A good homemade food should earn its place in your routine. It needs to taste noticeably better, cost less over time, or give you control that store-bought versions cannot.

That is why the smartest make-or-buy decisions are not about romance. They are about flavor, labor, safety, and whether your kitchen can realistically beat what a manufacturer already does well.

The homemade foods that truly pay you back

Bread is still one of the clearest DIY wins. A basic loaf relies on inexpensive pantry staples, and even when energy costs are factored in, home bakers can turn out bread with a better crust, softer crumb, and fewer additives than many packaged supermarket loaves. The bigger payoff is freshness: bread is one of the few foods that drops in quality almost immediately after purchase, which makes a warm homemade loaf feel like a different category altogether.

Yogurt is another smart homemade staple, especially for households that eat it often. University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension notes that yogurt can be made at home with ordinary kitchen tools and is often less expensive than buying it ready-made. It also lets you control sweetness and texture, which matters when many flavored retail cups are padded with added sugars, stabilizers, or expensive branding rather than better dairy.

Granola and salad dressing are smaller projects with outsized rewards. Homemade granola lets you decide whether the mix is oat-heavy, nut-heavy, lightly sweetened, or clustered, and Iowa State Extension recipes show how inexpensive the base formula can be when oats do most of the work. Salad dressing may be the simplest win of all: oil, acid, mustard, herbs, and salt beat many bottled versions on flavor, while avoiding the stale taste that comes from long shelf life.

The foods where homemade quality clearly beats the shelf

Tomato sauce deserves the saucepan. When you make it yourself, you can push it toward sweetness, acidity, richness, or brightness depending on the tomatoes and how long you cook them. Store-bought sauce is convenient, but it often tastes standardized by design. A homemade pot can also be batch-cooked and frozen, making the time investment easier to justify on a busy weeknight.

Pesto is worth making fresh for one simple reason: aroma. The moment basil, garlic, nuts, cheese, and olive oil are crushed together, the result has a fragrance and color that jarred pesto rarely matches. Extension food preservation guidance consistently advises freezing pesto rather than canning it, because there are no research-tested home canning recommendations for typical pesto formulas. That makes pesto an ideal make-now, freeze-later food instead of a pantry project.

Pie crust and whipped cream round out the homemade list because both are highly sensitive to freshness and handling. A homemade pie crust can be flakier and more buttery than frozen or refrigerated alternatives, while whipped cream made minutes before serving tastes cleaner and richer than shelf-stable tubs. These are not everyday necessities, but when dessert matters, technique beats packaging.

The foods you should just buy and never feel guilty about it

Mayonnaise is the clearest buy, not make, for most people. FDA food safety guidance warns that homemade mayonnaise made with raw eggs can be risky, while commercial mayonnaise uses pasteurized eggs and controlled manufacturing. Store brands also deliver stable emulsification and long refrigerated life after opening, which is difficult to match consistently at home without specialty ingredients or careful handling.

Puff pastry belongs on the buy list for a different reason: labor. True puff pastry requires repeated rolling, folding, chilling, and strict temperature control to create hundreds of layers. Good frozen versions are reliable and dramatically reduce effort, making them one of the most rational shortcuts in the freezer aisle. This is exactly the kind of product industrial precision handles better than a home schedule.

Crackers and dry pasta are also usually smarter purchases than projects. Both require a lot of repetitive work for a product that is often cheap, widely available, and highly consistent when bought. Homemade pasta can be wonderful for special occasions, but dried boxed pasta is hard to beat on value, shelf life, and convenience. The best rule is simple: make foods where freshness transforms the result, and buy the ones where manufacturing solves the harder problem.

Most people build a grocery list from recipes. Smart shoppers do the reverse.

The better strategy is to start by “shopping” your own kitchen first, then planning meals around what needs to be used, what is already stocked, and only then deciding what to buy.

Start With Inventory, Not Inspiration

A recipe-first list feels organized, but it often creates duplicates. You buy another onion when three are already in the drawer, another bag of spinach when the first one is fading, or another carton of broth while one sits half-used in the fridge. That is how food budgets quietly leak money.

A pantry-first approach fixes that by making inventory the first step. Check the refrigerator, freezer, and dry goods shelf before writing a single item down. Note what is abundant, what is running low, and what needs to be eaten soon. Recent advice from the FDA on cutting food waste specifically recommends planning meals, using shopping lists, and avoiding impulse or bulk purchases of highly perishable foods like produce and dairy.

