It’s the artist Qualeasha Wood who tells me about Snapchat dysmorphia, “a term coined by plastic surgeons who noticed there was a shift in the mid 2010s when people started bringing in their AI-beautified portraits instead of a celebrity picture”. To resolve your Snapchat dysmorphia, you get your real face remodelled to look like the ideal version of you that artificial intelligence has perfected on your phone screen.
There is a fundamental problem with this, says Adam Lowe, whose Factum Foundation in Madrid is at the forefront of art and technology, digitally documenting artworks and cultural heritage sites around the world. When you have surgery to look like your best self as shown on a flat screen, the results in three-dimensional reality can be very odd indeed. You can feel Lowe’s sadness at the way plastic surgery botches human restoration in pursuit of screen perfection: “I have to look away,” he says.
On reflection … All for U (If U Rlly Want It) by Qualeasha Wood. Photograph: Qualeasha Wood/ Pippy Houldsworth Gallery
Such are the paradoxes of the digital age explored in Virtual Beauty, an exhibition opening at London’s Somerset House on 23 July. The exhibition brings together more than 20 international artists to examine how artificial intelligence, social media and virtual identities reshape our understanding of beauty and self-representation in the digital age. It feels particularly resonant as the choice for Somerset House’s 25th anniversary of its public opening – the institution has borne witness to the complete transformation of how we present ourselves to the world. Wood herself stars – her artworks drag you into the heart of online life, juxtaposing her selfies with a ceaseless churning of texts, emails and layers of onscreen windows in montages that capture the restlessness of digital existence. But there’s a twist. Her snapshots of what it’s like to be a queer Black woman in the social media age are rendered as tapestries. In this older, more substantial medium, the grey frames of computer windows and harsh lettering of abusive messages become almost contemplative. And there is a hidden history here. Digitally controlled weaving is more than 200 years old: the Jacquard loom, invented in the Industrial Revolution, was programmed with punch cards telling what pattern to produce.
“I was born in 1996 so the internet was already there,” says Wood. “My whole life has been mediated through that. I got my first computer at the age of five. At six I was online and playing games. The first game I ever played was The Sims, and it’s a life simulator. The first person I ever knew to die was my Sim, not a true human being.”
Making a splash … A Dream of Wholeness in Parts (still) by Sin Wai Kin (2021). Photograph: Sin Wai Kin/Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei and Soft Opening, London
As an artist of the selfie age, one inspiration was Kim Kardashian. “Most of my upbringing on the internet involved using websites like Tumblr, just any image-based platform. Working in self-portraiture was really natural. I was looking at women like Kardashian who were very popular on the internet at that time – she even produced a selfie book.”
Kardashian’s 2015 book Selfish is a seminal moment in the rise of social media portraiture,not least for providing the template for “Instagram face”, the plumped up, feline aesthetic (the look was famously described as resembling a “sexy baby tiger”) that has come to dominate contemporary beauty standards. The more we shape and propagate our own images online, the more we feel compelled to copy that screen image in the flesh. Wood sees virtual beauty as “an era: it’s a marking of time, like BC and AD. There’s the beauty before technology and filters, and the beauty after. So much of beauty now isn’t about how you see yourself: we look instead at likes and metrics, and how much attention we are receiving or someone else is receiving.”
Wood’s art shows how specific the glare of internet visibility is for her. One of her tapestries includes a string of aggressive online messages and her replies – “Qualeasha were you born to Crack head parents?” “Nope both military veterans!!” Among these brickbats, her physical image is by turns peaceful, melancholy, provocative. True beauty, she insists, does not lie in transforming yourself into an AI product.
Human in parts … Björk Virtual Avatars by Andrew Thomas Huang and James Merry (2017). Photograph: Andrew Thomas Huang/James Merry
“I refuse to contribute to the beauty standard. Those works where I think I’m the least put together are the ones people are most drawn to and find the most beautiful.” Yet she admits she is not immune to the beauty ideals proliferating all around her. As an artist who shares her own life, she wonders how her image will change with time. “What will it be like when I’m 60 and have an older and less perfect body? Even now, I’m of that age when women start getting worked on.”
Another piece in the exhibition plays off arguably one of the most famous bodies of all time. The pose is unmistakable. Even if you have never stood in front of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus in the Uffizi gallery in Florence, the way this nude goddess stands on a giant shell, legs curved yet with her upper body straight, one hand holding her long golden hair over her groin, another covering her right breast, will be familiar from its endless reproductions. But in the climactic scene of a film by Sin Wai Kin, Venus is played by the non-binary transgender artist in drag – nude drag – standing in white high heels on soaking wet rocks against crashing waves, flowers scattered around them like the painted flowers that delicately fall through Botticelli’s perfumed air.
