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All hail the mocktail: Growing demand makes non-alcoholic socializing a lot more fun

Sober bars and events are growing in popularity with delicious, grown-up alternatives to alcohol.

non-alcoholic drinks, mocktails

Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash

Non-alcoholic drinks go way beyond club sodas and Shirley Temples.

For as long as there's been alcohol, there have been people who don't drink it. Some don't care for the taste, some don't like the buzz, some have religious prohibitions against it and some are recovering addicts who need to avoid it altogether.

Whatever reasons people have for not drinking, there's an unspoken attitude by some that they're missing out on a key part of social culture, especially when countless movies and TV shows portrays people winding down (or wooing one another) with wine and bonding over beers at bars. There's an air of camaraderie over sharing a cocktail or clinking champagne flutes together that's hard to capture with a basic Coke or sparkling water.

But what if you want that fun, social atmosphere without the alcohol? What if you want to go out and have fancy, alcohol-free drinks with your friends at night without being surrounded by drunk people? Where do you go for that?

Big cities like New York and Los Angeles have seen non-alcoholic options increasing on menus for a while, but the trend has spread to smaller cities and expanded to full bars, pop-up events and retail shops dedicated to sober drinking.

In fact, the Mindful Drinking Fest held on January 21 in Washington D.C. was sold out, as over 300 attendees sampled all manner of non-alcoholic beers, wines and mixed drinks. One of the event's organizers, award-winning bartender Derek Brown, told NPR that not drinking isn't actually new. Early bartending manuals all included plenty of non-alcoholic drinks, but post-Prohibition, the temperance movement took a hit. "People stopped treating people who don't drink alcohol like adults," he said.

\u201cThe secret to great non-alcoholic beverage programs: treat people who order NA cocktails like adults. https://t.co/5N4BHhJkAG @AmyZeats @SevenFiftyDaily\u201d
— Derek Brown (@Derek Brown) 1674657656

Now temperance appears to be making a comeback with the younger generations of adults. A 2016 Heineken survey discovered that 75% of Millennials purposefully limited their alcohol intake on nights out, and Gen Zers across high-income Western nations are reportedly drinking far less than their elders. According to The Conversation, there's a handful of reasons younger folks are far more "sober curious" than their parents were, including a sense of responsibility about their futures, greater consciousness about wellness, a better understanding of the health risks of even small amounts of alcohol and shifting attitudes about what's cool.

But young folks aren't the only ones hopping on the sobriety train. Even as the pandemic saw a spike in heavy drinking, it also caused a lot of people to examine their relationship with alcohol. With annual traditions like "Dry January" and "Sober October" growing in popularity, people are at least trying out the alcohol-free life for a while—what Brown refers to as an "alcoholiday."

This growing demand for alternatives to alcohol is driving alcohol-free establishments with clever names such as Absence of Proof, Sans Bar, Spirited Away and more to pop up all over the place. And we're not just talking about Shirley Temples or virgin daiquiris here. Today's alcohol-free mixed drinks are far more sophisticated, with new distilled spirits, bitters, and other ingredients creating complex flavors without a sickeningly high sugar content.

Abby Ehmann owned a regular bar in New York and enjoyed her regular customers, but also saw the devasting impacts alcohol had on some of her patrons. So she opened a sober bar named Hekate in 2022. "I wanted to create that sort of vibe and community for people, but take alcohol out of the equation," she told NBC News. "Here we have the community and the vibe without the booze."

The culture around drinking is slowly but surely changing, and the success of events like the Mindful Drinking Fest and sober bars seems to be proving that alcohol isn't the necessary social lubricant many believe it to be.

As Brown told NPR, "All the positive emotions we associate with alcohol—they come from just being with people and tasting delicious, wonderful things," he said. "You don't really need alcohol."

Cheers to that.

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4 simple hacks to help you meet your healthy eating goals

Trying to eat healthier? Try these 4 totally doable tricks.

Photo by Anna Pelzer on Unsplash

Most of us want to eat healthier but need some help to make it happen.

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When it comes to choosing what to eat, we live in a uniquely challenging era. Never before have humans known more about nutrition and how to eat for optimal health, and yet we’ve never been more surrounded by distractions and temptations that derail us from making healthy choices.

Some people might be able to decide “I’m going to eat healthier!” and do so without any problem, but those folks are unicorns. Most of us know what we should do, but need a little help making it happen—like some simple hacks, tips and tricks for avoiding pitfalls on the road to healthier eating.