This strategy also has evidence behind it. A 2024 study on household food waste found that careful weekly meal planning can reduce waste while improving cost and nutrition outcomes. ReFED’s 2026 food waste report also points to better grocery shopping, meal planning, and home food management as meaningful levers for reducing residential food waste.

What matters is not culinary ambition. What matters is sequence. When your list begins with inventory, every later decision becomes sharper: what meals make sense, what substitutions are easy, and what purchases are actually necessary.

Build Meals Around Shelf Life and Flexibility

Once you know what is on hand, the next step is not picking the most exciting dinner. It is sorting food by urgency. Use delicate items first, including berries, salad greens, fresh herbs, mushrooms, and opened dairy. Save longer-lasting ingredients such as carrots, cabbage, potatoes, beans, pasta, rice, and frozen vegetables for later in the week.

This is where practical shoppers outperform aspirational ones. Instead of buying ingredients for five tightly scripted meals, they create a loose framework. One roast chicken can become tacos, grain bowls, soup, or sandwiches. A bunch of scallions can work in eggs, stir-fry, baked potatoes, and salads. The point is flexibility, not repetition.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics advises shoppers to think in food groups and buy only the fresh produce they realistically need for the week. That aligns with food safety guidance from the FDA, which stresses proper storage, using covered containers, and checking leftovers daily for spoilage.

This shelf-life mindset also protects against the classic midweek collapse. If schedules change, a rigid recipe plan breaks. A flexible list built around perishability and overlap keeps meals possible even when life gets messy.

Buy the Missing Pieces, Then Protect the Food You Paid For

After inventory and meal mapping, the grocery list becomes shorter and smarter. You are no longer buying full meal identities; you are buying missing pieces. Maybe you have rice, frozen broccoli, and chicken, so all you need is garlic and lemons. Maybe a can of beans, tortillas, and salsa mean dinner is already halfway done.

That shift matters because grocery inflation may ease in broad averages while individual categories still swing month to month, according to USDA Economic Research Service data. In that environment, the most effective savings habit is often not chasing every sale. It is reducing unnecessary purchases and preventing the food you already bought from being wasted.

Protection after checkout is part of the same system. The FDA advises washing produce under running water before eating or prepping it, keeping produce separate from raw meat, and freezing foods you will not use in time. Freezing does not meaningfully change a food’s protein value, and it remains one of the simplest ways to stretch ingredients safely.

The smartest shoppers understand that the list is not the beginning of the process. It is the final edit. By the time you get to the store, your kitchen should already have told you what belongs in the cart.

Across the U.S., weight-loss advice remains a major part of the food and health conversation, even as obesity, ultra-processed foods and diet-related disease continue to shape household habits. That broader debate narrowed on August 17, 2026, when NPR’s Fresh Air featured Harvard paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman discussing why people are biologically drawn to fat and other calorie-dense foods. His central point was straightforward: the same evolutionary traits that once helped humans survive scarcity can complicate dieting in a modern food environment built around constant access.

Daniel Lieberman says human evolution helps explain fat cravings

Daniel Lieberman, a Harvard professor of human evolutionary biology and author of Fed Up: What Evolution Reveals About Food, Diet, Health, and Eating Well, said in NPR’s August 17 interview that evolution often works against weight-loss efforts. NPR identified him in the segment as a paleoanthropologist discussing why dieting is difficult and why contradictory nutrition advice can leave consumers confused. The interview was published August 17, 2026, and focused on how human biology shapes eating behavior.

Lieberman’s argument is that humans did not evolve in a setting where rich foods were constantly available. In that context, a preference for fat made biological sense because fat is energy-dense and could help people store calories when food was uncertain. Harvard’s coverage of Lieberman’s book this month similarly described his project as an effort to explain how humans evolved to eat and why modern diets create confusion.

That helps explain why simple diet rules can break down in practice. If the brain is primed to value calorie-dense food, reducing intake is not only a matter of information or discipline. Lieberman said the body and brain can respond to dieting in ways that make long-term weight loss harder, a point that places cravings in a biological framework rather than a purely behavioral one.

What the science means for Americans trying to diet now

For U.S. consumers, the immediate takeaway is not that fat is uniquely harmful or that one branded diet has solved the problem. The confirmed point from Lieberman’s interview is narrower: cravings for rich foods reflect an evolutionary history that does not match the modern grocery aisle, restaurant market or snack economy. The interview did not present a state-by-state impact breakdown, and no public dataset tied the discussion to any one U.S. region.