Out on a limb … Coexist by Arvida Byström (2022). Photograph: Arvida Byström
“It’s the idea of the ideal of beauty,” Sin has said of this recreation of The Birth of Venus. In fact, more than 500 years ago, Botticelli knew that beauty was “virtual”. The 15th-century Florentine artist’s Venus floats towards you but never reaches you. The painting depicts not her birth but her arrival by seashell at the island of Cythera. Except however hard the wind gods puff, however tenderly an attendant waits to throw a robe around Venus, her feet never touch the shore. She is suspended for ever in this moment, both real and unreal.
In our age of virtual beauty, people try more and more to cross the boundary between art and life. Once Oscar Wilde and the aesthetic movement aspired to make their lives as beautiful as art. They did it through pose and poise, as well as poetry and prose. Now we are physically resculpting ourselves to fit the perfect AI illusion of what we might be.
The Somerset House show begins with Orlan, the French artist who underwent cosmetic surgery as performance art in the early 1990s. That radical remodelling of her body becomes a pioneering foretaste of an age in which biology is trumped by technology. Thus Filip Ćustić will show pi(x)el, a female silicone sculpture cast from life, her face covered in phone screens, on which other faces and bodies, including people bearing scars or visible disabilities, flow. Body and screen become one.
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Redeeming features … pi(x)el by Filip Ćustić (2022). Photograph: Onkaos
Does this point the way to digital heaven or to hell? The optimistic vision of a new world where people can freely reinvent themselves from device to flesh could be seen as a contemporary restatement of Donna Haraway’s famous 1985 essay A Cyborg Manifesto (Sin Wai Kin has had Haraway quotes pinned up in their studio). Perhaps the most consoling interpretation of today’s emerging sci-fi reality is that, as Haraway argued, we are all becoming cyborgs – part human, part machine, liberated from the oppressive structures of the past.
The stumbling block is, however, that the cyborg itself may be a thing of the past, a vision of the future that is already becoming old. Cyborg dreams assume that however much we change, however completely our bodies are remade or replaced, our minds will always be ours. The human brain will endure, even if it’s in a jar with robots doing the dirty work. However, in truth, we may be about to be outdone by other minds, and our bodies will be all we have left.
No person is an island … Virtual Embalming, Michèle Lamy by Frederik Heyman (2018). Photograph: Frederik Heyman
“You get the sense that some kind of sentience is being nursed into life – but it’s happening away from us,” says Mat Collishaw, a digital artist who takes a much less human-centred view than the artists in Virtual Beauty. “We don’t really understand it. Even the guys that are building it, that are training it, don’t really know what’s happening. When you look into the eyes of a gorilla in the zoo you know there’s some sentience in there but it’s not ours: it’s a very weird feeling.”
Although Collishaw started his career as one of the notoriously human Young British Artists of the 1990s, he has been working for several years with AI, and is now so immersed that OpenAI gives him pre-release software to test. His feeling that sentience is evolving in the machine is shared by some of the industry’s most respected minds. If you believe Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis or “godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, in the next few years, machine learning will lead to artificial general intelligence that rapidly outdoes our feeble human brains. Most jobs will vanish. Humans will no longer invent or discover anything because machines will do it better.
In his recent film Aftermaths, Collishaw uses AI to imagine how life might evolve all over again after we destroy ourselves. In the fuselage of a crashed plane and long-abandoned offices beneath the sea, shimmering invertebrates swim, sprouting tentacles and tails, reproducing and mutating, becoming more fishlike, then reptilian, as millions of years of evolution are condensed by his algorithms into a hypnotic vision of DNA’s inexhaustible ability to create new forms of life.
Immersive vision … Aftermaths 9 by Mat Collishaw (2025). Photograph: Mat Collishaw
Collishaw unveiled Aftermaths in his recent exhibition Move 37 – a mysterious title unless you have followed the evolution of AI. In 2016 AlphaGo, an AI system created by Hassabis and his team, played the human Go master Lee Sedol. In their second game, AlphaGo won by playing Move 37 – a truly “creative” move, says the Google DeepMind website with pride in its clever child, that kindled a belief that inventive “thinking” machines are possible. Nine years on, Hassabis is among those who think artificial general intelligence is imminent. Collishaw, in all the hours he works intimately with AI, feels the presence of something unnameable. It is, he suggests, a mysterious submarine presence in the current AI systems, “not dissimilar from what’s happening in the dark watery depths in this film”.
Something is coming up from the abyss. Is it virtual beauty? Or virtual horror? We are all seduced by the strange beauty of the internet: the speed at which you can see images, their high definition and fantastically vivid colours; there’s even the loveliness of the superbly designed devices on which we access this virtual abundance. Maybe the thinking machines, instead of wiping us out, will keep us as pampered pets, manipulating us with our gorgeous screens, insidiously enslaving us with ever new beauty obsessions.
