• Most of us don’t get enough fiber.
• A cardiologist said it’s key to add fiber to your diet slowly, to avoid gas and bloating.
• Frozen fruits and veggies make it easier to eat fiber-rich meals without worrying about spoilage.

Fiber has a bit of a reputation problem. Gas, bloating, constipation —Dr. Danielle Belardo has heard it all at her cardiology practice in Los Angeles.

She says getting more fiber into your diet doesn’t have to be painful, time-consuming, or expensive, if you know the right hacks. The truth is, most of us could stand to increase our fiber intake a little.

Eating more fiber-rich foods, such as beans, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, offers a range of health benefits. Even the CEO of McDonald’s recently said that fiber is “going to be big” in 2026 as consumers gravitate toward foods that may improve their gut health. (In case you are wondering, no, Big Macs don’t count as a fiber-rich food.)

Fiber can help lower “bad” cholesterol, support healthy gut bacteria, modestly improve blood pressure, reduce the risk of colon cancer, and reduce inflammation.

Here are Belardo’s three tips for amping up your fiber intake, without pain or stress:

Start slow to avoid bloating

Your body needs time to adjust to extra fiber consumption. If you slam a bunch of extra fiber into your diet overnight, you’ll likely end up with some pretty uncomfortable gastrointestinal side effects, like bloating and gas.

Belardo suggests starting by adding about 3 more grams of fiber to your diet than you normally eat in a day, choosing small amounts of fruits or vegetables you already enjoy.

For example, “Start out with a quarter of a cup of raspberries in yogurt,” Belardo says. Incorporate it in a way that feels sustainable and enjoyable for you.

“Don’t go all in eating an entire bowl of Brussels sprouts your first day adding fiber. Maybe do an eighth of a serving at first, and then go up slowly.”

Drink lots of water

Fiber is like a sponge: It needs water to do its job properly.

If you consume more fiber in your diet without staying well-hydrated throughout the course of the day, you may suffer from more constipation, cramping, and bloating.

Belardo says she sometimes tracks her daily hydration using the MyFitnessPal app to make sure she’s staying on target with her water intake throughout the day. (She is on the scientific advisory council for that company.)

Your freezer is your friend

Belardo says people can easily get discouraged from eating more healthy, fiber–rich foods like fruits and vegetables because they tend to rot more quickly than ultra-processed stuff.

“People often find there’s this stress threshold: they go out, they’re super ambitious, they buy all these fruits and vegetables. and then they can’t eat it in the time that goes bad, and then you feel like you wasted a huge amount of money,” she said.

Just go frozen. Frozen fruits and vegetables are just as nutritious as fresh. In fact, frozen produce can sometimes be nutritionally superior to fresh fruits and veggies you’d get in the grocery store because it’s immediately flash frozen after it’s picked, locking in the prime nutritional benefits you’d only get otherwise if you ate it directly off the tree or out of the patch.

“If you buy a bunch of frozen fruits and vegetables, there’s so much less pressure to stress yourself out to eat it fast, and it’s got the same health benefits,” Belardo said.

• We went to India to introduce our son to family, and ended up healing our own burnout as new parents.
• Two months of community support showed us how much we were missing by parenting in isolation.
• We learned to trust our instincts, embrace flexibility, and lean on others for support.

Six months postpartum, I collapsed on the floor after work, exhausted from eczema-driven nighttime wake-ups and the thought of another day. After third-degree tearing, iron infusions, and mood struggles, I was running on empty.

As my son’s first birthday neared, nights slowly improved, but daytime exhaustion ramped up as his mobility increased. My husband and I had hit a wall.

Needing a reset and for our new son to meet the family, we booked a two-month trip to India.

We had family support

Two layovers and three flights later, we touched down in Bagdogra in the Himalayan foothills. Stepping from sterile airport air into thick humidity, we were greeted by a dozen family members offering namastes and Himalayan khada scarves.

Steaming dal bhat awaited us at the family home — the copper-plated home-cooked meal felt indulgent. Kichari was ready for our son, whose grandmother spooned it in his reluctant mouth, leaving my husband and me to eat in peace — another luxury.

After a year of sprinting, we finally caught our breath.

The journey was grueling: over 24 hours of travel and a 12-hour time change. In India, we traversed 6,000 feet of elevation, enduring both heat and cold, and all three of us got sick.

But throughout the challenges, we had a community backing us. My father-in-law rose at dawn to buy fresh vegetables for a healing soup. When our son threw up at midnight, his grandmother helped change the sheets.

