Growing up in Japan, home to some of the world’s longest-living people, I fell in love with traditional Japanese food at a young age. My passion for clean and healthy eating is what inspired me to be a nutritionist.

My diet has always been centered around nutritious, longevity-fueling and environmentally-friendly foods. Now living in the U.S., I often get my groceries at local markets or organic farms. But when I’m looking to save money and stock up on healthy goods, I send my husband on his favorite errand: a solo trip to Costco.

Here are the Costco items I trust and can’t live without:

I’ve been eating tofu since I was a baby, and it’s one thing you’ll always find in my fridge. We usually buy two four-pack boxes of organic tofu at Costco, sometimes more.

There are so many dishes you can make! And it’s really good for you: It’s high in protein and provides good fats and a wide variety of vitamins and minerals. Studies have found that tofu can benefit heart health and help reduce the risk of some cancers.

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Edamame is another must-have soy product in our house. At Costco, you can get a bag of 12 individually wrapped 8-ounce portions.

This is my most-recommended snack to friends and family. Just microwave a bag for two minutes and enjoy it as a low-calorie, high-protein snack. Edamame is also rich in fiber, antioxidants and vitamin K.

Goji berries have been used as ancient medicine in East Asia for thousands of years. I add them to many dishes, like miso soup, salad, jams and chia pudding. They add natural sweetness and texture.

A fourth-cup of goji berries has only 100 calories, 4 grams of protein and fiber, and 800 milligrams of potassium — more than what you get in one banana.

It’s so important to eat your vegetables! Only one out of 10 American adults meet the minimum requirement of vegetable intake, which is five servings daily.

I often suggest doubling that number. Regularly eating a variety of veggies makes my body feel clean and energized.

Costco has an amazing selection of organic vegetables. We always get the mushroom samplers, English cucumbers and prewashed French beans. They help make weekday meal-prepping easy. 

Some of my favorite fruits are oranges, blueberries, bananas and blackberries. 

I typically buy them organic because I like to eat the skins of some fruits, like kiwi and citruses, for extra fiber and antioxidants. For many fruits, the skin actually has more nutrients than the inside.

Avocados are a must-buy at Costco. I like to slice a few into my salad, mixed with lemon juice, walnuts and my signature miso dressing.

My husband now uses avocado as a spread on sandwiches instead of butter or cream cheese, and he feels so much healthier!

I don’t eat meat, but my dog Genki and cat Happy need their animal protein. 

I’m not a fan of ultra-processed pet food, so I like to balance their meals with Costco’s organic chicken breast, frozen Atlantic salmon, some edamame, tofu, vegetables, and a variety of legumes. 

They absolutely love it, and I can’t remember the last time they were sick.

Almond butter is high in monounsaturated fats, vitamin E, magnesium and other essential minerals that promote heart health.

I like to use almond butter instead of oil or butter for baking and cooking. Just make sure you check the ingredients to make sure there’s no added salt or sugar.

Sardines are one of the most sustainable fishes. For each 3-ounce serving, you get 2 grams of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids.

This is my husband’s go-to “emergency” food because it’s so fast to prepare. Just sprinkle some turmeric, black pepper and fresh (or powdered) ginger. He eats it with rice, whole wheat bread or noodles.

Matcha is a natural medicinal drink that has anti-cancer properties, and can improve your blood sugar and cholesterol levels. 

I use Costco’s Sencha Organic Everyday Matcha powder for baking, chia pudding or just casual daily tea. It is very well-priced, at just $19.99 per 12-ounce per package, and I trust it because it is sourced from organic family tea farms in Kagoshima, Japan.

Michiko Tomioka, MBA, RDN is a certified nutritionist and longevity expert. Born and raised Nara, Japan, her approach focuses on a plant-based diet. She has worked in nutritional roles at substance recovery centers, charter schools and food banks. Follow her on Instagram @michian_rd.

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Hannah Holscher, a registered dietitian and microbiome researcher, teaches classes about nutrition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is also the Director of the Nutrition and Human Microbiome Laboratory.

At the lab on the school’s campus in Champaign, Holscher and her team analyze biological samples like blood, stool and urine, and sift through large data sets from existing microbiome research to better understand “how the microbes in our body are able to break down components in foods that our own human enzymes can’t digest,” she says.

