The Best New Pantry Staples in Grocery Stores This Year
Spice up your cupboard!
We selected 11 updated basics in the PEOPLE Food Awards that will help you cook dinnertime magic. Stock your cabinet with a 'faster than takeout' microwaveable meal, a tangy boxed macaroni and cheese and bake sale-championing brownie mix.
Lawry's Seasoned Cajun Seasoning
Turn up the volume on everything from meat and seafood to vegetables and tofu with this bold, Southern-inspired blend of paprika, red pepper, garlic and onion.
Buy it! $6, mccormick.com
Patak's Madras Yellow Dal
The Indian comfort dish of 'luxuriously silky' lentils cooked in curry-spiced coconut milk is a 'weeknight dinner dream,' said one staffer. Ladle it over hot basmati rice or with naan for scooping.
Buy it! $4, amazon.com
Bob's Red Mill Fudgy Brownie Baking Mix
Just add eggs, butter and water to this pre-measured, 'can't mess up' kit. 'The top was perfectly crinkly and the inside was so rich and decadent,' one tester said.
Buy it! $4.50, shoprite.com
Kraft Ranch Flavored Mac & Cheese
Testers raved about the 'true buttermilk flavor' with garlic, onion and herbs that 'added a grown-up twist' without 'losing the comforting taste' of the classic.
Buy it! $2, target.com
Tasty Bite Butter Chickpea & Vegetables
Pop the pouch of garbanzo beans, corn and spiced tomato sauce in the microwave for 60 seconds. 'Faster than ordering Indian take-out!' said a tester.
Buy it! $3.50, walmart.com
Barilla Al Bronzo Orecchiette
The slightly bumpy, ridged texture of these bowl-shaped noodles helps absorb and hold on to even the chunkiest sauces and ingredients.
Buy it! $3.50, shoprite.com
Swanson Spicy Chicken Broth
For a kick of heat, add the chipotle pepper-spiced broth to your soups and stews and when simmering rice—or simply sip on it hot from a mug. Yes, it's tasty enough to drink it straight.
Buy it! $3 for 32 oz., stopandshop.com
Fly By Jing Chili Crisp Noodles
Striking the right balance of spicy and tongue-numbing tingliness, the sun-dried (not fried) noodles cook up springy and ready to be tossed in the Chinese Sichuan pepper sauce.
Buy it! $30 for 6, flybyjing.com
Bonne Maman Peanut Chocolate Spread
Lightly roasted peanuts and cocoa powder come together in this 'impossibly creamy' spread. 'We dollopped it on ice cream and smothered it on toast—but, most often, I ate it right out of the jar with a spoon,' said a tester.
Buy it! $6.50, acmemarkets.com
Diamond of California Pecan Pie Crust
Nutty and gluten-free, it was a hit for both savory and sweet bakes—like quiches, cheesecakes and tarts. 'It made my pecan pie recipe taste even pecan-ier,' one staffer said.
Buy it! $5, walmart.com
Stouffer's Supreme Shells & Cheese Three Cheese
The brand's first boxed kit 'doesn't skimp on the cheesiness' with a creamy gouda, white cheddar and Parmesan sauce and 'plump' pasta that 'traps the sauce inside.'
