Latest news with #AnnaGragert
CNET
5 days ago
- CNET
This $50 Electric Toothbrush Replaced My Stolen $200 One Without a Hitch
CNET's key takeaways The $50 Oral-B Pro 1000 Electric Toothbrush works just as well as my previous $200 toothbrush. The Pro 1000 has three modes, a 2-minute brushing timer and a pressure sensor. Though it doesn't come with an app or more smart features, I enjoy its simplicity. The last time I visited a friend in San Francisco, a thief broke into their car and stole my luggage. Inside it, I had my precious $200 electric toothbrush, which I'd reviewed at a previous job and didn't have to pay for. I had to quickly find a replacement, and on my own, $200 was not in the budget. I ended up buying the Oral-B Pro 1000 Electric Toothbrush, which is just $50, and I've been using and loving it ever since. As part of CNET's best electric toothbrush of 2025 testing, the Oral-B Pro 100 earned both editor's choice and "best overall" awards. After several years of testing this toothbrush on my own, I can see why. Even though it's a quarter of the price of my old toothbrush, I don't miss the pricey one at all. My experience with the Oral-B Pro 100 While the expensive toothbrush came with an app, more settings, a glass cup that charged the toothbrush and a travel case, I actually prefer the Oral-B Pro 1000's simplicity. It's easier to use and doesn't take up as much space. It has one daily cleaning mode, along with sensitive and whitening modes. There is also a 2-minute timer that reminds you to move to different mouth quadrants every 30 seconds. The Oral-B Pro 1000 has everything I could possibly want from an electric toothbrush: a brushing timer, pressure sensor, affordable brush head replacements ($14 for a pack of three) and a compact, travel-friendly charger. The battery life is an impressive 10 days, and the toothbrush will even alert you when its battery is low. Best of all, it has the American Dental Association's Seal of Acceptance, meaning it has fulfilled the ADA's safety and efficacy requirements. Anna Gragert/CNET Though the Oral-B Pro 1000 doesn't come with a travel case like my old toothbrush, I can still toss it in my suitcase or backpack with a toothbrush head cover, which you can typically find for under $5 and reuse. I just give mine a good cleaning with dish soap and water in between my travels. The specs Modes: 3 (daily clean, whitening and sensitive) 3 (daily clean, whitening and sensitive) Features: 2-minute brushing timer, pressure sensor 2-minute brushing timer, pressure sensor Battery life: 10 days 10 days Certifications: ADA seal of acceptance ADA seal of acceptance Brush head replacements: $14 for a three-pack $14 for a three-pack Dimensions: 4.37x2.17x9.96 inches 4.37x2.17x9.96 inches Weight: 9.28 ounces CNET's buying advice
CNET
12-07-2025
- Health
- CNET
I Tried MyFitnessPal's New Meal Planner Feature and Was Pleasantly Surprised by the Healthy Recipes
CNET's expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise. Anna Gragert/CNET You're likely familiar with MyFitnessPal as an app that tracks your food intake, allowing you to log calories, weight, exercise, sleep and more. But the app's new features make it clear that it really does seem to want to be the type of fitness pal who's there for you during every step of your quest for healthy food, from planning to grocery shopping to eating. In April, MyFitnessPal announced its in-app meal planner, a tool that creates a custom meal plan for ordering groceries directly from e-retailers like Instacart. As a wellness editor who writes about new health trends and technology, I was curious to see if this feature is worth the extra $8.34 per month (after a one-month free trial) for MyFitnessPal's Premium Plus membership. Though the company gave me access and provided an Instacart gift card so I could test the feature, all opinions are my own. How does MyFitnessPal's meal planner work? I was impressed with how many different factors this meal planner uses to curate your meal plan. It asks you about your calorie target, macro targets (carbohydrate, protein and fat percentages or grams), dislikes, allergies, liked and disliked cuisines, and sides you would enjoy. To calculate your calorie target, you provide your sex, age, height, current weight, goal weight and activity level. To narrow down your plan even more, the feature asks about which meals you need help planning, who's in your household and their diet, how often you plan to make food versus eat leftovers, recipe types you like, prep time you have available, your budget, how you like to split up your daily calories and your "approach" or diet plan. You can specify calories, allergies, prep time, budget and more. Anna Gragert/CNET For your diet approach, there are 10 you can