What is known is that this mismatch matters in everyday dieting. Americans trying to lose weight are often navigating a food environment where highly palatable foods are cheap, visible and heavily marketed. Lieberman’s discussion, along with recent podcast summaries of his book, emphasized that the challenge is not only calories on paper but also how the brain responds to abundance, reward and routine.

What remains less certain is how much any one person can infer about an individual diet plan from the interview alone. Lieberman did not announce a new federal guideline, product change or clinical recommendation. Instead, the discussion added context to an established public-health problem: many people understand diet advice in theory, but sustaining it can be difficult when appetite systems evolved for scarcity, not surplus.

Why experts say dieting advice often collides with biology

The broader context is that modern diet culture often assumes people can override appetite with the right rule set, but Lieberman’s work argues that biology is a major part of the story. According to Harvard’s description of Fed Up, the book draws on evolutionary biology, anthropology and medical science to explain why food, health and dieting are so contested. That framing shifts the conversation away from short-term willpower alone.

Lieberman has also criticized the search for a single “optimal” diet, according to summaries of his recent media appearances. Those accounts said he has discussed the limits of rigid approaches such as all-meat, keto, paleo or similarly narrow plans when they are marketed as universal answers. His reported view is that humans are adaptable eaters, but modern food systems can exploit built-in preferences for fat, sugar and convenience.

For readers, the practical implication is that difficulty resisting high-fat foods may reflect normal biology interacting with an unusually permissive food environment. The August 17 NPR interview did not suggest that dieting is futile, but it did frame weight loss as more complicated than a slogan. The most concrete forward-looking point from Lieberman’s current book promotion is that better eating strategies may depend less on fad rules and more on understanding how appetite evolved in the first place.

Independent restaurants across California continue to face pressure from higher operating costs, shifting customer habits, and tougher competition from off-premise food businesses. In Los Angeles, that pressure is now ending a 34-year run for Sky’s Gourmet Tacos, a Mid-City restaurant that helped make its soul food-influenced tacos a local staple.

Sky’s Gourmet Tacos said it will close its Pico Boulevard restaurant after 34 years

Sky’s Gourmet Tacos confirmed that its restaurant on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles will close permanently on Aug. 15 after 34 years in business. The Los Angeles Times reported on July 29, 2026, that owner Barbara “Sky” Burrell announced the closure of the Mid-City landmark, which opened in 1992 and built a following for what Burrell has described as “Mexican with a splash of soul.”

The closure involves the restaurant’s long-running Pico Boulevard storefront, not a broader chainwide shutdown. According to the Los Angeles Times, Burrell said the full menu would remain available through Aug. 15 while the business winds down dine-in and takeout service at the location. She also said she is seeking a new space that would allow the company to continue in a catering-focused format.

The scale of the change is specific and verified: one well-known Los Angeles restaurant is ending service at its current home after more than three decades. Public reporting reviewed for this article does not indicate additional California storefront closures tied to the announcement, and the company has not released any broader statewide closure list.

The closure is centered on Mid-City Los Angeles, with no broader California location list released

What is confirmed is that the affected site is Sky’s Gourmet Tacos on Pico Boulevard in Mid-City Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times identified the restaurant as a neighborhood landmark and reported that Burrell plans to transition the business away from the current restaurant model and toward catering if she secures a new space.

What is not yet known is whether any future catering hub will remain in the same part of Los Angeles or reopen elsewhere in the city. The company has not released a detailed transition timeline beyond the Aug. 15 restaurant closing date, and it has not announced a new address. There is also no publicly confirmed list of other specific California cities affected by this decision.

The local impact is significant because the restaurant has been part of a changing Pico Boulevard business corridor. The Los Angeles Times noted that other longtime Black-owned restaurants in the area have also closed in recent years, including Roscoe’s Chicken n’ Waffles’ Pico location in January 2023 and My 2 Cents in 2025. In that context, Sky’s closure removes another established independent restaurant from a stretch of Mid-City that has seen visible turnover.

Burrell attributed the decision to costs, weaker traffic, and competition from ghost kitchens

Burrell told the Los Angeles Times that the decision was economic. She said the current restaurant model no longer made sense and pointed to a combination of rent and utility increases, reduced foot traffic, a changing restaurant industry, and growing competition from ghost kitchens.

Those factors align with pressures other California independents have cited in recent closure announcements. In Mountain View, for example, the owners of Los Portales said in January 2026 that fewer customers and higher food prices made it difficult to continue operating, reflecting the same cost-and-traffic squeeze confronting many small operators.