Buy it! $4, target.com
Read the original article on People
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Lifelong Learning: UWG Begins Three-Year Partnership With The Birches on Maple
CARROLLTON, Ga., June 06, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At the University of West Georgia, collaboration and partnership are cornerstones of a thriving and engaged community. Through a new three-year agreement with The Birches on Maple, a 55+ living community developed in partnership with Tanner Health, UWG will offer residents meaningful cultural experiences, educational programming and new ways to engage with the institution. Designed to foster lifelong learning and creativity, the partnership includes an exciting calendar of annual activities for Birches residents and augments an already robust offering of engaging outings and experiences – curated by the community's onsite Lifestyle Director and Activities Director. It also builds on Tanner's Get Healthy, Live Well program, which provides a variety of classes and resources that strengthen the connection between healthy habits and personal well-being. Each year, residents will have the opportunity to take part in a curated international trip centered on the arts and culture of a specific region. These trips, which are thoughtfully planned to be both fun and educational, are safe and all-inclusive. The inaugural adventure will take travelers to Italy to explore Italian history, art and culture through a variety of immersive experiences. "Travel is a powerful way to spark curiosity, build community, and deepen our understanding of the world," said Brandy Barker, UWG's chief creative officer and assistant vice president for placemaking. "By connecting global experiences with UWG's academic strengths, we're creating something truly unique for residents of The Birches." In addition to global travel, the collaboration brings the best of UWG directly to The Birches. Over the course of each year, UWG will host six creative workshops and six lectures on-site, offering opportunities for residents to explore topics ranging from memoir-writing and history of Southern language to gardening, painting and archeology. These sessions will be led by UWG faculty, staff and experts in their respective fields. "We're thrilled about the partnership with UWG and what it means for our residents," said Wayne Senfeld, executive vice president at Tanner Health. "We know that staying physically and mentally active is a vital aspect of overall well-being, and we're excited for our seniors at The Birches on Maple to be able to engage in these special events and learning opportunities. They will undoubtedly provide them with another outlet for creativity, social interaction, education and — most importantly — fun." This relationship doesn't end at The Birches. Residents will be hosted on campus throughout the year, including events overlooking RA-LIN Field in University Stadium during home UWG football games, reserved seating at home men's and women's basketball games and opportunities to attend campus lectures, holiday events and more. Adding to the beauty and inspiration of the community, each year will also see the installation of two new public art pieces at The Birches, developed in collaboration with UWG. "The relationship between Tanner and the University of West Georgia is so important," said Loy Howard, president and CEO of Tanner Health. "We work together in countless ways to give back to and support the local community – and what we're doing at The Birches is no different. This partnership will enrich the lives of these residents, allowing them to make the most of this next phase of their lives, and will help to create a stronger, healthier community for all." As UWG continues to expand its commitment to placemaking and community engagement, partnerships like this one with The Birches on Maple demonstrate how higher education can play a role in enhancing quality of life for people of all ages. "At the heart of this partnership is a belief in the power of experiences to inspire discovery and connection," said Dr. Ashwani Monga, UWG's interim president. "By bringing the university's academic offerings and experiential learning activities into the daily lives of The Birches residents, we're creating opportunities for lifelong learning for members of the Carrollton community." View source version on Contacts Tray Lowerytrlowery@ 770-812-6180
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
US health care is rife with high costs and deep inequities, and that's no accident – a public health historian explains how the system was shaped to serve profit and politicians
A few years ago, a student in my history of public health course asked why her mother couldn't afford insulin without insurance, despite having a full-time job. I told her what I've come to believe: The U.S. health care system was deliberately built this way. People often hear that health care in America is dysfunctional – too expensive, too complex and too inequitable. But dysfunction implies failure. What if the real problem is that the system is functioning exactly as it was designed to? Understanding this legacy is key to explaining not only why reform has failed repeatedly, but why change remains so difficult. I am a historian of public health with experience researching oral health access and health care disparities in the Deep South. My work focuses on how historical policy choices continue to shape the systems we rely on today. By tracing the roots of today's system and all its problems, it's easier to understand why American health care looks the way it does and what it will take to reform it into a system that provides high-quality, affordable care for all. Only by confronting how profit, politics and prejudice have shaped the current system can Americans imagine and demand something different. My research and that of many others show that today's high costs, deep inequities and fragmented care are predictable features developed from decades of policy choices that prioritized profit over people, entrenched racial and regional hierarchies, and treated health care as a commodity rather than a public good. Over the past century, U.S. health care developed not from a shared vision of universal care, but from compromises that prioritized private markets, protected racial hierarchies and elevated individual responsibility over collective well-being. Employer-based insurance emerged in the 1940s, not from a commitment to worker health but from a tax policy workaround during wartime wage freezes. The federal government allowed employers to offer health benefits tax-free, incentivizing coverage while sidestepping nationalized care. This decision bound health access to employment status, a structure that is still dominant today. In contrast, many other countries with employer-provided insurance pair it with robust public options, ensuring