While recognizing that what works for one person may not work for another, here are some helpful habits and approaches that might help you move closer to your healthy eating goals.

man pulling chip out of a chip bag Our mouths loves chips. Our bodies not so much.Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

Goal: Snack on less junk food

Tip: Focus your willpower on the grocery store, not your home

Willpower is a limited commodity for most of us, and it is no match for a bag of potato chips sitting on top of the fridge. It’s just a fact. Channeling your willpower at the grocery store can save you from having to fight that battle at home. If you don’t bring chips into your house in the first place, you’ll find it a lot easier to reach for something healthier.

The key to successful shopping trips is to always go to the store with a specific list and a full stomach—you’ll feel much less tempted to buy the junky snack foods if you’re already satiated. Also, finding healthier alternatives that will still satisfy your cravings for salty or crunchy, or fatty foods helps. Sugar snap peas have a surprisingly satisfying crunch, apples and nut butter hit that sweet-and-salty craving, etc.

slice of cake You can eat well without giving up sweets completely.Photo by Caitlyn de Wild on Unsplash

Goal: Eat less sugar

Tip: Instead of “deprive,” think “delay” or “decrease and delight”

Sugar is a tricky one. Some people find it easier to cut out added sugars altogether, but that can create an all-or-nothing mindset that all too often results in “all.” Eating more whole foods and less processed foods can help us cut out a lot of ancillary sugar, but we still live in a world with birthday cakes and dessert courses.

One approach to dessert temptation is to delay instead of deprive. Tell yourself you can have any sweet you want…tomorrow. This mental trick flips the “I’ll just indulge today and start eating healthier tomorrow” idea on its head. It’s a lot easier to resist something you know you can have tomorrow than to say no to something you think you’ll never get to have again.

Another approach when you really want to enjoy a dessert at that moment is to decrease the amount and really truly savor it. Eat each bite slowly, delighting in the full taste and satisfaction of it. As soon as that delight starts to diminish, even a little, stop eating. You’ve gotten what you wanted out of it. You don’t have to finish it. (After all, you can always have more tomorrow!)

A naturally colorful meal is a healthy meal.Photo by Anna Pelzer on Unsplash

Goal: Eat healthier meals

Tip: Focus on fresh foods and plan meals ahead of time

Meal planning is easier than ever before. The internet is filled with countless tools—everything from recipes to shopping lists to meal planning apps—and it’s as awesome as it is overwhelming.

Planning ahead takes the guesswork and decision fatigue out of cooking, preventing the inevitable “Let’s just order a pizza.” You can have a repeating 3-week or 4-week menu of your favorite meals so you never have to think about what you’re going to eat, or you can meal plan once a week to try new recipes and keep things fresh.

It might help to designate one day a week to “shop and chop”—getting and prepping the ingredients for the week’s meals so they’re ready to go in your fridge or freezer.

Organic foods are better for the Earth and for us.Photo by andrew welch on Unsplash

Goal: Eat more organic/humanely raised food

Tip: Utilize the “dirty dozen” and “clean 15” lists to prioritize

Many people choose organic because they want to avoid pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals. Organic food is also better for the planet, and according to the Mayo Clinic, studies have shown that organic produce is higher in certain nutrients.

Most people don’t buy everything organic, but there are some foods that should take priority over others. Each year, researchers from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) analyze thousands of samples of dozens of fruits and vegetables. From this data, they create a list of the “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” fruits and vegetables, indicating what produce has the most and least pesticide residue. These lists give people a good place to start focusing their transition to more organic foods.

To make organic eating even simpler, you can shop O Organics® at your local Albertsons or Safeway stores. The O Organics brand offers a wide range of affordable USDA-certified organic products in every aisle. If you’re focusing on fresh foods, O Organics produce is always grown without synthetic pesticides, is farmed to conserve biodiversity, and is always non-GMO. All animal-based O Organics products are certified humane as well. Even switching part of your grocery list to organic can make a positive impact on the planet and the people you feed.

Healthy eating habits don’t have to be all or nothing, and they don’t have to be complicated. A few simple mindset changes at home and habit changes at the grocery store can make a big difference.

Teacher brilliantly turns getting her period in front of her class into a teaching moment

"That boy who emailed...his parents must be incredible."