If so, the Virtual Beauty exhibition suggests they are well on the way, preparing a future in which we are all hedonist wastrels like the people in JG Ballard’s sci-fi story The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D. Except rather than gliding through the clouds, we will incessantly resculpt ourselves to attain perfect, AI-curated beauty. At least it will be something to do.
Virtual Beauty is at Somerset House, London, from 23 July to 28 September.
Building retirement wealth in a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) is a proven strategy to secure a more comfortable pensioner lifestyle. Even when starting later in life, say at the age of 50, it’s still possible to build a substantial nest egg. But what does that mean in terms of money?
Let’s explore just how much richer older investors can expect to realistically become before retirement with only £500 a month.
On average, the UK stock market’s delivered a long-term total annualised return of around 8% a year when looking at large-caps. And for the investors willing to take on more risk and volatility, small-caps have outperformed slightly at around 11%.
Let’s say that a 50-year-old investor today intends to retire at the age of 67. Assuming these growth trends continue in the future (which they may not), investing £500 each month for 17 years would net a portfolio worth anywhere between £215,900 and £296,400.
However, this calculation forgets one crucial advantage of using a SIPP – tax relief. Assuming the same investor’s sitting in the Basic rate tax bracket, each £500 deposit is automatically topped up to £625, thanks to tax relief. And when factoring this into the calculation, a SIPP portfolio could actually grow to between £269,900 and £370,500.
Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice. Readers are responsible for carrying out their own due diligence and for obtaining professional advice before making any investment decisions.
Building up to £370,000 to retire on is certainly nothing to scoff at. But that’s all dependent on making smart investment decisions. After all, investing isn’t risk-free. And a badly built portfolio could very easily destroy wealth instead of creating it.
Investors need to look exclusively at top-notch businesses, with promising long-term potential, while also trading at a reasonable price. Sadly, this trio of requirements isn’t always easy to find, requiring a lot of patience and diligence. And it’s why stock picking can be such a challenging task. But when executed correctly, the rewards can be enormous.
Take Goodwin (LSE:GDWN) as an example. The engineering group’s now a prominent industry leader offering high-integrity solutions to the defence, mining, energy, aerospace, and even jewellery industries. But that wasn’t always the case. And management’s ability to diversify, maintain a strong order book, and deliver consistent growth is what enabled the stock to climb 1,750% in the last 20 years.
On an annualised basis, that’s the equivalent of 15.7% a year. And it’s enough to turn a £625 monthly investment into £630,000 over a period of 17 years. Obviously, not every British stock has been so fortunate. Nevertheless, it goes to show the game-changing benefits that prudent investing can deliver.
There are still some encouraging traits that make it a business worth considering today. Its order book continues to reach record highs courtesy of new nuclear decommissioning and naval vessel contracts. In fact, these deals have enabled operating profits to surge by 45% in its latest interim results. And so, despite its larger size, management continues to find ways to deliver rapid revenue and earnings growth as a sector leader.
However, even the most promising enterprises have their weak spots. Most of the group’s revenue stems from large contracts, which can be difficult to replace quickly. As such, cash flows have been pretty lumpy over the years – a trend that’s unlikely to change. And at a price-to-earnings ratio of 30, that can open the door to volatility.
The post If a 50-year-old puts £500 a month into a SIPP, here’s what they could have by retirement appeared first on The Motley Fool UK.
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Zaven Boyrazian has no position in any of the shares mentioned. The Motley Fool UK has recommended Goodwin Plc. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.
Every once in a while, we come across personalization tools that tick all the right boxes, becoming one of the mainstays of our user experience. Besides fan favorites like Wallpaper Engine, Rainmeter is one of those few that I haven’t uninstalled in years. It is a powerful, open-source tool for Windows that lets you customize your desktop to an incredible degree. If you’re tired of the stock Windows look and feel, Rainmeter skins are your gateway to a world of personalization.
Skins are interactive elements built on the Rainmeter engine that you can develop, personalize, and interact with. You can mix and match different skins, customize them to your liking, and create a desktop that is uniquely yours. Whether you’re a seasoned pro who loves to tinker with every aspect of your system, or a newcomer who just wants to add a bit of flair to their desktop, Rainmeter has something for everyone. In my years of using this software, I’ve identified a few skins that I keep coming back to, simply because they are refined, useful, and sometimes, fantastic conversation starters.