Holscher’s work helps inform how one should eat to maintain or improve their health and well-being. She also uses all the knowledge she’s gained studying the human microbiome to shape her own diet.

Here’s what Holscher eats to keep her gut healthy.

As a mom of two young boys, ages three and six, Holscher isn’t the most strict about her diet.

Being too strict about what she eats “just takes some joy away from food for me, and I love the joy of food and cooking and trying new things,” she says.

But Holscher does make sure to get one vital nutrient in as often as possible for optimal gut health: ”[I] try to get my recommended amount of fiber every day, which is going to be right around 25 grams.”

Some foods that are rich in fiber include leafy greens, berries, apples, avocados and chia seeds.

“The gut has a favorite food, and that favorite food is fiber,” says Dr. Kellyann Petrucci, a celebrity nutrition expert and New York Times best-selling author.

American adults typically eat only 10 to 15 grams of total fiber a day, according to Harvard Health Publishing.

“What happens is, if you don’t get enough fiber, then the bugs, or the microbes that are very important [and] that line your entire gastrointestinal system, they don’t get what they need. So they don’t have that good material to chomp on [and] they start chomping on the gut lining,” Petrucci told CNBC Make It last year.

Here’s a look at how Holscher typically eats every day to get enough fiber and keep her gut happy. “I work really hard to try to prioritize consuming different plant-based foods: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes.”

Breakfast

Holscher frontloads her day with foods rich in dietary fiber or probiotics. Her first meal of the day typically includes something like:

• Overnight oats with whole rolled oats, chia seeds, flax seeds, milk, berries and honey
• High-fiber cereal
• Yogurt and granola

Lunch

Her days can get busy, so between meetings Holscher typically opts for a snack at lunchtime, instead of a large meal.

She enjoys snacks like:

• Apples
• Oranges
• Bananas
• Celery
• Carrots
• Nuts

Dinner

“Dinner can get really interesting. My husband does all of our cooking in our household. I’m super lucky,” Holscher says. “He likes to experiment with different types of menus, and he’s Pakistani.”

Her husband cooks up dishes with legumes and lots of spices like:

• Chickpeas
• Lentils
• Turmeric

“Just last night, he made chicken burrito bowls. So we had chicken, avocado, black beans and a corn and onion salsa that he made,” Holscher says. “And we had bag salad.”

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When Mary Braun met her husband Sébastien, they were both living in Chicago. But on their second date, Sébastien, a native of France, told Braun he wasn’t planning on staying in the United States for much longer — he had been in America for 15 years and wanted to move back to Europe soon.

“He actually almost moved back but then decided to stay just a little bit longer and met me, so it was very serendipitous in that way,” Braun tells CNBC Make It.

At the end of 2020, the couple moved into a two-bedroom apartment together on the North Side of Chicago. At the time, Sébastien worked for ZF Group, a German technology manufacturing company, while Mary worked as a social media manager for a haircare company.

Both worked remotely and eventually the apartment proved too small for them, so the couple moved across the street into a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom duplex where they paid $2,585 a month in rent.

“I miss it so much. It was a really cute building that still had brick walls and Chicago character but was gutted and renovated,” Braun says.

Braun and Sébastien lived in the apartment for about a year and got through the Covid-19 pandemic together there. During that time, they started seriously considering a move to Europe and which country they would soon call home. Switzerland was at the top of their list.

Sébastien was enrolled in an executive MBA program at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. “He chose it because he was able to do a lot of it remotely from the U.S.,” Braun says. “Since the long-term goal was moving back to Europe, it made sense for him to do a European program.”

Another mitigating factor for the couple was that Sébastien hadn’t been able to see his family in France for an entire year because of pandemic travel restrictions. He started actively working to get transferred to his company’s European offices.

The ZF Group offered Sébastien a transfer to an office in Germany, but Braun balked at the idea. She didn’t speak the language and there were no direct flights to and from Chicago. He was then offered the opportunity to work out of a ZF office in Bern, Switzerland, the country’s capital.

Though a move to Bern still didn’t appeal to Braun — it also has no direct flights in and out of Chicago — she realized Zurich was close enough that Sébastien could commute into the office every day.

