditate in silence. And they do."
A child meditates at the Holistic Life Foundation
Photo from Holistic Life Foundation, used with permission.
There was a Christmas party, for example, where the kids knew they were going to get presents but were still expected to do meditation first."As a little kid, that's got to be hard to sit down and meditate when you know you're about to get a bag of gifts, and they did it! It was beautiful, we were all smiling at each other watching them," said Philips.
The kids may even be bringing that mindfulness back home with them. In the August 2016 issue of Oprah Magazine, Holistic Life Foundation co-founder Andres Gonzalez said: "We've had parents tell us, 'I came home the other day stressed out, and my daughter said, "Hey, Mom, you need to sit down. I need to teach you how to breathe.'"
The program also helps mentor and tutor the kids, as well as teach them about the environment.
Building a vegetable garden.
Photo from Holistic Life Foundation, used with permission.
They help clean up local parks, build gardens, and visit nearby farms. Philips said they even teach kids to be co-teachers, letting them run the yoga sessions.
This isn't just happening at one school, either. Lots of schools are trying this kind of holistic thinking, and it's producing incredible results.
In the U.K., for example, the Mindfulness in Schools Project is teaching adults how to set up programs. Mindful Schools, another nonprofit, is helping to set up similar programs in the United States.
Oh, and by the way, the schools are seeing a tangible benefit from this program, too.
Philips said that at Robert W. Coleman Elementary, there have been exactly zero suspensions last year and so far this year. Meanwhile, nearby Patterson Park High School, which also uses the mindfulness programs, said suspension rates dropped and attendance increased as well.
Is that wholly from the mindfulness practices? It's impossible to say, but those are pretty remarkable numbers, all the same.
This article originally appeared on 09.22.16
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Photo by John Pike. Used with permission.
Emily E. Smith is no ordinary teacher.
Fifth-grade teacher Emily E. Smith is not your ordinary teacher.
She founded The Hive Society — a classroom that's all about inspiring children to learn more about their world ... and themselves — by interacting with literature and current events. Students watch TED talks, read Rolling Stone, and analyze infographics. She even has a long-distance running club to encourage students to take care of their minds and bodies.
Smith is such an awesome teacher, in fact, that she recently received the 2015 Donald H. Graves Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing.
It had always been her dream to work with children in urban areas, so when Smith started teaching, she hit the ground running. She had her students making podcasts, and they had in-depth discussions about their readings on a cozy carpet.
But in her acceptance speech for her award, she made it clear that it took a turning point in her career before she really got it:
"Things changed for me the day when, during a classroom discussion, one of my kids bluntly told me I "couldn't understand because I was a white lady." I had to agree with him. I sat there and tried to speak openly about how I could never fully understand and went home and cried, because my children knew about white privilege before I did. The closest I could ever come was empathy."
Smith knew that just acknowledging her white privilege wasn't enough.
She wanted to move beyond just empathy and find a way to take some real action that would make a difference for her students.
She kept the same innovative and engaging teaching methods, but she totally revamped her curriculum to include works by people who looked like her students. She also carved out more time to discuss issues that her students were facing, such as xenophobia and racism.
And that effort? Absolutely worth it.
As she said in her acceptance speech:
"We studied the works of Sandra Cisneros, Pam Munoz Ryan, and Gary Soto, with the intertwined Spanish language and Latino culture — so fluent and deep in the memories of my kids that I saw light in their eyes I had never seen before."
The changes Smith made in her classroom make a whole lot of sense. And they're easy enough for teachers everywhere to make:
— They studied the work of historical Latino figures, with some of the original Spanish language included. Many children of color are growing up in bilingual households. In 2007, 55.4 million Americans 5 years of age and older spoke a language other than English at home.
— They analyzed the vision of America that great writers of color sought to create. And her students realized that our country still isn't quite living up to its ideals. Despite progress toward racial equality with the end of laws that enforced slavery or segregation, we still have a long way to go. Black people still fare worse than white people when it comes to things like wealth, unfair arrests, and health.
— They read excerpts from contemporary writers of color, like Ta-Nehisi Coates who writes about race. Her students are reading and learning from a diverse group of writers. No small thing when they live in a society that overwhelmingly gives more attention to white male writers (and where the number of employees of color in the newspaper industry stagnates at a paltry 12%).
— They read about the Syrian crisis, and many students wrote about journeys across the border in their family history for class. The opportunity particularly struck one student; the assignment touched him so much that he cried. He never had a teacher honor the journey his family made. And he was proud of his heritage for the first time ever. "One child cried," Smith shared, "and told me he never had a teacher who honored the journey his family took to the United States. He told me he was not ashamed anymore, but instead proud of the sacrifice his parents made for him."
Opportunities like this will only increase as the number of children from immigrant families is steadily increasing. As of 2013, almost 17.4 million children under 18 have at least one immigrant parent.
Smith now identifies not just as an English teacher, but as a social justice teacher.
Teaching in a racially and ethnically diverse world.
Photo by John Pike. Used with permission.
Smith's successful shift in her teaching is an example for teachers everywhere, especially as our schools become increasingly ethnically and racially diverse. About 80% of American teachers are white. But as of last year, the majority of K-12 students in public schools are now children of color.
As America's demographics change, we need to work on creating work that reflects the experiences that our students relate to. And a more diverse curriculum isn't just important for students of color. It's vital for everyone.
As Smith put it, "We, the teachers, are responsible for instilling empathy and understanding in the hearts of all kids. We are responsible for the future of this country."
This article originally appeared on 12.07.15