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05.22.13
Balance out heavy holiday eating with some lighter—but still delicious—fare.
Lighten your calorie load with some delicious, nutritious food between big holiday meals.
The holiday season has arrived with its cozy vibe, joyous celebrations and inevitable indulgences. From Thanksgiving feasts to Christmas cookie exchanges to Aunt Eva’s irresistible jelly donuts—not to mention leftover Halloween candy still lingering—fall and winter can feel like a non-stop gorge fest.
Total resistance is fairly futile—let’s be real—so it’s helpful to arm yourself with ways to mitigate the effects of eating-all-the-things around the holidays. Serving smaller amounts of rich, celebratory foods and focusing on slowly savoring the taste is one way. Another is to counteract those holiday calorie-bomb meals with some lighter fare in between.
Contrary to popular belief, eating “light” doesn’t have to be tasteless, boring or unsatisfying. And contrary to common practice, meals don’t have to fill an entire plate—especially when we’re trying to balance out heavy holiday eating.
It is possible to enjoy the bounties of the season while maintaining a healthy balance. Whether you prefer to eat low-carb or plant-based or gluten-free or everything under the sun, we’ve got you covered with these 10 easy, low-calorie meals from across the dietary spectrum.
Each of these recipes has less than 600 calories (most a lot less) per serving and can be made in less than 30 minutes. And Albertsons has made it easy to find O Organics® ingredients you can put right in your shopping cart to make prepping these meals even simpler.
Enjoy!
Not quite green eggs and ham, but closeAlbertsons
Ingredients:
1 (5 oz) pkg baby spinach
2 eggs
1 clove garlic
4 slices prosciutto
1/2 medium yellow onion
1 medium zucchini squash
1/8 cup butter, unsalted
1 pinch crushed red pepper
Find full instructions and shopping list here.
Get your cauliflower power on.Albertsons
1/2 medium head cauliflower
1 stick celery
1/4 small bunch fresh dill
8 oz. ham steak, boneless
1/2 shallot
1/4 tspblack pepper
1/4 tsp curry powder
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp garlic powder
3 Tbsp mayonnaise
1/8 tsp paprika
2 tsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
Find full instructions and shopping list here.
Plant-based food fan? This combo looks yums. Albertsons
1 avocado
1/2 English cucumber
1 (12 oz.) package extra firm tofu
1 Granny Smith apple
3 Tbsp (45 ml) Ranch dressing
1/2 (14 oz bag) shredded cabbage (coleslaw mix)
2 tsp chili powder
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
Find full instructions and shopping list here.
Sometimes you just gotta frittata.Albertsons
6 eggs
1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted
2 oz Parmesan cheese
1 red bell pepper
1/2 medium red onion
8 sundried tomatoes, oil-packed
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1/4 tsp salt
Find full instructions and shopping list here.
Caprese, if you please.Albertsons
3/4 lb chicken breasts, boneless skinless
1/2 small pkg fresh basil
1/2 (8 oz pkg) fresh mozzarella cheese
1 clove garlic
3 tomatoes
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
4 3/4 pinches black pepper
1 1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
3/4 tsp salt
Find full instructions and shopping list here.
These mushrooms look positively poppable.Albertsons
1/2 lb cremini mushrooms
1 clove garlic
1/2 (4 oz) log goat cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
2 sundried tomatoes, oil-packed
1 1/4 pinches crushed red pepper
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp Italian seasoning
2 pinches salt
Find full instructions and shopping list here.
Move over, avocado toast. English muffin pizzas have arrived.Albertsons
3 Tbsp (45 ml) basil pesto
2 English muffins
1/2 (4 oz) log goat cheese
1/2 pint grape tomatoes
3/4 pinch black pepper
2 pinches salt
Find full instructions and shopping list here.
This pita pocket packs a colorful punch.Albertsons
1/4 (8 oz) block cheddar cheese
1/2 bunch Italian (flat-leaf) parsley
4 oz oven roasted turkey breast, sliced
1/2 (12 oz) jar roasted red bell peppers
1 whole grain pita
3/4 pinch black pepper
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp mayonnaise
Find full instructions and shopping list here.
Did we say, "Move over, avocado toast?" What we meant was "Throw some prosciutto on it!" Albertsons
1 avocado
2 slices prosciutto
2 slices whole grain bread
1 5/8 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp onion powder
Find full instructions and shopping list here.