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7
SYSMonitor with HWiNFO integration
Keep tabs on performance
System performance tracking is a perennial thread in every PC enthusiast’s mind. Still, a mix of compatibility concerns, OEM software, and the need to run logging in the background usually hamstrings the experience. However, there are great background performance loggers like HWiNFO, and Rainmeter’s SYSMonitor skin pulls information from those logs to show you changes in near real-time.
After just a few minutes of careful configuration, this comprehensive Rainmeter skin provides a detailed overview of your computer’s vital statistics, all in a clean and organized package. With support for up to 16-core CPUs, including those with Hyper-Threading and efficiency cores, SYSMonitor is built for modern hardware. It doesn’t just stop at the processor, either—you can monitor your RAM usage, network speeds, and even the read/write activity of your hard drives. HWiNFO integration further shows a wealth of information that would otherwise be inaccessible, such as the temperatures of your GPU, CPU, and even your mainboard’s chipset. You can also keep an eye on your case fans, ensuring that your system is running cool and quiet.
Source: PInkY77/DeviantArt
If you don’t want to run HWiNFO and would rather use the stats gathered in Windows’ default Task Manager, SYSMonitor can do that too. Moreover, each element is interactive, so clicking it pulls up the relevant Task Manager tab or file folder (for drives). This combination of detailed information and convenient shortcuts makes SYSMonitor an essential tool for any power user. Since Rainmeter can display over applications, I find this skin particularly handy when monitoring an overclock for stability, and when monitoring case fans I suspect of imminent failure.
6
Your smartphone’s clock
Hello from Google, in its Material Design language
Source: javigalan99/Deviantart
Sometimes, less is more. If you’re a fan of clean, minimalist aesthetics, you’ll love the CleanClocks skin. This elegant Rainmeter widget adds a touch of pixel-perfect style to your desktop with its simple yet beautiful clock designs. Inspired by material design, CleanClocks offers a variety of clock faces that can be easily resized and customized to fit your setup. This versatile skin includes a few variations of a modern digital clock as well as the classic analog look.
Unlike Windows’ taskbar clock huddled in the corner, CleanClocks is a nice visual element on my desktop. It breaks up the monotony and doesn’t even bombard me with information or distract me with flashy animation. This skin has just one job — to tell me the time — but it is proof that not all skins need to have serious functional value. Even something as simple as a clock with a good design is worth appreciating. If you’re tired of cluttered, overly complicated widgets, CleanClocks are a refreshing change of pace that will make you appreciate the beauty of simplicity.
Source: javigalan99/Deviantart
There are scores of other Rainmeter clock skins listed on DeviantArt, designed to suit every imaginable aesthetic, from cyberpunk to quaint and peaceful.
5
Becoming one with the wallpaper
Tailor-made skins
Source: apophisss/Deviantart
If you’ve been toying with Rainmeter skins for any amount of time, you’ll notice there are a handful of skins designed to pair well with specific wallpapers. The elements of the skin, interactive or otherwise, seem to fit like they are part of the static image in the backdrop. Liberal use of transparent or translucent widgets also helps sell the effect to unassuming viewers. This effect works mostly because display aspect ratios and resolution increments are fairly standardized now.
The Metro Opacity skin pack is one such add-on that leverages this simple trick to create an immersive and interactive visual. With 48 different color themes to choose from and support for resolutions up to 2160p, Metro Opacity Shaped is as versatile as it is beautiful. You can monitor your CPU, GPU, and RAM usage, as well as your network speeds and hard drive space. The skin also includes a handy clock and a recycle bin you can open with a left-click and empty with a right-click.
One of the most impressive features of Metro Opacity Shaped is its support for multi-GPU setups and CPUs with up to 16 cores. It also includes audible temperature warnings for your GPU, CPU, and hard drives. However, you can always change the colors and fonts in use through the same process used to edit most Rainmeter skins — Notepad or the skin’s own Settings panel.
4
Feature-rich HSL slider
One for the artists
If you’re a creative professional or just someone who loves to play with color, you’ll appreciate the HSLiders Rainmeter skin. This powerful tool gives you a set of Hue, Saturation, and Lightness (HSL) sliders that you can use to fine-tune the colors of your desktop. I find it a great alternative to a similar color picker utility accessible through Microsoft PowerToys or a Google Search query for “Color picker”. When enabled through Rainmeter, you can use this skin to color-match all other skins and perform basic operations such as identifying complementary colors and opposite colors.
The skin is incredibly versatile, with options to control the color of your desktop background, taskbar, and even other Rainmeter skins. You can also save your favorite color schemes as presets, so you can easily switch between them. In minimized mode, this utility switches to color picker mode with a variable-size eyedropper you can scroll to enlarge. This attention to detail unlocks a new level of personalization so you aren’t eyeballing color matches across your system theme.