choose from: Paleo Vegan Mediterranean Whole-food focus Low-carb Keto Vegetarian Flexitarian Balanced Pescatarian What my MyFitnessPal meal plan looked like For my plan, I selected a vegetarian approach and asked for five dinner recipes with two extra nights of leftovers and three lunches over the course of seven days. You can plan from two to 15 days and include breakfast or snacks, but I had those covered. Each dinner and lunch came with a side from a list I preselected of different options. You can review each part of your plan and make swaps before it's finalized. What my meal planner looked like for two days of dinners. Anna Gragert/CNET This was my plan: Day 1 dinner: Bean and cheese burrito bowl with Mexican salad and a tortilla Bean and cheese burrito bowl with Mexican salad and a tortilla Day 2 dinner: Burrito bowl leftovers Burrito bowl leftovers Day 3 dinner: Cauliflower curry with glazed carrots and rice Cauliflower curry with glazed carrots and rice Day 4 dinner: Curry leftovers Curry leftovers Day 5 lunch: Walnut peach salad with cheddar cheese cubes and whole grain crackers Walnut peach salad with cheddar cheese cubes and whole grain crackers Day 5 dinner: Mushroom pasta with sautéed spinach Mushroom pasta with sautéed spinach Day 6 lunch: More walnut peach salad More walnut peach salad Day 6 dinner: Baked broccoli mac with glazed carrots Baked broccoli mac with glazed carrots Day 7 lunch: Hummus avocado sandwich with cucumber slices and whole grain crackers Hummus avocado sandwich with cucumber slices and whole grain crackers Day 7 dinner: Lentil chili stuffed sweet potatoes with sautéed spinach Each recipe is already portioned out for your household. You can view the calories, net carbs, fiber, protein, fat and sodium. If you have a food diary on MyFitnessPal, you can also easily log each recipe right in the app. The lentil chili-stuffed sweet potato with sautéed spinach Anna Gragert/CNET How to order groceries on MyFitnessPal Once you have your meal plan set, you can select what you have or don't have in your pantry based on a list of what's needed. You can also let the meal planner know when you plan to buy groceries so it can send you a reminder. In your meal planner section, there are two tabs: Meal Planner and Groceries. Under the latter, you can see all the ingredients and amounts you will need for the plan. You can add to this list and share it. Then, when you're ready, you click the shop button and can choose from the following retailers: Instacart (the only one available for Android) Walmart Kroger stores Whole Foods Amazon Fresh When you pick your retailer, you're automatically redirected to its platform, where your groceries are added to the cart for you. At this point, I recommend double-checking that you have all the ingredients you need before checking out. I'm not sure if it was the app or I just missed it, but a few of the ingredients I needed didn't end up in my order. While writing this, I also did another test run and noticed that traditional refried beans, which sneakily contain lard, were added to my cart even though I selected a vegetarian diet. You can check off what you already have in your pantry. Anna Gragert/CNET If you're particular about which brands you buy, I would check your cart to make sure you're getting what you want to purchase. I also found it helpful to check the cart because I didn't include an exhaustive list of all my dislikes when setting up the plan, and some of the foods I avoid made it in there. For instance, I don't drink dairy milk, so I had to manually switch that out for a plant-based option. I imagine the more you use the meal planner and note what you like and dislike, the more tailored your plans will become over time. How did MyFitnessPal's recipes taste? To be honest, I was skeptical about these recipes at first. Any time a recipe is labeled as healthy or part of a specific diet, like vegetarian or vegan, I'm always concerned that the dish will compensate by cutting back on flavor. However, that wasn't the case here. The bean and cheese burrito bowl with Mexican salad and a tortilla Anna Gragert/CNET I enjoyed the taste of all the meals, found that the recipe time was accurate and appreciated how simple the sides were. I especially liked that the recipes include measurements during every step of the process, so you don't have to scroll back up to the ingredients list. The broccoli mac with leftover peach salad on the side Anna Gragert/CNET MyFitnessPal meal planner pros Makes meal planning easy and less time-consuming for your specific diet or health goals Gets extremely specific with dislikes, diet, household, leftovers, allergies and more Nutrition tracking is built in Groceries automatically get added to your cart at major online retailers