Vegetarian chili with a fall twistAlbertsons
2 (15 oz can) black beans
1/2 (8 oz ) block cheddar cheese
2 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
2 green bell peppers
1 small bunch green onions (scallions)
1 (15 oz) can pure pumpkin purée
1 medium yellow onion
1/2 tsp black pepper
5 7/8 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp cumin, ground
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp virgin coconut oil
Find full instructions and shopping list here.
For more delicious and nutritious recipes, visit albertsons.com/recipes.
This is what leadership should look like. 💯
Madalyn shared with her colleagues about her own mental health.
Madalyn Parker wanted to take a couple days off work. She didn't have the flu, nor did she have plans to be on a beach somewhere, sipping mojitos under a palm tree.
Parker lives with depression. And, she says, staying on top of her mental health is absolutely crucial.
"The bottom line is that mental health is health," she says over email. "My depression stops me from being productive at my job the same way a broken hand would slow me down since I wouldn't be able to type very well."
Madalyn Parker was honest with her colleagues about her situation.
Photo courtesy Madalyn Parker.
"Hopefully," she wrote to them, "I'll be back next week refreshed and back to 100%."
Soon after the message was sent, the CEO of Parker's company wrote back:
"Hey Madalyn,
I just wanted to personally thank you for sending emails like this. Every time you do, I use it as a reminder of the importance of using sick days for mental health — I can't believe this is not standard practice at all organizations. You are an example to us all, and help cut through the stigma so we can all bring our whole selves to work."
\u201cWhen the CEO responds to your out of the office email about taking sick leave for mental health and reaffirms your decision. \ud83d\udcaf\u201d— madalyn (@madalyn) 1498854569
The tweet, published on June 30, 2017, has since gone viral, amassing 45,000 likes and 16,000 retweets.
"It's nice to see some warm, fuzzy feelings pass around the internet for once," Parker says of the response to her tweet. "I've been absolutely blown away by the magnitude though. I didn't expect so much attention!"
Even more impressive than the tweet's reach, however, were the heartfelt responses it got.
"Thanks for giving me hope that I can find a job as I am," wrote one person, who opened up about living with panic attacks. "That is bloody incredible," chimed in another. "What a fantastic CEO you have."
That ignores an important distinction, Parker said — both in how we perceive sick days and vacation days and in how that time away from work is actually being spent.
"I took an entire month off to do partial hospitalization last summer and that was sick leave," she wrote back. "I still felt like I could use vacation time because I didn't use it and it's a separate concept."
They were even more surprised that the CEO thanked her for sharing her personal experience with caring for her mental health.
After all, there's still a great amount of stigma associated with mental illness in the workplace, which keeps many of us from speaking up to our colleagues when we need help or need a break to focus on ourselves. We fear being seen as "weak" or less committed to our work. We might even fear losing our job.
In a blog post on Medium, Congleton wrote about the need for more business leaders to prioritize paid sick leave, fight to curb the stigma surrounding mental illness in the workplace, and see their employees as people first.
"It's 2017. We are in a knowledge economy. Our jobs require us to execute at peak mental performance," Congleton wrote. "When an athlete is injured, they sit on the bench and recover. Let's get rid of the idea that somehow the brain is different."
This article originally appeared on 07.11.17
More than 60% of this city of 1.9 million people lives in government-subsidized housing.
Vienna, Austria, is the "world's most livable city."
My family recently spent a week exploring Vienna, Austria, getting a first-hand look at why it's been named "the world's most livable city" for 8 out of the past 10 years. As we enjoyed the efficient public transportation system and meandered the picturesque streets filled with gorgeous architecture, we did find ourselves thinking, "Yeah, we could live here."
Part of that feeling was prompted by the beauty of the place, but as we spent hours walking through the historic heart of the city, something else struck me. Unlike every other big city I've visited in recent years, I didn't see anyone sleeping on the sidewalk. No tents as makeshift homes set up anywhere. It was so striking, I kept wondering, "Where were all the homeless people?"
Vienna is home to 1.9 million people—more than twice the population of Seattle or Boston, where you can't walk for 5 minutes through downtown without seeing multiple people experiencing homelessness. I began to wonder if perhaps Vienna was a case of homelessness being shoved out of view into slums or something. But after digging a bit, I learned that Vienna does have some population. It just doesn't have the numbers or the homelessness problem problem that most modern large cities do, thanks to its 100-year-old approach to affordable housing.