I find it useful for identifying hex codes for colors I see on the internet, so I can incorporate them into system UI theming later. It’s also invaluable for designers looking to color-match scenes, like when performing spot repair in a photo edit, or when syncing brush color across multiple pages of a digital illustration.
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3
Customizable universal search bar
Look up from anywhere
From the same person who created the HSLliders skin comes a new creation called Animated Multi Search Bar. As the name would lead you to believe, this is a skin that creates a catch-all search bar that remains appended to your desktop. It might not seem useful at first, but if you’re like me, working on local programs and frequently looking up information online, this little Rainmeter skin can save you a couple of clicks and seconds every time you reach for the web browser. Instead of using a browser to pull up my desired search engine each time I need it, I prefer navigating to the desktop and typing the query directly in this Rainmeter search bar.
The Animated Multi Search Bar lets me search up to 25 different search engines from a single bar. You can choose from 11 different animations, customize the orientation of the search bar, and even use specific programs for searching. The skin is also resizable and allows for independent settings for each search engine, so I can create a search experience that is tailored to my needs. With these powerful search bars, you’ll never have to leave your desktop to find what you’re looking for again.
This skin also ranks high on my list of suggestions I wish I knew about sooner, because figuring out how to customize Rainmeter skins can take a while. If you’re just starting out with your personalization journey, this skin is a great starting point because the developer has listed configuration steps in sufficient detail right on their DeviantArt page for this skin. That said, this skin could seem overwhelmingly option-rich for some users who just want to see what Rainmeter can do before they tinker with it. For such users, I recommend the CyberSearch Private Edition skin. It just needs Windows Vista or newer, and offers dedicated search bars for DuckDuckGo, Startpage, and Qwant.
2
Stay in touch with the news
The fundamental use of widgets is to ease the hassle of checking a handful of things repeatedly. In my line of work, staying current with the latest tech developments is essential, and a reliable RSS reader is about as important as my email inbox. However, checking it repeatedly takes away a significant amount of my time, and I just prefer having a headline ticker right on my desktop instead. Rainmeter has a few RSS reader skins, and my favorite one shows 10 top articles for three configurable topics of my interest, with content loading/refreshing when you click the topic name.
The skin is highly customizable, with options to change the font, the highlight effect for news items, and even the language. Version 1.1 added support for English, Greek, and Russian, so you can read the news in your preferred language. The skin has also undergone some visual improvements, with a cleaner and more modern design. If you’re looking for a simple and effective way to stay informed, the Google News RSS skin is a great choice.
Unlike some RSS readers that pull images, this one sticks to the text alone, offering a simplistic yet informative presentation. Now, don’t get me wrong, using this Rainmeter skin doesn’t eliminate a purpose-built RSS reader altogether. Instead, you’ll just reach for that browser tab infrequently, potentially saving hours spent doom-scrolling.
Everyone needs one
Source: Adriaanjelle/Deviantart
In most instances, I would agree that a desktop usually doesn’t need a weather panel unless it’s on your laptop, and you travel frequently, or if you simply cannot view a window from your setup. My excuse for running a Rainmeter weather skin is that I need to keep track of the conditions in a few different cities, and the Sienna 2.0 skin does that in style. This collapsible widget provides a detailed overview of the current weather conditions, as well as a forecast for the next few days. The skin uses the Weather.com API for its weather information, so you can be sure that you’re always getting the most accurate and up-to-date forecast.
I find the Sienna 2.0 skin’s highlight is its visual appearance — a card-shaped design that resembles frosted glass without obscuring my wallpaper. The skin is also highly customizable, with options to change the temperature units, the location, and even the format of the sunrise and sunset clocks. On the functional front, you can right-click on the skin to access the settings menu, where you can change the location and other options. The skin is also collapsible, so you can hide it when you don’t need it and expand it when you want to see the forecast. If you’re looking for a weather widget that is both beautiful and functional, Sienna 2.0 is an excellent choice.
Rainmeter has it all
Rainmeter is more than just a tool for making your desktop look pretty. It’s a powerful utility that adds a wealth of new functionality to your Windows experience. Using skins, you can create a desktop that is tailored to your specific needs, with at-a-glance access to all the information and tools you use most. Whether you want to monitor your system’s performance, stay up to date with the latest news, or just have a more beautiful and organized desktop, Rainmeter can help you achieve the goal. It’s a testament to the power of community-driven development and a must-have tool for any Windows user who wants to enhance their user experience.
When 24-year-old Drew Jacobs swapped his drive-thru breakfast sandwich for overnight oats, he didn’t expect his doctor to call him four weeks later with shock in her voice.
“I thought I was in trouble,” he laughs. “But she said, ‘What have you been doing? Your cholesterol dropped like a rock.’”