“He really thought it was the best career opportunity for him, and at the time, the company that I worked for was willing to let me go and work remotely for them from Switzerland,” Braun says. “The stars aligned.”

By December 2021, the couple had started the process of moving to Switzerland — which included attaining Swiss visas — so they didn’t end up actually moving until September 2022. Braun and Sébastien married in March of that year, shipped most of their belongings to Switzerland, and moved in with Braun’s parents while they waited for the paperwork to clear.

“We still had a long time to adjust to it and be with my family,” Braun says. “Which I think helped make the transition easier.”

When Braun and Sébastien finally made their move to Zurich, they lived in temporary housing — first in a furnished 1-bedroom, 1-bathroom that they paid 3,880 francs or $4,253 USD and then a 2-bedroom, 1.5 bathroom place that rented for 5,090 francs or $5,580, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

“I remember sitting on the bed in the temporary housing with our dog and thinking how is this real? How are we in Switzerland? How did our dog make it here? How did everything fall into place?” Braun says.

“This was our real life now and we had to deal with it. It was just surreal.”

That December, the couple found a more permanent living arrangement. It was a 2-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom apartment in the Enge neighborhood of Zurich where rent was 4,120 francs or $4,516.

The couple loved that apartment, but in January 2023, Braun learned she was pregnant. Living on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator became a major concern. The couple were also notified that their rent would be raised. They figured it was the right time to find a place with more space.

Five months later, Braun and Sébastien left the old apartment behind and moved to a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment in Uitikon, a town just outside of Zurich, for 3,950 francs or $4,330 a month. Braun says one of the upsides for them was that their taxes went down because they weren’t living in the city anymore.

In Switzerland, people pay federal income tax rates ranging from 0 to 11.5%, but that doesn’t include local taxes, according to H&R Block. The cantons, which are similar to states in the U.S., and municipalities also charge taxes.

A downside? It wasn’t all that easy to get around their new town without a car. When Braun gave birth to the couple’s daughter and went on maternity leave, she was employed as a social media manager for a Swiss company that wasn’t friendly towards remote work. “I was starting to get concerned about just balancing life,” she says.

There was a possibility that Braun would lose her job if she didn’t return to her office full-time when her leave was up.

“If I were in the U.S., I would have my mom or someone I knew well to watch our daughter. We started thinking that we needed to have a plan for the worst-case scenario financially.”

Eventually, Braun’s boss confirmed the worst, and she considered her options. “I appreciated that [my boss] was very honest with me, but it was a bummer because I kind of had to choose between my career or my family,” she says.

“I took the loss, but there are other bonuses to being at home with our daughter. Being a stay-at-home mom is just a different job.”

Last year, the couple and their daughter moved to a town outside of Fribourg, just under two hours from Zurich’s city center, where the family still resides. They pay 2,630 francs, or $2,883, a month for their 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment.

“We were able to save a huge chunk of change and Sébastien was making more money. It didn’t really close the gap between me losing my income but it definitely helped from a financial standpoint,” Braun says.

Plus, as French is a primary language in that area, Braun was excited to raise her daughter there, knowing she would learn the language and she could improve her own.

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, Braun says she really appreciates the sense of safety that comes with living in Switzerland. She takes a lot of nature walks alone with her daughter and the family dog.

“The safety level is so different here that honestly, as a woman, I just feel safer doing things that I would probably think twice about doing in the U.S.,” Mary says. “It feels very secure and safe while still being beautiful at the same time.”

Braun and Sébastien have lived in Switzerland for over two years now, and though they miss America’s sense of celebration and having so much more readily available, the results of the 2024 presidential election means that moving back might be off the table — at least for the next four years: “There’s too much uncertainty in the U.S.”

“I never want our daughter to feel like she’s not American and I want her to culturally identify with the U.S., at least the good parts of it,” Braun says. “It’s also tempting because for me, it would be easy to get back into the job market with my journalism background, especially as a freelancer, which isn’t really a thing in Switzerland.”

Still, “I think socially it doesn’t really make sense for us at the moment,” she adds.