For customers, the practical takeaway is straightforward: the Pico Boulevard restaurant is scheduled to keep serving its regular menu through Aug. 15, after which the storefront will close. Burrell told the Los Angeles Times she intends to continue the business in a catering format if a new space is secured, so the brand itself is not necessarily disappearing even as the longtime Mid-City restaurant comes to an end.

Restaurant chains are still chasing growth in a market shaped by cautious consumer spending, regional brand loyalty, and demand for fresh formats. Into that backdrop, Chicken Salad Chick has landed at the top of a new national ranking that measures which emerging restaurant brands are gaining traction with consumers. The result gives one of the South’s fastest-expanding fast-casual concepts a new data point as it pushes deeper into markets outside its traditional footprint.

Chicken Salad Chick took the top spot in YouGov’s new study

Chicken Salad Chick ranked No. 1 in YouGov’s first 2026 U.S. emerging dining brands study, according to reporting by Nation’s Restaurant News and YouGov’s published overview of the new research. Nation’s Restaurant News reported that the Atlanta-based chain posted an Emerging Momentum score of 83.2, ahead of No. 2 Cook Out at 75.3 and No. 3 Just Salad at 72.9. The top five also included Nothing Bundt Cakes and KPOT Korean BBQ & Hot Pot.

The study screened 70 emerging brands and advanced 34 chains that had reached at least 10% national awareness, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. YouGov said the full study measures more than recognition alone, evaluating consideration, brand impression, innovation, customer experience, and whether consumers see a brand as on the rise. That made the final list a broader test of consumer momentum rather than simple name familiarity.

Chicken Salad Chick stood out across those measures, with Nation’s Restaurant News reporting that 54% of aware consumers said the brand is bringing new ideas to foodservice and also viewed it as on the rise. The publication said the chain performed especially well on innovation and upward momentum. Those findings put a measurable number behind the brand’s fast expansion and growing national profile.

The ranking matters because the chain is moving beyond its Southern base

For readers across the South, the ranking reflects a chain that already has deep regional awareness and is now using that base to expand further. YouGov said Chicken Salad Chick reached 34.4% awareness in the South, compared with 19.1% nationally, showing that the brand’s recognition remains strongest in its home region even as it grows beyond it. That regional strength helps explain why the brand could score highly in a study built around consumer perception and momentum.

The company said on July 29 that it had more than 340 restaurants open nationwide and had reached 25 states with planned summer openings in Apple Valley, Minnesota, and Allentown, Pennsylvania. Chicken Salad Chick also said it opened 42 restaurants across 14 states in 2025 and sold another 52 restaurants during the first quarter of 2026. Those figures show that the ranking arrived during an active expansion stretch rather than after a quiet operating period.

What is not yet publicly detailed is a full market-by-market breakdown tied to the YouGov ranking itself. The company has not released a state-by-state list showing which existing markets contributed most to the score, and YouGov’s public materials do not identify performance by individual city. What is confirmed is that the brand’s strongest awareness remains in the South while its current growth strategy is extending into the Midwest and Northeast.

Expansion, awareness, and category positioning help explain the result

The ranking comes as chicken remains one of the restaurant industry’s most competitive categories, but Chicken Salad Chick is positioned differently from chains built around tenders, wings, or fried chicken. Nation’s Restaurant News noted that the chain ranked ahead of several better-known emerging players by leaning into a chicken-salad-centered menu that stands apart in fast casual. In practical terms, the concept benefits from clear category distinction at a time when many restaurant brands are competing for similar occasions.

YouGov’s own methodology points to why that matters. The firm said brands had to clear a 10% national awareness threshold to advance, then were assessed on measures including consideration, innovation, and whether consumers see them as rising. A chain that can combine a strong Southern base, a recognizable niche, and visible new-market openings is likely to perform well on those dimensions.

The company has described 2026 as a period of continued national growth, and its recent announcements show that it is still entering new territories rather than only densifying existing ones. For customers, that means the ranking is less about a one-day accolade than about the chain’s growing visibility in more U.S. markets. The practical takeaway is straightforward: Chicken Salad Chick’s No. 1 finish formalizes the momentum the brand has been building as it expands beyond the South.

Some of the best food in America was born when money was tight and waste was unacceptable. These recipes lasted because they were cheap, filling, and far better than their humble ingredient lists suggested.