My parenting softened in India

I observed parenting practices in our family: breastfeeding through toddlerhood, frequent babywearing, and long-term bedsharing on firm floor mattresses.

Watching our son play in a village kitchen with dal bhat cooking on a wood fire nearby, I marveled at our relatives’ patience. When he toppled a shoe rack for the third time in five minutes, our uncle turned it into a game while my mother-in-law smiled, unfazed.

With others watchful of his safety, I leaned back with tea and let myself enjoy the moment.

In the US, my parenting resource was the internet. Late-night searches insisted my son should sleep from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. with two daytime naps. In India, a community of elders provided guidance. They encouraged me to trust my instincts and follow my son’s cues, not the clock.

This was daunting at first — one day he took three short naps, then skipped the nap entirely the next morning in the excitement of taking an auto rickshaw to a cousin’s for brunch.

One evening, as we took aunts and uncles out to a restaurant, we had just sat down when our son yawned and rubbed his eyes. With rocking and humming, he soon fell asleep on the padded bench despite the chatter of conversation.

The next evening, I rocked until my stomach grumbled and my shoulders ached, but he wouldn’t settle. I gave in and let him play with pots and pans with his cousins for an hour while I ate dinner. My tension eased, he was happy, and he later drifted off easily on his own timeline. Sometimes, the best sleep trick is to stop trying so hard.

Though it wasn’t always so simple — and I still couldn’t let go of tracking sleep hours — local tips boosted my intuition and showed me we were more adaptable than I’d realized.

He had less toys, but more people to play with

In the US, we had piles of toys. They were a survival mechanism — a toy airplane might buy me 10 minutes to finish dinner; a stacking toy might allow me to drink coffee while it’s hot.

In India, the dynamic shifted: relatives’ homes had few toys but many playmates. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins — there was always an ongoing game of peekaboo or hide-and-seek. I didn’t need a new toy to get a moment to breathe; I just needed to step back. Our son’s uncle played with him while my husband and I had a meal together. A neighbor watched him outside while I showered.

When we returned home, the piles of blocks and stuffed animals felt suffocating, prompting us to declutter. Then we finally knocked on our neighbor’s door and invited them over to play the new games we’d been taught.

We learned we don’t need toys to survive parenthood — we need a community willing to share the load.

Coming back to the US felt lonely

Coming back to the US — from crowded village kitchens to a spacious living room with no one to fill it — felt painfully lonely.

But the lessons translate. It’s OK to ask for help — even an uninterrupted meal or shower helps me reset. I can drop a routine when it’s no longer working. Parenting is hard — I’m trying to give myself grace.

Our trip to India didn’t magically fix everything. There are still 3 a.m. wake-ups. I’m still working on being patient. But it reminded us of what matters most: relationships with our son and the people we love.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

• No one is happy in Silicon Valley, Menlo Ventures partner Deedy Das says.
• Not the average tech worker, not the middle manager, not even the founders who’ve struck it rich.
• He said that while the AI boom is creating huge wealth, workers are facing an existential crisis.

In San Francisco, the AI boom is creating fame, fortune — and existential dread.

As rapid technological development widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots, a sort of machine-age ennui has set across San Francisco, says Deedy Das, a partner at venture capital firm Menlo Ventures.

Das said in a post on X, which had almost a thousand responses by Sunday afternoon, that over the past five years, the fortunes of a small group of employees at leading AI companies, like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Nvidia, as well as some smaller startups, have “skyrocketed.”

Money, however, it seems, really doesn’t always buy happiness.

Those who’ve made it feel a “profound” lack of purpose, Das wrote, as some of them watch their wealth multiply from less than $150,000 to over $50 million in a matter of years.

“It flips your life plans upside down.”

Many, he said, are hitting that threshold young, long before they expected to be financially set. He recalled asking one founder why they didn’t simply sell their company. The founder’s response: If they sold, they would have money — but lose the attention and relevance that came with always building.

The under-$500,000 bourgeoisie, meanwhile, feel like they’re on a path with no end, Das wrote. As layoffs ripple through the industry — most recently at Cloudflare and Coinbase, which both cited AI as a reason for the cuts — once lucrative roles are fading away. “Many software engineers feel like their life’s skill is no longer useful,” he said.

Middle managers, too, are unhappy, Das wrote, as another wave of the “Great Flattening” rears its head. “They see the writing on the wall: middle management is being hollowed out in many companies.”