In the late 19th century, Vienna faced a huge housing and economic crisis. It was bad, even contributing to a tragically young life expectancy in 1900.
To address the problem, from 1919 to 1934, the city poured tax revenue into public housing—but not like any public housing most of us have ever seen. Known as as Volkswohnungspaläste, or “people’s apartment palaces," the homes that were built were multi-story apartment blocks built with quality materials and beautified architectural details. They included green spaces and playgrounds and were built with easy access to medical facilities, schools, libraries, post offices and theater spaces.
The ideas was the government housing should be conducive to a good quality of life for all. And this novel concept has been at the heart of the approach to housing in Vienna ever since. Today, more than 60% of the Viennese population lives in government-subsidized housing and nearly nearly half of the housing market is city-owned flats or cooperative apartments. There is no stigma attached to public housing, which is interspersed throughout the city.
While other European cities began to privatize and commodify housing in the 1980s and 90s, Vienna held the course, viewing housing as a human right. And now it's being named the "world's most livable city" almost every year. Go figure.
In the fall of 2022, a delegation of 50 American tenant and homeless leaders, organizers, researchers, and elected officials visited Vienna to learn more about their social housing programs. Here were a few of their impressions they shared with "The Nation":
"The attitude there is so different than what we have in the United States. We have it ingrained that public things are supposed to be nasty, supposed to be the lowest of the low. But to see what we saw in Vienna, it was like, wow, it is achievable to have housing that is government-owned, for the people, and beautiful." – Julie Cohon, lead housing organizer at Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
"I work hard. And, I still don’t have a safe place to live. In Vienna, we saw regular people who had not only safe but beautiful spaces. [When we were touring Sonnwendviertel, a 5,500 apartment social housing development not far from the city’s main train station], I kept noticing a lot of kids. And we saw how space was really designed for them: lots of day care centers and beautiful, car-free streets. What we saw is when the profit motive is taken out of housing, it’s a game changer." – Dorca Reynoso, board member of the Met Council Action
"My main reflections from Vienna was how long the culture of housing for all has been in existence. The quality of social housing was also interesting: the Viennese government chose maintaining well-constructed buildings, rather than demolishing and rebuilding every 30 to 50 years. The very first municipal complex was built in 1924 and is still fully occupied today." – India Walton, senior adviser at the Working Families Party
Is it possible to apply what has been learned in Vienna over the past century to other places? Why not? Considering the unaffordability of housing in so many cities, it seems worth a try. Housing isn't the only thing that makes Vienna a highly livable city, but it definitely plays a huge role. When housing is reasonably desirable at every price point and people aren't worried about affording a nice roof over their heads, it's easier to address the other things that make life good. It at least seems like a good place to start.
Wow... just wow.
Under the sea...
But in case you're not, here's the gist: Moby Dick is the name of a huge albino sperm whale.
(Get your mind outta the gutter.)
OK, technically, the narrator Ishmael survives. So it's actually a happy ending (kind of)!
Illustration from an early edition of Moby-Dick
Image from Wikimedia Commons.
It's chock-full of beautiful passages and dense symbolism and deep thematic resonance and all those good things that earned it a top spot in the musty canon of important literature.
There's also a lot of mundane descriptions about the whaling trade as well (like, a lot). That's because it came out back when commercial whaling was still a thing we did.
A non-albino mother and baby sperm whale.
Photo by Gabriel Barathieu/Wikipedia.
In fact, humans used to hunt more than 50,000 whales each year to use for oil, meat, baleen, and oil. (Yes, I wrote oil twice.) Then, in 1946, the International Whaling Commission stepped in and said "Hey, wait a minute, guys. There's only a few handful of these majestic creatures left in the entire world, so maybe we should try to not kill them anymore?"
And even then, commercial whaling was still legal in some parts of the world until as recently as 1986.
Tail in the water.
Whale's tail pale ale GIF via GoPro/YouTube
What are the odds of that? Honestly it's hard to calculate since we can't exactly swim up to a bowhead and say, "Hey, how old are you?" and expect a response. (Also that's a rude question — jeez.)
Thanks to some thoughtful collaboration between researchers and traditional Inupiat whalers (who are still allowed to hunt for survival), scientists have used amino acids in the eyes of whales and harpoon fragments lodged in their carcasses to determine the age of these enormous animals — and they found at least three bowhead whales who were living prior to 1850.