Why “make-do cooking” still hits today

Frugal cooking was never just about deprivation. It was about technique: stretching protein, rescuing stale bread, and turning low-cost staples into meals with texture and depth. Smithsonian’s writing on lean-time eating and Depression-era food culture shows just how inventive home cooks became when dried beans, onions, potatoes, cornmeal, and scraps had to do the heavy lifting.

That is the world that gave us dishes like beans and cornbread, potato soup, fried cabbage and noodles, milk toast, bread pudding, rice pudding, salmon patties, tomato gravy, creamed chipped beef on toast, and skillet hash. None of them needed luxury ingredients. Most relied on bulk staples, leftovers, or preserved foods that could sit in the pantry and wait.

There is solid nutritional logic behind that old wisdom. USDA nutrition guidance notes that beans deliver protein, fiber, iron, potassium, and other key nutrients, which helps explain why they anchored so many low-cost meals. A pot of beans with cornbread was not trendy “plant-forward” eating. It was dinner, and it worked.

Stale bread was another secret weapon. King Arthur Baking points out that bread pudding remains one of the classic ways to transform old bread into something rich and comforting. National Geographic has also highlighted how many cultures built signature dishes from leftovers rather than treating them as waste. Grandparents did not “upcycle.” They simply knew better than to throw away perfectly usable food.

The 10 recipes that prove less can taste like more

Beans and cornbread may be the purest example of thrift meeting satisfaction. Dried beans were cheap, shelf-stable, and filling, while cornbread came together from cornmeal, fat, salt, and leavening. Add onion, a ham hock if you had one, or even just pepper, and dinner was set.

Potato soup, skillet hash, and fried potatoes with onions all came from the same principle: the potato is endlessly stretchable. A little milk, broth, bacon drippings, or flour could turn it creamy, crisp, or hearty. That flexibility made potatoes a cornerstone of working-class kitchens for generations.

Then came the bread savers: milk toast, tomato gravy over toast, bread pudding, and rice pudding. These were texture-driven foods, not just filler. Soft custard, browned edges, and savory gravies made them comforting enough that people still cook them by choice, not necessity.

The protein-stretchers rounded out the list. Salmon patties used canned fish, crumbs, and egg to become a full meal. Creamed chipped beef on toast turned preserved meat and white sauce into something substantial, while fried cabbage and noodles proved that butter, starch, and a brassica can punch far above their price point. Even today, these recipes feel less like relics and more like proof that seasoning and know-how beat expensive groceries.

What these recipes teach modern cooks

The first lesson is that cost control starts with pantry design. Keep dried beans, rice, flour, cornmeal, potatoes, onions, canned fish, pasta, and bread in circulation, and you can build half this list on demand. That is not nostalgia talking; it is efficient household management.

The second lesson is that waste reduction improves flavor as much as it saves money. Slightly stale bread absorbs custard better. Leftover potatoes fry better. Extra rice becomes pudding or supper the next day. National Geographic’s reporting on cooking with discards makes the same point: many beloved foods began as intelligent salvage, not compromise.

The third lesson is emotional, and it matters. These meals endured because they fed people reliably, but also because they created comfort during unstable times. According to National Geographic, Americans spend far less time cooking than they did in the mid-1960s, which makes these older, simple preparations feel newly relevant.

That is why these recipes still slap. They are cheap without feeling sad, practical without being joyless, and familiar without being boring. Your grandparents were not chasing authenticity or vintage charm. They were making dinner from almost nothing, and in the process, they built some of the most durable comfort food ever cooked.

Restaurant operators across the U.S. continue to rework footprints as large dining rooms become harder to justify amid shifting customer traffic and higher operating costs. In Glenview, Hackney’s has announced that its Lake Avenue restaurant, a long-running family destination on the North Shore, will close in early September after 71 years. The move ends a decades-long run for one of the Chicago area’s best-known family-owned restaurant names at that address.

Hackney’s confirms the Lake Avenue closure after 71 years

Hackney’s announced on August 8 that its Lake Avenue restaurant at 1514 East Lake Avenue in Glenview will permanently close in early September after 71 years, according to the company’s public statement as reported by CBS Chicago and Patch. The business did not provide a final day of service, but it said the closure will take effect at the beginning of September. The restaurant has operated in that building since 1955, giving the site its 71-year run in 2026.

The closure affects one specific Glenview restaurant, not the entire Hackney’s business. Patch reported that the Masterson family, which has owned Hackney’s since 1939, is consolidating activity around the Harms Road location rather than shutting down the brand. CEO Mike Masterson said the company plans to focus on what he described as a re-energized customer experience at the remaining Glenview restaurant.