Drew had only made a few changes—replacing red meat with legumes, skipping cheese, and learning to love tofu. What started as a “try it and see” experiment turned into a full-blown commitment when his LDL cholesterol plunged by 40 points in a month.
Stories like Drew’s aren’t outliers. They’re part of a broader pattern that’s drawing attention across the health and nutrition world.
The upshot? You don’t need to go plant-based for years to see measurable health wins. In fact, your body might start responding in a matter of weeks.
Let’s break down how that happens, why it matters, and what you can do—starting today.
The fast track to heart health
Cholesterol levels, particularly LDL (aka “bad cholesterol”), are one of the top markers used to assess heart disease risk. And in the U.S., about two in five adults have elevated cholesterol.
Traditional advice for managing cholesterol includes medication, weight loss, and exercise. But recent research—and growing real-world evidence—shows that dietary changes can be even more powerful than many expect.
A case series published by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine followed 244 participants with high cholesterol who adopted a low-fat, plant-based diet. They got significant results — their average LDL levels dropped by 14-20%.
And it’s not just legumes and leafy greens making a difference. Research from the University of Exeter found that swapping meat for mycoprotein—a fungi-based protein found in products like Quorn—can reduce LDL cholesterol by 10% in four weeks. That’s a significant drop for a single dietary change.
The takeaway? Your body can respond surprisingly fast to plant-forward meals—especially when they crowd out saturated fat and cholesterol-heavy animal products.
So, what’s going on under the hood?
Here’s the short version.
Animal products—especially red and processed meats, butter, and cheese—contain saturated fats and dietary cholesterol. These raise LDL cholesterol in many people. By contrast, whole plant foods contain zero cholesterol and very little saturated fat.
Even better, they’re packed with soluble fiber, which helps clear excess cholesterol from your bloodstream by binding to it in the digestive tract.
The impact? According to the National Lipid Association, eating just 5 to 10 grams of soluble fiber per day (about what you’d get from a cup of cooked lentils and a bowl of oatmeal) can reduce LDL cholesterol by around 5 to 11%.
Now imagine what happens when most of your plate looks like that.
A shift with ripple effects
Yes, lowering cholesterol can help reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes. But that’s not the only benefit.
A fiber-forward, plant-rich diet also improves blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, inflammation, and gut health—all of which are tied to cardiovascular health and overall well-being.
And for those taking statins or other cholesterol-lowering drugs, going plant-based may reduce the required dose or, in some cases, eliminate the need entirely (though that’s always a doctor’s call).
Meanwhile, from a public health perspective, the potential is massive.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally. Imagine the system-wide cost savings—and human impact—of reducing even a fraction of that burden through dietary shifts.
Real food. Real change.
This doesn’t mean you have to become a nutritionist or meal-prep guru overnight.
Here’s a step-by-step framework anyone can follow:
1. Swap your proteins
Start by switching out animal-based proteins for plant-based ones at least once a day.
Great options: lentils, black beans, tofu, tempeh, seitan, chickpeas, edamame, or plant-based meat alternatives (just keep an eye on sodium levels).
If a burger is your comfort food, try a homemade black bean patty or an oat-and-mushroom blend. You might be surprised how satisfying it is.
2. Rethink your fats
Not all fats are villains—but saturated fat has a direct link to LDL cholesterol.
Cut back on butter, cream, and fatty cuts of meat. Instead, use heart-healthy fats like avocado, nuts, seeds, and olive oil—sparingly and strategically.
You don’t need to fear fat. But focusing on quality over quantity makes a difference.
3. Embrace fiber as your MVP
Aim for at least 25–30 grams of fiber per day. The average American gets about half that.
Fiber-rich stars include oats, barley, chia seeds, flaxseeds, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, pears, and apples (leave the skins on).
Soluble fiber, in particular, is your cholesterol-clearing secret weapon. Think legumes and oats.
4. Limit the “vegan junk trap”
Plant-based doesn’t always mean healthy. Ultra-processed snacks, fried foods, and sugary drinks won’t do your heart any favors—even if they’re labeled vegan.
The best results come from a whole-foods-first approach. That means recognizable ingredients, minimal packaging, and meals that resemble, well, food.
5. Track your wins (not just your weight)
Cholesterol is just one metric, but it’s a powerful one.
Consider getting baseline bloodwork before you start making changes. Then recheck after 4–6 weeks. You might be shocked by what you see—like Drew was.
And here’s a tip: pair your food changes with a daily walk or stretch. Movement complements the metabolic benefits of a high-fiber diet.
But what about genetics?
Yes, genetics do play a role in how your body processes cholesterol. Some people (those with familial hypercholesterolemia, for example) have elevated levels regardless of diet.