Granted those are bowheads, not sperm whales like the fictional Moby Dick, (and none of them are albino, I think), but still. Pretty amazing, huh?
This bowhead is presumably in adolescence, given its apparent underwater moping.
GIF via National Geographic.
Barring these few centenarian leviathans, most of the whales still kickin' it today are between 20 and 70 years old. That's because most whale populations were reduced to 10% or less of their numbers between the 18th and 20th centuries, thanks to a few over-eager hunters (and by a few, I mean all of them).
Today, sperm whales are considered one of the most populous species of massive marine mammals; bowheads, on the other hand, are still in trouble, despite a 20% increase in population since the mid-1980s. Makes those few elderly bowheads that much more impressive, huh?
Southern Right Whales hangin' with a paddleboarder in the Great Australian Bight.
GIF via Jaimen Hudson.
We might not need to worry our real-life Captain Ahabs anymore, but our big aquatic buddies are still being threatened by industrialization — namely, from oil drilling in the Arctic and the Great Australian Bight.
In the off-chance that companies like Shell and BP manage not to spill millions of gallons of harmful crude oil into the water, the act of drilling alone is likely to maim or kill millions of animals, and the supposedly-safer sonic blasting will blow out their eardrums or worse.
This influx of industrialization also affects their migratory patterns — threatening not only the humans who depend on them, but also the entire marine ecosystem.
And I mean, c'mon — who would want to hurt this adorable face?
BOOP.
Image from Pixabay.
If you want another whale to make it to his two-hundred-and-eleventy-first birthday (which you should because I hear they throw great parties), then sign this petition to protect the waters from Big Oil and other industrial threats.
I guarantee Moby Dick will appreciate it.
This article originally appeared on 11.04.15
This should be every family's new tradition.
What a great way to ring in the holiday
For many of us, Christmas is that time of year when we come together with family members (both blood relatives and chosen tribes alike) that we don’t get to see all that often. It’s a time when sweet reunion meets silly merriment, if we’re lucky.
But sometimes, our normal traditions might put us in a rut, or maybe it’s a challenge to get everyone in a completely playful mood.
That’s where the Christmas Olympics come in.
Christmas Olympics are any combination of festive party games involving staples of the season—marshmallows, candy canes, Santa hats, you get the picture.
While it’s not difficult finding different versions of Christmas Olympics online, the Dell family might be the ultimate example of how to do it right.
Snow shovel—where participants use a spatula to scoop marshmallows up and into a bowl…while blindfolded.
Hungry Hungry Reindeer—yup, just like Hungry, Hungry, Hippo. Only this time, the “reindeer” are red solo cups that contestants wear on their hands as they try to snag the most marshmallows. Who knew that marshmallows could be such a versatile game prop?
Santa’s Sack Stack—red solos cups are placed in a line, and gamers have to stack them by blowing up a red balloon inside and moving them hands free. Beware: this one might make you lightheaded.
Candy Cane Fishing— four cups holding what looks like chocolate syrup at the bottom, along with four candy canes each, are placed onto a table. Using a candy cane palace in their mouth as a makeshift fish hook, competitors must fish out as many candy canes as possible. Probably best to wear a ponytail for this one, if you have long hair.
Watch below. There’s no denying each family member is having the time of their life.
Obviously one of the best things about these games is that they are so simple and super affordable. The most someone might spend is..what? Twenty bucks for the red solo cups? Plus people tend to buy a lot of these holiday items anyway, sometimes to a bit of excess, and they would have gone unused. Christmas Olympics are just a win-win for everyone…even those who lose.
And if you're looking for even more inspo, TikTok provides:
@jay_me_michele Try this Christmas game! #christmas #christmasolympics #christmasgames ♬ Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
@vnw1118 Holiday Olympic Games🎄 - Marshmellow grab (with straw only) - Candle blowing - Fast Walk - Stack cup, only using balloon #holidaygames #christmasolympics #familyfun #merrychristmas #marshmallow #balloon ♬ Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
@kolourmemisfit_24 Christmas olympics game ideas! #christmasgames #christmastiktok #christmasgameswithfamily #christmasolympics #gamestiktok #familygames ♬ Pop and bright Christmas songs - G-axis sound music
Have a holly, jolly, super silly Christmas this year, everyone.
He tried getting the school bus driver's attention but to no avail.