Hackney’s also confirmed that renovation work is underway at Hackney’s on Harms, located at 1241 Harms Road in Glenview. According to Patch, interior construction began July 27 and is scheduled to continue through August 27, with updates to the bar, lobby, and booths. During that work, the indoor bar and dining room are closed, while the patio and kitchen remain open.

What is confirmed in Glenview, and what has not been released

The confirmed Illinois impact is centered on Glenview. The Lake Avenue restaurant at 1514 East Lake Avenue is the location set to close, while the Harms Road restaurant at 1241 Harms Road remains open and is being updated, according to Hackney’s website and local reports. No other Illinois city was identified in the company’s current closure announcement.

What is not yet known is the exact final operating date for the Lake Avenue site. CBS Chicago reported that the owners did not give a specific date beyond saying the restaurant will close in early September. The company also has not released staffing figures tied to the closure, so the number of workers affected has not been publicly confirmed.

The company likewise has not released a broader state-by-state breakdown because the current announcement concerns a single Illinois location. For readers in Glenview, the practical takeaway is that the Lake Avenue address is winding down while the Harms Road restaurant continues service during renovations. Customers can still order from the Harms location, and the company has publicly directed Lake Avenue diners there as the next chapter of the business moves forward.

The company says changing dining habits drove the decision

Hackney’s tied the closure directly to changing restaurant usage patterns. In comments reported by Patch, Mike Masterson said a 700-seat restaurant fit the market in the 1960s but no longer fits how customers use restaurants in 2026. That statement is the clearest explanation the company has given for why the Lake Avenue site is closing now after surviving for generations.

The decision also reflects a strategy of concentrating investment in one updated property rather than operating two nearby Glenview locations. Patch reported that the company is modernizing the Harms Road restaurant while preserving its longtime character, and Masterson said the goal is a classic but updated look. That suggests the family is repositioning the business around a smaller, refreshed footprint instead of maintaining the much larger Lake Avenue dining room.

For customers and residents, the immediate expectation is continuity at Harms Road rather than a full disappearance of the brand from Glenview. Hackney’s said it hopes Lake Avenue customers will continue visiting the Harms location, which is about a mile and a half away. The company’s public message framed the closure as the end of one address, not the end of Hackney’s in Illinois.

Plant-based meat companies have spent years trying to replicate the color, flavor, and nutrition that animal proteins bring to conventional meat. Now a new study has narrowed that challenge to a specific ingredient: myoglobin, the oxygen-binding protein that helps give meat its color and some of its taste, and researchers say they have grown it inside two plants few shoppers would associate with meat production.

Researchers produced a meat protein in two crop plants

Scientists at Imperial College London and collaborators reported in Frontiers in Plant Science on August 6, 2026, that they stably produced porcine myoglobin in the chloroplasts of cultivated tobacco and lettuce plants. According to the peer-reviewed paper, the team generated one transplastomic tobacco line and one transplastomic lettuce line, and both plants maintained normal morphology, produced fertile flowers, and generated viable seeds under selection.

The paper states that myoglobin accumulated at about 2.8% of total soluble protein in tobacco and about 1.5% in lettuce, with a repeat tobacco measurement estimating 2.6%. The researchers also reported that the engineered protein appeared at the expected 17-kDa size and that tobacco-produced myoglobin was purified and analyzed for heme incorporation and absorbance characteristics associated with functional myoglobin.

The specific plants are notable because lettuce is an edible crop while tobacco is not typically linked to food production. The study says tobacco was used as a high-performing model system for chloroplast engineering, while lettuce offers a possible food ingredient platform if regulatory pathways eventually allow commercial use.

What the finding could mean for food production

The research does not describe a consumer product launch, a restaurant rollout, or a commercial manufacturing plant in any U.S. state. What is confirmed is that the work demonstrates stable myoglobin production in two higher plants, and that lettuce, in particular, could serve as a future crop-based platform for ingredients used in plant-based meat. The researchers have not announced a timeline for commercialization, and no public list of U.S. production sites or retail partners has been released.

That matters because most consumers currently encounter “meaty” plant-based ingredients through fermentation-based systems rather than crops grown specifically to express animal proteins. The paper itself notes Impossible Foods uses soy leghemoglobin produced in the yeast Komagataella pastoris, illustrating that the industry’s current model depends heavily on bioreactors and industrial fermentation.