But for most people, food is the fastest, most affordable intervention with the fewest side effects.
And even for those with a genetic predisposition, a plant-based diet often makes medication more effective—or lowers the necessary dosage.
As researchers often say: genes load the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger.
Food as a form of self-advocacy
We live in a world that often separates healthcare from food choices. But they’re deeply connected.
Eating in a way that lowers your cholesterol isn’t just about numbers—it’s about agency.
It’s choosing meals that protect your body. It’s lowering your risk for disease without waiting for permission. It’s showing up for your future self—one forkful at a time.
And when those meals happen to be delicious? Even better.
What’s Your Plant-Powered Archetype?
Ever wonder what your everyday habits say about your deeper purpose—and how they ripple out to impact the planet?
This 90-second quiz reveals the plant-powered role you’re here to play, and the tiny shift that makes it even more powerful.
12 fun questions. Instant results. Surprisingly accurate.
Earnings season starts this in earnest this week with the arrival of several quarterly reports from big U.S. banks.
Analysts are watching themes including the expectation of continued growth and the effect of tariffs on corporate results.
Key results due to arrive include JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, PepsiCo, and Netflix.
The big-bank earnings reports due this week mark the quasi-official start to the second-quarter earnings season. Analysts expect growth, but they’re also eyeing the effects of tariffs as President Donald Trump’s trade policy continues to evolve.
The numbers are landing with plenty already on investors’ minds, from ongoing trade-policy drama to questions about the path forward for interest rates. Stocks have risen lately, finishing last week just off record highs.
Big banks including JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS) could offer insight into consumer health and the appetite for deals. Other companies that will likely offer clues about broader themes include consumables giant PepsiCo (PEP) and chipmaker TSMC (TSM). Netflix (NFLX) is also set to report, making it the first of the “FANG” (and, for that matter, “FAANG”) stocks to deliver its numbers.
Here are three themes to watch for as results for the quarter—covering April through June in most cases—start to roll in.
Analysts are looking for growth. S&P 500 EPS is seen rising 4.1% year-over-year, according to a recent report from UBS; companies that have already reported their numbers, the bank observed in late June, have beaten estimates by more, on average, than the longer-term trend.
Historically, UBS said, expectations “start too high, are adjusted lower heading into reporting season, and could come in slightly higher vs. expectations.”
S&P 500 companies reported double-digit year-over-year earnings growth in the first quarter for a second-straight period, according to FactSet.
There are also signs of caution. Wall Street analysts cut their estimates for S&P 500 companies’ earnings more than usual during the second quarter, according to a FactSet analysis published July 3.
The combined bottom-up earnings-per-share estimate for the companies in the index fell more than 4% between the end of March and the end of June, FactSet said, more than the average seen in the past 5, 10, or 15 years. (It was in line with the average for the past 20 years.)
Trump’s tariffs are likely to be a hot topic. Deutsche Bank analysts on July 7 estimated that tariffs will ding second-quarter earnings for the S&P 500 by about 2 percentage points, with the “hit” likely to increase in the second half of the year.
Companies with “concentrated tariff effects” account for about a quarter of S&P 500 earnings, according to Deutsche Bank. Goldman Sachs economists expect companies to pass 70% of direct costs associated with tariffs to consumers in the form of higher prices.
“Economic fundamentals appear solid at this juncture, but uncertainty is pervasive,” National Retail Federation Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said last week. “Everyone is sorting through what the tariff rates are going to be, how they will impact inflation for retail products and, importantly, how long they will be in place.”
Earnings updates from several top financial institutions are scheduled, including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs. Investors also will be watching for earnings from TSMC, Netflix, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis.
Consumer Price Index inflation and U.S. retail sales data for June also will be analyzed, along with updates on the housing market.
Federal Reserve officials set to speak this week include Federal Reserve Gov. Michelle Bowman and New York Fed President John Williams.
Big banks will make a lot of headlines this week. But so will economic data, political events, and results from the leader in streaming video.
Earnings from JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs are among the highlights of a busy corporate earnings calendar that effectively kick off the second-quarter earnings season. Several banks reported better-than-expected earnings in the most recent reporting round, while also warning of uncertainty. Investors will also be watching for reports from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Netflix.
The June Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation report will offer the latest view of consumer prices as economists and investors monitor the impact of U.S. tariff policies and contemplate what could be next for interest rates. Tariffs could also play a role in June U.S. retail sales, due Thursday. The indicator declined for May as consumers pulled back from a tariff-fueled buying spree.
Stocks finished last week on a down note, though just off record highs. Bitcoin was also at records ahead of a “Crypto Week” in Washington, D.C.
Read to the bottom for our calendar of key events—and one more thing.