Instead, people are racked by a new kind of existential dread, Das said. “Am I in the right place? Should I move? Is there time still left? Am I gonna make it?” he wrote.

This other half has a name, too: Several users in the replies called it a “permanent underclass.”

One possible solution: Move to New York. New York City-based tech blogger Packy McCormick, responding to Das on X on Saturday, said that amid 70-degree, sunny weather in New York City, he was heading to a kite festival.

“I haven’t heard the words ‘agent’ or ‘token’ once all morning,” McCormick wrote. “Greatest city in the world.”

In the end, everything is relative. Das said that it can be easy to scoff at the “champagne problems of the valley.”

One user in the replies summed it up: “May you get everything you want quickly and with little effort,” they wrote. “An old curse.”

• Audemars Piguet and Swatch dropped their new collaboration on Saturday.
• Police responded to Swatch stores worldwide due to large crowds.
• Some fans camped outside the Times Square Swatch store days ahead of the debut.

The release of the new Audemars Piguet and Swatch pocket watch was not exactly fine-tuned.

Throngs of enthusiasts and resellers, who hoped to turn a profit, swarmed Swatch locations around the world this weekend for a chance to snag a piece of the Royal Pop collection.

Hype around the release — a mashup between Audemars Piguet’s sleek Royal Oak and Swatch’s POP line from the ’80s — has been building since the companies unveiled it on Tuesday. Audemars Piguet watches can cost tens of thousands of dollars, making its partnership with Swatch, an affordable brand, all the more enticing.

The excitement around the collaboration was so intense that dedicated fans camped outside stores for days in advance.

By Saturday morning, the furor had reached dangerous levels, forcing Swatch to close several stores across the United States and Canada due to “public safety considerations.” As the day went on, the company announced additional store closures.

“Some of our stores had to be closed in accordance with our security staff and local authorities to ensure a safe environment for everyone,” the company said in a statement shared online.

That list included a Swatch store at Roosevelt Field shopping mall in Long Island, where one TikTok user at the scene captured footage and shared it on social media. The video showed a large, jostling group of people gathered inside the parking garage. The TikTok user, who asked not to be named, told Business Insider that police officers used pepper spray on the crowd.

A spokesperson for the Nassau County Police Department said he could not confirm if pepper spray was used. He said officers arrived at the Roosevelt Field mall at about 1:40 a.m. after store employees called, and that “several” people were arrested.

The TikTok user, who goes by ggchang.nyc online, said the event felt disorganized from the beginning. He arrived at the Swatch store around 1:30 a.m., though some people had been waiting outside for hours before that.

He said confusion over which lines attendees should stand contributed to the chaos, which came to a head around 6 a.m when employees began letting people purchase the pocket watches. People in the back of the crowd grew antsy and began pushing toward the front, he said, creating an uncomfortable squeeze he compared to a wave.

He said the situation felt especially intense because police officers were shouting and making physical contact with attendees amid the uproar. He left the product drop around 8 a.m. — without a new watch.

Swatch, in response to the bedlam, asked fans “not to rush to our stores.”

“The Royal Pop Collection will remain available for several months. In some countries, queues of more than 50 people cannot be accepted, and sales may need to be paused,” Swatch said on Saturday.

Some of those who managed to get a watch were quick to put it on eBay, where it is already going for as much as $15,000. Swatch is selling the pocket watches for about $400.

• My son calls his classmates himself to arrange playdates and activities.
• I encourage independence while still guiding social awareness and etiquette.
• His confidence has strengthened both his friendships and our community ties.

My now 8-year-old son consistently uses our landline to call his friends and classmates and ask for playdates. He has been initiating these telephone calls since he was 6 years old.

He doesn’t wait for me to text their parents first. Oftentimes, I am so busy that I rarely find the time to even do that. He takes the class list, finds the phone number, decides who he wants to invite, and makes the call himself.

My son grabs the friends list, finds who he wants to call, calls, and asks for a playdate. Then I step in to confirm the logistics with the parents. He has no hesitation speaking with anyone, whether it’s their mom, dad, grandparent, or a friend.

Watching him do this in real time has made me realize how rare everyday social independence has become for children.

Parents do so much for kids right now

So much of childhood is now managed by adults. Parents text parents. Parents make the plans. Parents get the birthday reminders, buy the gifts, and manage every social detail from start to finish. We say we want independent kids, but many of us are still operating as their assistants, schedulers, and intermediaries.