The broader plant molecular farming sector is already testing other crops for similar uses. A June 2025 Good Food Institute fact sheet says IngredientWerks uses corn to express myoglobin, while Moolec Science has USDA approval to grow peas that can produce iron-rich bovine myoglobin. That places the lettuce-and-tobacco study within an expanding effort to shift some specialty food ingredient production into field or greenhouse crops.

Why scientists are trying plants instead of tanks

The main driver is cost and scale. According to the study, heterotrophic systems such as bacteria and yeast can produce myoglobin, but they remain constrained by expensive feedstocks, energy use, and reliance on bioreactors. Chloroplast transformation, the authors wrote, offers high transgene expression, many genome copies per cell, and limited gene dispersion compared with some other genetic engineering approaches.

The paper also ties the effort directly to sensory and nutritional gaps in meat alternatives. Myoglobin contains heme, which the researchers say contributes to meat’s red color, metallic and umami flavor notes, and a more bioavailable form of iron than the non-heme iron that dominates in plants. In practical terms, that means companies are not only chasing protein quantity but also the specific molecules that make beef and pork taste and look the way consumers expect.

For shoppers, the immediate takeaway is that this remains an early-stage ingredient story rather than a supermarket change. No national food safety regulator has yet approved a protein ingredient made through plant molecular farming for commercial sale, according to the Good Food Institute’s 2025 industry overview. The next steps, based on the study and industry briefings, are likely to focus on improving yields, confirming regulatory status, and determining whether edible crops like lettuce can move from lab proof-of-concept to food manufacturing.

The quick-service restaurant industry entered 2026 under pressure from higher menu prices, cautious consumer spending, and intensifying competition on service and value. That broader backdrop came into focus on June 16, when the American Customer Satisfaction Index reported that Chick-fil-A was no longer the top-rated chain in its national fast-food rankings after 11 consecutive years. The brand that moved ahead was Jersey Mike’s, a result that gives one of the country’s fastest-growing sandwich chains a new distinction in a closely watched industry survey.

Jersey Mike’s ended an 11-year streak in the 2026 rankings

Jersey Mike’s took the No. 1 position in the 2026 American Customer Satisfaction Index Restaurant and Food Delivery Study, according to the organization’s June 16 press release. ACSI said Jersey Mike’s debuted as the top-rated quick-service restaurant with a score of 84 on its 100-point scale, while Chick-fil-A posted an 83 and finished second. The study said overall quick-service restaurant satisfaction held at 79 for the third straight year.

That result ended Chick-fil-A’s 11-year run at the top of the ACSI quick-service category. ACSI’s prior restaurant study showed Chick-fil-A leading the segment in 2025 with an 83, which means its score did not fall year over year even though it lost the top spot. The shift came from Jersey Mike’s entering the ranking at a level above the former leader rather than from a measurable Chick-fil-A decline in the index.

The same 2026 benchmark placed Panda Express third at 81, followed by Starbucks, Arby’s and Panera Bread at 80, according to ACSI’s published results. The rankings are based on customer evaluations of factors including order accuracy, staff courtesy, speed, digital ordering and the cleanliness and layout of restaurants. In practical terms, the new ranking reflects relative gains by competitors in a year when the broader category was essentially flat.

The national result matters locally, even without city-by-city rankings

Because ACSI reports national brand-level scores, the result applies broadly across the United States rather than to one specific state or metro area. The index does not break out separate public rankings for individual cities, counties or states in the June 16 release, so there is no verified list showing where Jersey Mike’s outperformed Chick-fil-A on a local basis. That means readers should treat this as a national customer-satisfaction result, not as a confirmed change in standings for any one community.

What is confirmed is that both chains have substantial footprints across many U.S. markets, making the ranking relevant to a large share of restaurant customers. The ACSI study measures consumer sentiment across the quick-service category, so the change has significance for operators, franchisees and landlords even without neighborhood-level detail. It is also one of the more visible scorecards used to compare restaurant brands on service and consistency rather than just unit growth or revenue.

What is not yet known from the published ACSI materials is whether the same pattern appears evenly across suburban, urban and small-market trade areas. ACSI has not released a comprehensive city-by-city or state-by-state breakdown in the public-facing study materials tied to the June 16 announcement. As a result, no specific local market can be confirmed as the place where Chick-fil-A lost ground or where Jersey Mike’s gained the most.