You can share your meal plan and recipes with other household members who don't have the app With Premium+, you have additional features like logging with barcodes, meal scanning and voice logging You get a one-month free trial for Premium Plus Provides healthy recipes that actually taste good for 10 different diets You can log your meals in your food diary What a meal plan looks like on the app. Anna Gragert/CNET MyFitnessPal meal planner cons It is part of the Premium Plus plan, which is $8.34 per month and may not be in budget for some MyFitnessPal has both a Premium and Premium Plus plan, which is a bit confusing You still have to double-check your grocery list to make sure all items are added and work within your preferences You may end up with extra ingredients since it goes by what is available at your designated store Would I recommend MyFitnessPal's meal planner? Overall, I genuinely enjoyed using MyFitnessPal's meal planner. I loved being able to meal-plan for my specific diet and then automatically have my groceries generated and added to Instacart. Even though I know it will make my life easier in the long run, I find meal planning intimidating, so having an app do the work for me is ideal. I plan to continue using this feature in the future, but will double-check my groceries before checking out and continue to home in on my ingredient dislikes to better tailor the recipes to my tastes.
CNET
10-07-2025
- Health
- CNET
I Tried MyFitnessPal's New Feature and It Helped Me Plan Healthy Meals That Actually Taste Good
CNET's expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise. Anna Gragert/CNET The MyFitnessPal app is known for its food-tracking features, which allow you to log calories, macros, micronutrients, weight, exercise, sleep and more. But its continually added new features make it clear that the app really does want to be the type of pal who's there for you during every step of your eating journey. At the end of April, MyFitnessPal announced its in-app Meal Planner, a tool that creates a custom meal plan you can use to order groceries directly from e-retailers like Instacart. As a wellness editor who writes about new health trends and technology, I was curious to see if this feature is worth the extra $8.34 per month (after a one-month free trial) for MyFitnessPal's Premium Plus membership. Though the company gave me access and provided an Instacart gift card so I could test the feature, all opinions are my own. How does MyFitnessPal's Meal Planner work? I was impressed with how many different factors Meal Planner uses to curate your meal plan. It asks you about your calorie target, macro targets (carbohydrate, protein and fat percentages or grams), dislikes, allergies, liked and disliked cuisines, and sides you would enjoy. To calculate your calorie target, you provide your sex, age, height, current weight, goal weight and activity level. To narrow down your plan even more, the feature asks about which meals you need help planning, who's in your household and their diet, how often you plan to make food versus eat leftovers, recipe types you like, prep time you have available, your budget, how you like to split up your daily calories and your "approach" or diet plan. You can specify calories, allergies, prep time, budget and more. Anna Gragert/CNET For your diet approach, there are 10 you can choose from: Paleo Vegan Mediterranean Whole-food focus Low-carb Keto Vegetarian Flexitarian Balanced Pescatarian What my MyFitnessPal meal plan looked like For my plan, I selected a vegetarian approach and asked for five dinner recipes with two extra nights of leftovers and three lunches over the course of seven days. You can plan from two to 15 days and include breakfast or snacks, but I had those covered. Each dinner and lunch came with a side from a list I preselected of different options. You can review each part of your plan and make swaps before it's finalized. What my Meal Planner looked like for two days of dinners. Anna Gragert/CNET This was my plan: Day 1 dinner: Bean and cheese burrito bowl with Mexican salad and a tortilla Bean and cheese burrito bowl with Mexican salad and a tortilla Day 2 dinner: Burrito bowl leftovers Burrito bowl leftovers Day 3 dinner: Cauliflower curry with glazed carrots and rice Cauliflower curry with glazed carrots and rice Day 4 dinner: Curry leftovers Curry leftovers Day 5 lunch: Walnut peach salad with cheddar cheese cubes and whole grain crackers Walnut peach salad with cheddar cheese cubes and whole grain crackers Day 5 dinner: Mushroom pasta with sautéed spinach Mushroom pasta with sautéed spinach Day 6 lunch: More walnut peach salad More walnut peach salad Day 6 dinner: Baked broccoli mac with glazed carrots Baked broccoli mac with glazed carrots Day 7 