that access is not tied solely to a job. In 1965, Medicare and Medicaid programs greatly expanded public health infrastructure. Unfortunately, they also reinforced and deepened existing inequalities. Medicare, a federally administered program for people over 64, primarily benefited wealthier Americans who had access to stable, formal employment and employer-based insurance during their working years. Medicaid, designed by Congress as a joint federal-state program, is aimed at the poor, including many people with disabilities. The combination of federal and state oversight resulted in 50 different programs with widely variable eligibility, coverage and quality. Southern lawmakers, in particular, fought for this decentralization. Fearing federal oversight of public health spending and civil rights enforcement, they sought to maintain control over who received benefits. Historians have shown that these efforts were primarily designed to restrict access to health care benefits along racial lines during the Jim Crow period of time. Today, that legacy is painfully visible. States that chose not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are overwhelmingly located in the South and include several with large Black populations. Nearly 1 in 4 uninsured Black adults are uninsured because they fall into the coverage gap – unable to access affordable health insurance – they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to receive subsidies through the Affordable Care Act's marketplace. The system's architecture also discourages care aimed at prevention. Because Medicaid's scope is limited and inconsistent, preventive care screenings, dental cleanings and chronic disease management often fall through the cracks. That leads to costlier, later-stage care that further burdens hospitals and patients alike. Meanwhile, cultural attitudes around concepts like 'rugged individualism' and 'freedom of choice' have long been deployed to resist public solutions. In the postwar decades, while European nations built national health care systems, the U.S. reinforced a market-driven approach. Publicly funded systems were increasingly portrayed by American politicians and industry leaders as threats to individual freedom – often dismissed as 'socialized medicine' or signs of creeping socialism. In 1961, for example, Ronald Reagan recorded a 10-minute LP titled 'Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine,' which was distributed by the American Medical Association as part of a national effort to block Medicare. The health care system's administrative complexity ballooned beginning in the 1960s, driven by the rise of state-run Medicaid programs, private insurers and increasingly fragmented billing systems. Patients were expected to navigate opaque billing codes, networks and formularies, all while trying to treat, manage and prevent illness. In my view, and that of other scholars, this isn't accidental but rather a form of profitable confusion built into the system to benefit insurers and intermediaries. Even well-meaning reforms have been built atop this structure. The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, expanded access to health insurance but preserved many of the system's underlying inequities. And by subsidizing private insurers rather than creating a public option, the law reinforced the central role of private companies in the health care system. The public option – a government-run insurance plan intended to compete with private insurers and expand coverage – was ultimately stripped from the Affordable Care Act during negotiations due to political opposition from both Republicans and moderate Democrats. When the U.S. Supreme Court made it optional in 2012 for states to offer expanded Medicaid coverage to low-income adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level, it amplified the very inequalities that the ACA sought to reduce. These decisions have consequences. In states like Alabama, an estimated 220,000 adults remain uninsured due to the Medicaid coverage gap – the most recent year for which reliable data is available – highlighting the ongoing impact of the state's refusal to expand Medicaid. In addition, rural hospitals have closed, patients forgo care, and entire counties lack practicing OB/GYNs or dentists. And when people do get care – especially in states where many remain uninsured – they can amass medical debt that can upend their lives. All of this is compounded by chronic disinvestment in public health. Federal funding for emergency preparedness has declined for years, and local health departments are underfunded and understaffed. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how brittle the infrastructure is – especially in low-income and rural communities, where overwhelmed clinics, delayed testing, limited hospital capacity, and higher mortality rates exposed the deadly consequences of neglect. Change is hard not because reformers haven't tried before, but because the system serves the very interests it was designed to serve. Insurers profit from obscurity – networks that shift, formularies that confuse, billing codes that few can decipher. Providers profit from a fee-for-service model that rewards quantity over quality, procedure over prevention. Politicians reap campaign contributions and avoid blame through delegation, diffusion and plausible deniability. This is not an accidental web of dysfunction. It is a system that transforms complexity into capital, bureaucracy into barriers. Patients – especially the uninsured and underinsured – are left to make impossible choices: delay treatment or take on debt, ration medication or skip checkups, trust the health care system or go without. Meanwhile, I believe the rhetoric of choice and freedom disguises how constrained most people's options really are. Other countries show us that alternatives are possible. Systems in Germany, France and Canada vary widely in structure, but all prioritize universal access and transparency. Understanding what the U.S. health care system is designed to do – rather than assuming it is failing unintentionally – is a necessary first step toward considering meaningful change. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Zachary W. Schulz, Auburn University Read more: Buyouts can bring relief from medical debt, but they're far from a cure Public health and private equity: What the Walgreens buyout could mean for the future of pharmacy care Migrants often can't access US health care until they are critically ill – here are some of the barriers they face Zachary W. Schulz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Business Journals
8 hours ago
- Business Journals
Soul food restaurant Mz Jade's opens third location in Cincinnati suburb, owner teases new concept
Mz Jade's Soul Food specializes in homestyle Southern cooking. The restaurant has just opened its third location in the region.