Emily Elizabeth|TikTok and Cliff Booth|Canva

Teacher starts period in front of class, turns into a lesson

Teachers are almost always teaching even when it's not in their lesson plan.

Those that were born to be teachers find teachable moments everywhere and one woman found herself in one of those moments. Though this one was likely just a bit more personal than she probably would've liked.

Emily Elizabeth posted a TikTok video about how she found herself in a predicament in front of her classroom full of 10 and 11-year-old kids. The teacher explained that she was noticing a lot of commotion and whispering among the little girls in her class while she was wearing white pants. After reminding the girls to stay on task, the whispering continued, prompting Emily to be more direct.

That's when one of the girls asked to speak with her privately dropping the bomb that no one that gets periods wants to hear in public.

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teacher starts period

Child-free man's criticism of mom staring at phone while ignoring her son at the park sparks debate

"Are you guys that attached to your phones?"

via MarioMirante/TikTok and Ladislav Stercell/Unsplash

Mario Mirante criticizes a mom he saw at the park.

TikTokker Mario Mirante is going viral for his video that brings up two significant issues: smartphone addiction and whether people without children have the right to criticize parents.

It all started when Mirante saw a young boy playing alone in the park.

“The kid is just playing quietly, not being annoying. I don’t hear a peep from him; he's just doing his thing on the playground,” Mirante said in a video that has nearly 6000,000 views. “The mom the entire time is on her phone, staring right down at her screen. Doesn’t look up one time.”

The boy climbed up to the top of the slide and called down to his mother, who didn’t even look up from her phone. “I hear, ‘Hey mom, watch. Watch, Mom,’” Mirante recalled. “And at the top of her lungs, shrieking like a Velociraptor, this mother screams, ‘One second!”

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Watch this 104-yr-old woman break the world tandem skydiving record

Dorothy Hoffner tried skydiving for the first time on her 100th birthday and loved it.

@skydivechicago/Instagram

Dorothy Hoffner is pure #agingoals.

If you're looking for some aging inspiration, look no further, because Dorothy Hoffner is about to blow your mind.

At 104, Hoffner just became the oldest person to parachute out of an airplane in a tandem skydive. That's right, skydive. At 104 years old—or to be exact, 104 years and 289 days old—beating the previous world record set by a 103-year-old in Sweden in May of 2022.

But it's actually even more impressive than that. It's not like Hoffner is someone who's been skydiving since she was young and just happened to keep on doing it as she got older. She actually didn't go on her first skydiving adventure until her 100th birthday.

On Oct 1, 2023, she joined the team at Skydive Chicago in Ottawa, Illinois, for the world-breaking tandem skydive. Though she uses a walker to get around, she manages the physical toll of plummeting through the air at 10,000+ feet before parachuting to a skidding stop strapped to a certified U.S. Parachute Association (USPA) tandem instructor with impressive ease.

“Let’s go, let’s go, Geronimo!” Hoffner said after she boarded the plane, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Watch her do what many of us would be too terrified to attempt:

See on Instagram

The way she rolls right out of that plane cool as a cucumber! Hoffner told the Tribune that on her first skydive, at age 100, she had to be pushed out of the plane. But this time, knowing what she was in for, she took charge with calm confidence.

“Skydiving is a wonderful experience, and it’s nothing to be afraid of," Hoffner shares. "Just do it!”

That's some seriously sage advice from someone who knows firsthand that age really is just a number. Learn more about skydiving with Skydive Chicago here.

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1956 commercial shows that refrigerators back then were more advanced than they are today

We "modern" folks don't even have all of these luxuries.

Vintage Fanatic/YouTube

Can we bring back some 50s fridge features, please?

There are very few things that would make people nostalgic for the 1950s. Sure, they had cool cars and pearl necklaces were a staple, but that time frame had its fair share of problems, even if "Grease" made it look dreamy. Whether you believe your life would've been way more interesting if you were Danny Zuko or not, most would agree their technology was...lacking.

All eras are "advanced" for their time, but imagine being dropped off in the 50s as someone from the year 2023. A recent post by Historic Vids on Twitter of a 1956 commercial advertising a refrigerator, however, has some people thinking that when it came to fridges, maybe they were living in the year 2056. I don't typically swoon over appliances, yet this one has me wondering where I can purchase a refrigerator like this.

Of course, there's no fancy touch screen that tells you the weather and asks how you'd like your ice cubed. It's got more important features that are actually practical.

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1950s appliances