Stable scores, higher prices and competition shaped the backdrop

ACSI attributed the broader restaurant picture to a consumer environment in which satisfaction has stabilized even as chains continue to compete on convenience, speed and perceived value. The organization said quick-service satisfaction remained unchanged at 79, suggesting the category as a whole is not seeing major across-the-board improvement. In that environment, a brand can move up by executing slightly better on the measures customers notice most.

Separate coverage of the ACSI findings noted that restaurant sales rose in 2025, but at a pace below menu-price inflation, indicating that topline gains were being helped more by higher prices than by stronger traffic. That matters for fast-food and fast-casual chains because customer satisfaction can become a differentiator when diners are making more selective visits. A brand that delivers reliable service and order accuracy may gain an edge even if consumer demand is not expanding quickly.

For customers, the immediate takeaway is straightforward: Chick-fil-A did not collapse in the rankings, and Jersey Mike’s did not win because the former leader posted a sharp drop. The June 16 ACSI results show Chick-fil-A holding at 83 while Jersey Mike’s entered at 84, a narrow but significant margin in a tightly bunched field. For now, the data points to a competitive market in which service quality remains a deciding factor and national brand leaders can change even when overall satisfaction barely moves.

Respiratory viruses continue to circulate year-round in the U.S., and federal health officials now track COVID-19 alongside flu and RSV as part of routine respiratory surveillance. As late-summer illness picks up again, the practical question for households is not whether a sniffle is “just a cold,” but when COVID-19 should still be considered part of the picture. The short answer from public health agencies is that the overlap is real, and symptoms alone do not reliably separate one from the other.

COVID and colds can look similar, but public health guidance still treats them differently

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says COVID-19 can cause a wide range of symptoms, including fever, cough, fatigue, sore throat, congestion, headache, muscle aches, and, in some cases, loss of taste or smell. CDC guidance on the common cold also notes that cold-like symptoms can overlap with illnesses caused by SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and RSV. That means a runny nose, sore throat, and congestion do not automatically point to a cold.

What makes COVID harder to sort out in real life is timing and severity. A cold often stays concentrated in the nose and throat, while COVID can also bring more systemic symptoms such as body aches, unusual fatigue, fever, or gastrointestinal symptoms, according to the CDC’s respiratory virus guidance. But the agency does not present any single symptom as definitive enough to rule COVID in or out.

That is why CDC treatment guidance for the common cold specifically says people with cold-like symptoms who suspect COVID-19 or flu should get tested, especially if they are at higher risk for severe illness. In other words, the official federal guidance is that symptom comparison can help frame suspicion, but it is not considered a substitute for testing when COVID remains plausible.

What is confirmed now, and what people in local communities should know

Nationally, CDC continues to publish COVID-19 respiratory virus activity levels, and the agency’s surveillance framework explicitly includes summer COVID activity rather than treating it as a winter-only illness. That is a key shift from earlier pandemic-era assumptions and one reason late-summer upticks still matter for schools, workplaces, restaurants, and households.

What is confirmed is that COVID remains in the CDC’s active respiratory monitoring system and that cold-like illness can require follow-up testing depending on symptoms and risk. What is not confirmed by symptoms alone is whether an individual case is definitely COVID, a rhinovirus cold, flu, RSV, or another respiratory infection. Public-facing federal guidance does not offer a symptom checklist that can diagnose one from the other without a test.

For residents, that means the practical distinction often comes down to whether someone has access to a current test and whether they are around older adults, immunocompromised relatives, or other higher-risk groups. The CDC’s broader respiratory guidance says people who are sick should take added precautions, especially when symptoms include fever, worsening cough, or signs of more serious illness.

Testing, expired kits, and why the distinction still matters for everyday decisions

The Food and Drug Administration continues to maintain an updated list of authorized at-home over-the-counter COVID-19 tests, and the agency says consumers should check whether a home test’s expiration date has been extended before throwing it away. That matters because many households still have older kits in a cabinet, and some remain usable beyond the printed date if they are part of an FDA-listed extension.

The distinction between COVID and a cold still affects decisions about testing, masking around vulnerable people, school or work attendance, and whether someone may be eligible for treatment if they are at higher risk. CDC guidance says emergency warning signs such as trouble breathing or chest pain require immediate medical attention, regardless of whether someone initially assumed they only had a cold.

For most people, the current federal message is straightforward: if symptoms are mild and stay limited, supportive care may be enough, but COVID should not be dismissed solely because an illness feels like an ordinary cold. As CDC and FDA guidance now reflects, the overlap is significant, the surveillance is ongoing, and testing remains the clearest way to separate COVID-19 from “just a cold.”