lunch: Hummus avocado sandwich with cucumber slices and whole grain crackers Hummus avocado sandwich with cucumber slices and whole grain crackers Day 7 dinner: Lentil chili stuffed sweet potatoes with sautéed spinach Each recipe is already portioned out for your household. You can view the calories, net carbs, fiber, protein, fat and sodium. If you have a food diary on MyFitnessPal, you can also easily log each recipe right in the app. The lentil chili-stuffed sweet potato with sautéed spinach Anna Gragert/CNET How to order groceries on MyFitnessPal Once you have your meal plan set, you can select what you have or don't have in your pantry based on a list of what's needed. You can also let the Meal Planner know when you plan to buy groceries so it can send you a reminder. In your Meal Planner section, there are two tabs: Meal Planner and Groceries. Under the latter, you can see all the ingredients and amounts you will need for the plan. You can add to this list and share it. Then, when you're ready, you click the shop button and can choose from the following retailers: Instacart (the only one available for Android) Walmart Kroger stores Whole Foods Amazon Fresh When you pick your retailer, you're automatically redirected to its platform, where your groceries are added to the cart for you. At this point, I recommend double-checking that you have all the ingredients you need before checking out. I'm not sure if it was the app or I just missed it, but a few of the ingredients I needed didn't end up in my order. While writing this, I also did another test run and noticed that traditional refried beans, which sneakily contain lard, were added to my cart even though I selected a vegetarian diet. You can check off what you already have in your pantry. Anna Gragert/CNET If you're particular about which brands you buy, I would check your cart to make sure you're getting what you want to purchase. I also found it helpful to check the cart because I didn't include an exhaustive list of all my dislikes when setting up the plan, and some of the foods I avoid made it in there. For instance, I don't drink dairy milk, so I had to manually switch that out for a plant-based option. I imagine the more you use the Meal Planner and note what you like and dislike, the more tailored your plans will become over time. How did MyFitnessPal's recipes taste? To be honest, I was skeptical about these recipes at first. Any time a recipe is labeled as healthy or part of a specific diet, like vegetarian or vegan, I'm always concerned that the dish will compensate by cutting back on flavor. However, that wasn't the case here. The bean and cheese burrito bowl with Mexican salad and a tortilla Anna Gragert/CNET I enjoyed the taste of all the meals, found that the recipe time was accurate and appreciated how simple the sides were. I especially liked that the recipes include measurements during every step of the process, so you don't have to scroll back up to the ingredients list. The broccoli mac with leftover peach salad on the side Anna Gragert/CNET MyFitnessPal Meal Planner pros Makes meal planning easy and less time-consuming for your specific diet or health goals Gets extremely specific with dislikes, diet, household, leftovers, allergies and more Nutrition tracking is built in Groceries automatically get added to your cart at major online retailers You can share your meal plan and recipes with other household members who don't have the app With Premium+, you have additional features like logging with barcodes, meal scanning and voice logging You get a one-month free trial for Premium Plus Provides healthy recipes that actually taste good for 10 different diets You can log your meals in your food diary What a meal plan looks like on the app. Anna Gragert/CNET MyFitnessPal Meal Planner cons It is part of the Premium Plus plan, which is $8.34 per month and may not be in budget for some MyFitnessPal has both a Premium and Premium Plus plan, which is a bit confusing You still have to double-check your grocery list to make sure all items are added and work within your preferences You may end up with extra ingredients since it goes by what is available at your designated store Would I recommend MyFitnessPal's Meal Planner? Overall, I genuinely enjoyed using MyFitnessPal's Meal Planner. I loved being able to meal-plan for my specific diet and then automatically have my groceries generated and added to Instacart. Even though I know it will make my life easier in the long run, I find meal planning intimidating, so having an app do the work for me is ideal. I plan to continue using this feature in the future, but will double-check my groceries before checking out and continue to home in on my ingredient dislikes to better tailor the recipes to my tastes.