Big Banks, Tech, and Pharmaceutical Results Set to Kick Off Earnings Season
Earnings for the 2025 second quarter begin to roll in this week, with several top financial institutions set to report financial results. Other noteworthy tech, transportation and pharmaceutical firms are also due to report.
Big Bank earnings come as several announced positive results in their annual Federal Reserve stress tests, designed to measure the health of key financial institutions. JPMorgan’s (JPM) report, scheduled for Tuesday, comes after it beat estimates for the first quarter in part by bringing in more net interest income than expected.
Wells Fargo’s, set for the same day, will follow the bank’s net interest income decline for the prior quarter. Later in the week, Morgan Stanley’s financials are to be released after the global investment bank earned record stock-trading revenue in the prior quarter as market volatility raged.
TSMC (TSM) is on schedule to release its quarterly earnings on Thursday, after the chipmaker’s recent revenue data showed sales jumped by 40% in the first half of the year on strong artificial intelligence demand. Netflix’s (NFLX) report, expected the same day, comes after the streaming giant grew its sales by 12% in the first quarter.
Investors will also be watching for updates from pharmaceutical firms Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Novartis (NVS), as well as from aircraft engine maker GE Aerospace (GE) and beverage behemoth PepsiCo (PEP).
Investors Watching for June Data on Inflation, Retail Sales, Housing Starts
The release of the CPI report on Tuesday comes after the inflation measurement rose slightly in May to an annual rate of 2.4%, which was less of an increase than economists expected.
With price pressures easing, there’s now more pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates at its end-of-the-month meeting, especially as officials have cited inflation worries as driving the Fed’s decision to keep interest rates where they are. Several Fed officials are scheduled to speak this week, including Gov. Michelle Bowman and New York Fed President John Williams.
U.S. retail sales data for June will be closely followed by market watchers, given that consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of economic activity. Sales declined for May as consumers who bought products ahead of tariff implementations pulled back on their spending.
The homebuilder confidence survey coming Thursday, followed by Friday’s housing starts data for June, will provide more insight into the housing market, which has been plagued by low inventory levels.
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This Week’s Calendar
Monday, July 14
Key Earnings: Fastenal (FAST)
Tuesday, July 15
Consumer Price Index (June)
Fed Representatives Speaking: Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, Federal Reserve Gov. Michelle Bowman, Federal Reserve Gov. Michael Barr
Key Earnings: JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo (WFC), BlackRock (BLK), Citigroup (C), Bank of New York Mellon (BK), State Street (STT), Ericsson (ERIC), J.B. Hunt Transport (JBHT), Albertsons Cos. (ACI)
More Data to Watch: Empire State Manufacturing (July)
Wednesday, July 16
Producer Price Index (PPI) (June)
Fed Speakers: New York Fed President John Williams
Key Earnings: Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America (BAC), Morgan Stanley (MS), Goldman Sachs (GS), Progressive (PGR), United Airlines (UAL), Alcoa (AA)
More Data to Watch: Industrial production & capacity utilization (June), Federal Reserve Beige Book
More Data to Watch: Initial jobless claims (Week ending July 12), Import/export price index (June), Philadelphia Fed manufacturing (July), Business inventory (May), Home builder confidence index (July)
Friday, July 18
Housing starts (June)
Key Earnings: American Express (AXP), 3M (MMM), Truist Financial (TFC)
More Data to Watch: Housing starts (June), Consumer sentiment – preliminary (July)
One More Thing
Eligible for an employer-sponsored retirement plan? Unsure how to proceed? Investopedia’s Jordyn Bradley checked with financial experts to help you make the choices that best align with your retirement needs. Read more here.
Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.
Today’s Wordle puzzle is a fun word, but not easy to guess. That first letter doesn’t come up in any of the starter or secondary words I tend to choose. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.
Today’s Wordle hints
Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.
Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats
Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.
Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels
There are two vowels in today’s Wordle answer.
Wordle hint No. 3: First letter
Today’s Wordle answer begins with G.
Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter
Today’s Wordle answer ends in a vowel
Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning
Today’s Wordle answer can refer to a legendary creature that’s often depicted in garden statues.
TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER
Today’s Wordle answer is GNOME.
Yesterday’s Wordle answer
Yesterday’s Wordle answer, July 12, No. 1484 was EXILE.
Recent Wordle answers
July 8, No. 1480: DREAD
July 9, No. 1481: NOVEL
July 10, No. 1482: JUMPY
July 11, No. 1483: BRAND
What’s the best Wordle starting word?
Don’t be afraid to use our tip sheet ranking all the letters in the alphabet by frequency of uses. In short, you want starter words that lean heavy on E, A and R, and don’t contain Z, J and Q.