My son, Ben, is a self-starter. He is mature in ways people sometimes dismiss because of his age. He chooses his own outfits, hangs up his clothes, helps with the laundry, and empties the dishwasher. He likes responsibility. At home, we leave plenty of room for reading, creativity, and board games. We keep internet exposure very limited. We are outside a lot more. He spends time catching fireflies with his friends, running around, and doing carefree activities that don’t need an overstimulating screen to feel meaningful.

I ask my child hard questions

I am very hands-on with him, mostly through conversation. I ask him hard questions. I push him to think, then think some more. I do not want him to take everything at face value. I let him lead in some ways, even in small things like choosing parts of dinner or helping shape social plans, but not in everything. I am firm when he misbehaves. If I hear he was not on his best behavior at someone else’s house, I take action and address it immediately.

When he initiates playdates with other children, it becomes my responsibility to also strengthen the connection with the parents. I want them to know that the other parents can talk to me openly. For this to work, it has to be open communication, not just between the children, but between the families.

In some ways, I am acting like my son’s personal secretary. From time to time, Ben’s friends call my phone, and I change my tone almost instantly, from speaking like an adult to speaking with a child who is politely asking for Ben, or trying to figure out a playdate, or wanting to get together for tennis or practice. It is so sweet. These children are trying. They are learning to initiate contact rather than waiting for adults to do it for them.

Ben has expanded that instinct beyond playdates. He arranges practice times with his jiu-jitsu buddies. He helps set up tennis games with his fellow young players. In the transcript, I also pointed out that he has picked up practical skills through all of this: learning phone numbers (and understanding area codes), dialing them, memorizing them, even understanding the basics of group calls.

The class list includes names, phone numbers, and email addresses of parents.

Independence also creates its own challenges

Ben gets this burst of energy early in the morning, and with that, immediately wants to call his friends. I have had to teach him phone etiquette because not everyone expects a call at 7 a.m. Not every missed call needs to be followed by four more in a two-hour span. There is social confidence, and then there is social awareness. He needs both.

Ben loves making handwritten birthday cards at home from construction paper. It allows him the freedom to be creative. He wraps his friends’ presents too. And when we shop for them, I will sometimes give him a debit card with a set budget and let him choose.

The first birthday card I really remember was for his best friend, Mark. His mother texted me to tell me Ben had tucked the card into Mark’s desk that morning before school. It was not only a sweet gesture but also self-directed. He thought of his friend and seized the opportunity to surprise him without adult support.

I also think parents underestimate how much children’s social lives affect our own. Ben has helped me grow my friendship circle, too. Through his friendships, I have deepened relationships with other parents. What starts as one playdate or one conversation after an activity can turn into something much more meaningful. Over time, these relationships can begin to feel like extended families — not formal, not forced, but real. There is more overlap, more trust, more openness, and more shared life.

On a practical level, that has helped me professionally too. Stronger community ties have a way of expanding everything. But more importantly, it has made our lives feel richer and less isolated. There is more social time. More time outside. More natural connection. More spontaneity. More people who know one another, look out for one another, and communicate honestly.

He is still very much a child

Too often, parenting swings between overmanagement and total passivity. I am seeking something in the middle: I want to give both my son and my daughter the ability to act while allowing them the space to think and reflect.

One day, these same habits will become adult skills such as taking initiative, building trust, reaching out first, respecting boundaries, and understanding that independence and community are not at opposite ends. They are the pillars for strengthening each other.

When my parents and I immigrated from Liberia to the US in the 1990s, our first home was my grandmother’s two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Her house became a refuge as my parents found their footing in a new country. Living with her gave them childcare help and the breathing room to find work, save money, and eventually move into a place of their own. In turn, she benefited from their companionship.

In many cultures around the world, multigenerational households — in which grandparents, parents, and grandchildren live under one roof — are a way of life. Though American culture has long prized independence and individualism, many families in the US are now embracing this way of living.

June Boyd, for example, is 90. After a series of health scares in her family, Boyd’s Toldelo, Ohio, home now includes 13 people — her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, ranging in age from 3 to 69. Together, they care for the young children and split the home’s $700 monthly rent.

“In our case, there are no downsides to multigenerational living. The main thing is that it reduces the cost of living, given how high prices are.”

Whatever the setup, many families like Boyd’s are finding that living together and pooling resources is the best way to cope with an economy that has made raising children, caring for aging parents, and affording a home more difficult.