CNET
01-07-2025
- Health
- CNET
This Hidden iPhone Hack Has Been Helping Me Sleep for the Last 5 Years
As someone who dealt with insomnia as a teen and now struggles to fall asleep as an adult, I've spent most of my life trying to get more quality sleep. Combined with my work as a wellness editor, this means I'm always looking out for new wellness tips and tricks that are accessible, actually work and might make life easier for anyone who wants to improve their health. When I took the time to think about what has had the biggest impact on my sleep recently, the first "sleep hack" that came to mind was conincidentally an iPhone hack I've been using for over five years. In fact, I can't sleep without it on my nightstand, so I'm glad it's built into my iPhone and isn't a sleep device I have to buy and lug around separately. iPhone Background Sounds You can use the iPhone's Background Sounds feature to play ambient soundscapes when you want to rest or focus. These include ocean (my favorite), rain, stream, night, fire, balanced noise, bright noise and dark noise. It's basically a built-in white noise machine. You can enable Background Sounds to play all the time, even when other media is playing, and adjust the volume accordingly. You can also set up a feature that lets you easily turn it off by locking your iPhone. I've never tried this, though, as I only turn on Background Sounds at night for sleep. Background Sounds is the icon with the three music notes on the bottom right. Anna Gragert/CNET How to turn your iPhone's Background Sounds on To add Background Sounds to your iPhone's Control Center for easy access, make sure you have iOS 15 or later. You can also add it to iPadOS 15 or later. Swipe down from your screen's top-right corner. Tap the "+" symbol at the top left and then "Add a Control" at the bottom. Scroll down to the Hearing Accessibility section and click "Background Sounds." You can also search for it in the bar at the top. Click "Add a Control" to add another feature to the Control Center. Anna Gragert/CNET Once you add Background Sounds, it will be available in your Control Center. To access the sounds, simply hold down the Background Sounds icon with three music notes, select your sound and adjust the volume. The ocean sound is my longtime go-to, as I like its steady volume and repetitious waves. You can pick from sounds like dark noise, night and rain. Anna Gragert/CNET After opening Background Sounds in your Control Center, you can also click "Background Sounds Settings" at the bottom of the screen. Here, you can enable the sound to play all the time or when other media is playing on your iPhone. You can also have it so that Background Sounds turns off when your phone is locked. You can have your Background Sounds play all the time, even when watching or listening to other media. Anna Gragert/CNET A problem I've had with Background Sounds While I love Background Sounds and have been using it every night for the last five years, I've noticed one issue. I used to have it set so that when my phone was in Sleep mode, only certain people were allowed to call me in case of an emergency. However, this feature didn't work. Even when I'd get a scam call in the middle of the night, my soundscape would stop playing and wake me up. Then, I'd have to wait for the caller to leave a voicemail or hang up before I could turn the soundscape back on, making it difficult to fall back asleep. I went through a stretch where scam calls disrupted my sleep almost every night. So, I set my iPhone to silence all calls during Sleep mode and told my emergency contacts to reach out to my partner instead -- he's up earlier anyway, so it works out. When Background Sounds comes in handy I use Background Sounds every night to drown out outside noises, but it has especially come in handy when I'm traveling and can't control the sounds around me as much. I've used the feature in every single hotel and friend's house I've stayed at in the past few years to drown out noisy neighbors, loud music, dogs barking, cars driving by, birds chirping and even a particularly buzzy streetlamp. I imagine it would also be great on a plane, train or boat (a full-on sensory experience for the Ocean sounds). The best part is that it's all right on my phone, which means I don't have to purchase a white noise machine or rely on a hotel or host to have one. It's essentially like having a mini white noise machine in your pocket at all times -- because who knows when or where you'll want to transport yourself to a cozy fireside or babbling brook to catch some extra Zs?