Driver stops traffic to help child up a snowbank on busy street
Snow doesn't stop school busses from running in northern states. Outside of a blizzard, the snow plows run early in the morning just in time for busses to collect little kids to take them to school. But while the roads may be cleared up and sidewalks shoveled, the discarded snow collects on the side of the road which creates an obstacle for people who need to get from the road to the sidewalk.
In a video uploaded to social media by Memezar, a school bus drops of two little boys right in front of a snowbank likely caused by snow plows. The older boy climbed up the snow bank just fine but the younger one was struggling and help from the other child just wasn't doing the trick.
It didn't seem as if the bus driver could see the child struggling or maybe assumed he would make it up the tiny snow mountain because the driver drove away. Taking away the only thing protecting the boy from traffic–the flashing stop sign.
A driver on the other side of the street could see the boy struggling and attempted to alert the bus driver but was unsuccessful. The bus drove away leaving the small child vulnerable as cars begin to speed by. But the quick-thinking concerned driver, blew his horn and put his own life at risk by using his own car to block traffic.
In no time the man scooped the boy up and placed him on the sidewalk next to the other child. Thanks to that kind stranger, the child left the situation uninjured and commenters can't get enough of the driver's actions.
"Thank you sir for taking time to help this boy. Bless you," one person says.
"I would be livid about the bus leaving my child on a road that busy without waiting until they are safely off the road. That man is wonderful and caring. Thank you," another commenter writes.
"Thank you for helping this Child. You have a kind heart," someone says.
The entire video is a roller coaster of emotions from watching the boy struggle to seeing him helped to safety. You can watch the whole thing below.
“It happens more than people would think! Glad I’m not alone!”
Lindsay and Caleb have an interesting history together.
In a story that would make a fantastic, albeit long, country song, Lindsay Brown and her husband Cade of Alabama have found love even though they are stepsiblings who were once banned from seeing each other by their parents.
Lindsay shared the dramatic saga on TikTok, where she has nearly 3,000 followers.
It all began in 2007 when Linday was 14 and Cade was 16, and the couple would secretly meet at her house. However, on the fourth night they were together, Lindsay’s mother walked in on them and Cade had to run out of the house in his birthday suit.
"He grabbed his keys, his phone, he did not grab his clothes,” Lindsay said in a TikTok post. “He ran through the yard, up the street to his truck naked. Then he drove home and snuck in his house naked and his parents never knew any of that happened."
After the incident, Lindsay’s mom reached out to Cade’s parents, who agreed the two shouldn’t see each other. The teens didn’t have a big problem with the ban, mainly because Cade had a girlfriend at the time.
@girl_meets_bro Timing is everything! #lovestory #foryoupage #marriage #hubby #real #truestory
Six years later, Lindsay was driving to a baseball game in Atlanta with her boyfriend and received a direct message on Facebook from Cade. The two began talking, and a week or two later, she went to see him and left her boyfriend.
This development didn’t go over well with Lindsay’s mom because Cade had a “troubled” life after high school, and she didn’t want her involved in the chaos. But that didn’t stop the two from spending time together. Eventually, Lindsay’s mom drove up to Cade’s father’s house, where the two stayed, to talk some sense into her.
The mother and Cade’s dad, Rusty, were both single and began talking “for a long time.”
Soon enough, Cade got into trouble and was incarcerated for a year. Wanting to start a new life, Lindsay joined the Air Force in Texas, but that didn't keep them apart for long. Lindsay began visiting Cade in prison and the two rekindled their love. At the same time, their parents started dating, and things were getting “hot and heavy” between them.
@girl_meets_bro Replying to @toddbrayfield415 #marriage #trending #viral #foryoupage #momsoftiktok #couplegoals #girlsbelike
When Cade got out in 2014, the couple moved in together, and after a few weeks, they "went up the road to the courthouse" and got married. Cade says it was out of "boredom." A little more than a year later, their parents also married, making Cade and Linday stepsiblings.
For the most part, things have gone well for the couple and their parents. "Our family has just blended real well, we're all happy,” Lindsay said. “They never would have got married if it wasn't for us."
After sharing their story, Lindsay learned that this type of family arrangement is more common than most people think. “It happened to my brother and his wife! They got married, and then our dad married her mom like 5 years later. best sister in law/step sister ever,” Spirit Hager wrote. “I know someone who married a guy she was with for years then years later his dad and her mom married, so same situation,” Skiddermama_748h added.
@girl_meets_bro Grand Finale! #momsoftiktok #couplegoals #storytime