American family structures are changing

If you grew up on cable TV, you probably know the trope of the perfect middle-class, nuclear family living in a large house with a white picket fence. It’s the classic setup: a married mom and dad, and, if the kids are lucky, maybe a dog or two — the kind of household seen in 1980s sitcoms like “Family Ties” and “Growing Pains.”

That script no longer holds for many families.

It is easy to see why. Over the years, inflation in the US has made everyday necessities like groceries, gas, and electricity more expensive. At the same time, wages have not kept pace with rising childcare and housing costs.

A higher cost of living also means that, for many older Americans, retirement savings are falling short.

Natasha Pilkauskas, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, added that the growing share of children born to unmarried parents, who don’t live in the same household, is also helping drive growth in multigenerational living.

“A lot of it is driven by changes in family structure,” Pilkauskas told Business Insider. “You do see that there are much higher rates of multigenerational households among divorced families than among married families.”

When Vanessa Gordon’s 13-year marriage ended in 2024, the mother of two had to leave her marital home and look for a new place to live in East Hampton.

Gordon found a rental within her budget, but setbacks like a broken car made daily tasks difficult. To ease the burden, her parents moved into a secondary bedroom in her home and now pitch in with childcare.

“Multigenerational living isn’t necessarily a step backward,” Gordon, 37, told Business Insider. “Support systems can be strategic.”

Still, Pilkauskas said multigenerational living often isn’t a household’s first choice, and that for many families, the traditional nuclear family model remains the ideal.

“I still think people would desire the ‘Leave It to Beaver’ lifestyle,” she said. “I think that this is coming from necessity, more than preference.”

Younger generations are now able to buy homes thanks to their parents

In 2015, Juli Ford bought a home in the Boston area with a basement apartment, so her widowed mother could move in with her and her family.

Ford’s mother contributed to the down payment on the $630,000 home and has, over the years, pitched in for utilities and other household expenses. The arrangement has helped Ford afford the purchase of two other properties. But one of the greatest benefits has been living closely with her mother, now 82, as she ages.

“I cannot imagine how much harder it would be to be a daughter of an aging mom if we weren’t in the same house,” Ford, 57, told Business Insider.

Ford’s decision to move in with her mom is a choice many households are making in today’s real estate market.

Data from The National Association of Realtors‘ 2025 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends report shows that between July 2023 and June 2024, 17% of all home buyers purchased a multigenerational home. That’s an increase from 14% the previous year.

Tali Berzak, a New York-based Compass agent, told Business Insider that in the Brooklyn brownstone neighborhoods where she works, including Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, Crown Heights, and Clinton Hill, it is common to see multiple generations of a family living in the same home or on the same block.

“What we’re seeing more now are situations in which parents are helping their adult children buy a home. The parents may live in one of the units, while the adult children occupy one or two of the others,” she said.

She recently worked on a three-family property where a father used one unit as his secondary apartment in the city, and his two children lived in the others.

Homebuilders are designing for multigenerational living

Jené Luciani-Sena’s mother paid $200,000 to build a separate, but attached apartment onto her daughter’s home. The 900-square-foot apartment has its own bedroom, bathroom, and living room.

“The kids love having ‘Nema’ around all the time; Mom joins us for meals,” Luciani-Sena, a mother of four, told Business Insider. “I love having an extra person to help with housework, such as grocery shopping and the occasional laundry, and shuttling kids to and from various events and practices.”

Luciani-Sena said the apartment also increased the property’s value by about $75,000.

Houston-based Newmark is one homebuilder that designs and builds houses for multigenerational families.

The company offers one- and two-story floor plans for 40 to 100-plus-foot lots, with homes ranging from about $350,000 to $3.2 million, including closing costs.

Rodney Mican, Newmark’s director of product development, told Business Insider that buyers in multigenerational households often ask for features such as larger bedrooms, oversize bathrooms and showers, and second kitchens.

Newmark’s Umbria floor plan, for example, offers a “dual home” option. Similar to Luciani-Sena’s mothers’ apartment, it’s a separate living space within the home that has its own bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room.

Berzak said her multigenerational buyers are especially drawn to homes with separate apartments because they offer both togetherness and privacy. They also work well for grandparents helping with childcare.

“People are looking at childcare in a different way,” she said. “Instead of bringing a nanny or someone who isn’t part of your family into your home, having a parent live within the home feels more connected.”

Mican said homes like the Umbria resonate because they are built around that very sentiment. “Human nature has not changed for millennia; families will always take care of their loved ones if they can.”