CNET
04-06-2025
- General
- CNET
My Angry, Sensitive Skin Always Looks Better After I Use This Face Spray
CNET's key takeaways The Tower 28 SOS Rescue Spray always calms my skin when I'm dealing with a breakout or redness. It can be purchased for as low as $12 for a travel size. The SOS Rescue Spray contains hypochlorous acid, a natural anti-inflammatory and antibacterial. While nobody likes dealing with breakouts, it is comforting that no one is alone in their acne. After all, it's the most common skin condition in the US, affecting 50 million Americans every year. And with June being National Acne Awareness Month, I got to thinking about my own acne journey and what has recently made the biggest difference whenever a pimple pops up. As a wellness writer, I recognize that we're all inundated with face skincare recommendations on social media. While this makes health advice easy to find, that information is hard to trust. That's why I'm always on the lookout to test and assess highly recommended products to see if they actually make an impact. One product I've been seeing all over my feed is the Tower 28 SOS Rescue Spray, a toner that utilizes hypochlorous acid to calm skin, reduce redness and protect your skin against harmful bacteria. I got to try the spray and have found that it is, in fact, worth the hype. Whenever I get a breakout, I use this spray and wake up the next day with skin that isn't as irritated and red, and my breakouts are less noticeable. My experience with Tower 28 SOS Rescue Spray Since I have sensitive, rosacea-prone skin, I am always hesitant to add a new skincare product to my routine. However, I decided to give the SOS Rescue Spray a try after I saw that it's accepted by the National Rosacea Society and National Eczema Association and recognized by the National Psoriasis Foundation. After using it for several months, I can safely say that my skin has not had an unwanted reaction. This is the standard size (4oz) product. Anna Gragert/CNET The Rescue Spray comes in a spray bottle, which makes it easy to apply. This type of application also makes the product more sanitary since you don't have to use your hands. I know a few people who use this spray after a sweaty workout, so I imagine it's helpful not to have to wash your hands before use if you're on the go. This product is also free of many things, which is another green flag for those of us with sensitive skin. It's vegan, cruelty-free, fragrance-free, alcohol-free and oil-free. Though the SOS Rescue Spray can be used for all skin types, Tower 28 does mention in its product description that "the most visible changes will be seen after consistent use in sensitive/problem skin types." Just make sure you do a patch test first. This spray is also dermatologist-approved and has a pH of 4.5. Anna Gragert/CNET The Rescue Spray can be applied both day and night in place of a toner or as needed during the day (even over makeup). If I'm dealing with a breakout -- usually hormonal -- I will spray this toner on my face at night after I cleanse and dry my skin. To get a more precise application, I will sometimes spray it into my palm and then pat the product on my skin, concentrating it on areas where I'm breaking out. I will wait for it to dry down before I apply my moisturizer on top with an eye cream and retinol. Since hypochlorous acid is an oxidant and vitamin C is an antioxidant, the acid can degrade the effects of vitamin C if used in the same skincare routine. However, according to Tower 28, you can use the Rescue Spray before any other active (like vitamin C) if you allow it to dry down first. "The hero ingredient in SOS Spray (hypochlorous acid) is super fast acting and once it dries down it won't interact with any of your other skincare products (including actives like vitamin C!)," says the brand. Though Tower 28 states that results can take anywhere from three days to three months, I noticed results the next day after using the product. My skin was less red, and my breakouts were less pronounced and obvious, so it appeared that the spray did calm my irritated, inflamed skin. In addition to blemishes and after a workout, the brand also states that the SOS Rescue Spray can be used for sunburns, rashes, eczema and post-procedure. The specs Price: $12 to $68 $12 to $68 Sizes: travel (1oz), standard (4oz), duo (4oz and 1oz) and jumbo (16oz refill) travel (1oz), standard (4oz), duo (4oz and 1oz) and jumbo (16oz refill) Features: vegan, cruelty-free, alcohol-free, fragrance-free, oil-free vegan, cruelty-free, alcohol-free, fragrance-free, oil-free Skin types: all skin types, including sensitive/problem skin types all skin types, including sensitive/problem skin types Sustainability: cruelty-free, vegan, bottle made from 100% post-consumer recycled resin, refill offered cruelty-free, vegan, bottle made from 100% post-consumer recycled resin, refill offered Application type: spray spray Ingredients: water, sodium chloride, hypochlorous acid water, sodium chloride, hypochlorous acid Benefits: soothes irritated skin, reduces the appearance of redness, protects skin from harmful bacteria soothes irritated skin, reduces the appearance of redness, protects skin from harmful bacteria Seals: National Rosacea Society accepted, National Eczema Association accepted, recognized by the National Psoriasis Foundation CNET's buying advice