The couple thinks they will eventually move again to be closer to Sébastien’s family, but that won’t happen any time soon. “To have the ability to have help and have someone to rely on and watch our daughter is amazing,” Braun says. “To have her grow up in one of her cultures, I think, would be really cool for us.”

Until then, Braun is focused on learning French to expand her career opportunities if and when they move to Sébastien’s home country and she’s ready to return to work.

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Drew Houston’s company was born from a very millennial problem.

As a student at MIT, Houston repeatedly lost USB drives with important information on them, he told “Lenny’s Podcast” in an episode that aired earlier this month. In 2007, at age 24, he got fed up and created a cloud storage platform for his own personal use. Later, he built it out into the file-hosting company Dropbox — which has a $9.62 billion market cap, as of Thursday afternoon.

“I started Dropbox more out of just personal frustration,” said Houston, now 41. “It really felt like something only I was super interested in as far as file syncing, and focusing on one customer, which was myself.”

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This wasn’t Houston’s first entrepreneurial foray: He’d launched an SAT prep company called Accolade in 2004. The gig was “ramen profitable, so to speak, but more importantly a great introduction to the wild world of starting companies,” he writes on his LinkedIn profile.

Dropbox’s success, in contrast, gave Houston a net worth of of $2.3 billion, according to Forbes. He remains the company’s CEO today, overseeing more than 700 million users from 180 different countries on the platform.

But Dropbox’s growth didn’t happen overnight.

Popularizing cloud storage was a double-edged sword, Houston said: As Dropbox became popular, it increasingly had to survive competition from giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google.

“All of them launched competing products in one form or another,” said Houston. “Steve Jobs was on stage in 2011 announcing iCloud, calling out Dropbox by name as something that will be viewed as archaic. And similarly, we always felt like we were in the shadow of the hammer of Google launching Google Drive.”

Dropbox was relatively large itself by that point, with a reported $4 billion valuation in 2011. Over the next few years, it acquired an email app called Mailbox and launched a photo management app called Carousel.

But new product lines couldn’t solve a bigger problem: By 2015, platforms like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram were providing some of Dropbox’s core file-sharing services for free.

“They just totally nuked our business model … [It was] even worse because it was so easily anticipated,” Houston said. “So this became a very public and personal embarrassment for me. How could we not have predicted that, or been out in front of that?”

Houston read business books to help him strategize, including “Playing to Win” by ex-Proctor and Gamble head Alan G. Lafley, he said. His takeaway: Focus on what you can control and do well, instead of what your competitors are doing.

Dropbox shuttered Carousel and Mailbox, cutting an undisclosed amount of staff. It launched Magic Pocket in 2015, an “in-house multi-exabyte storage system” that allowed Dropbox users to handle bigger file uploads and store files at a larger scale — a new competitive edge, said Houston.

The lesson, he said, is to view challenges as opportunities to improve: Without the strong competition, Dropbox might never have pushed itself to grow.

“Every time you move up a league, your reward is a stronger and better opponent and potentially a more unlevel playing field,” said Houston. “That’s just the way it is. You can’t control that. All you can control is how you respond.”

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Dropbox has more than 700 million users from 180 different countries, according to its website.

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Your child gets a good grade on a test. “Good job!” you respond. The scenario seems pretty straightforward — but those two words can backfire on you, says child psychologist Becky Kennedy.

If you don’t add a more specific form of praise onto the end, “good job” can be a “conversation ender,” Kennedy said on a podcast episode of “The Tim Ferriss Show” that aired last month. Ask follow-up questions to show your kid that your praise is sincere, and highlight the positive behavior that you want them to build on, she recommended.

The idea is to help build their confidence and prevent them from relying on external validation, helping them become more successful later in life, said Kennedy, who has a PhD in clinical psychology from Columbia University and hosts the “Good Inside” parenting podcast.

“In those moments, we want as parents to double down on building our kid’s confidence. That’s usually the goal we’re optimizing for,” said Kennedy,

To be clear, the phrase “good job” isn’t itself harmful, Kennedy said. But if your school-aged child brings home a research paper they’re proud of, asking specific questions and showing genuine interest is more likely to build their confidence, whether you say those two words or not, she noted.

A parent of three children herself, Kennedy admitted that the advice “sounds annoying at first … [But] anything that helps your kid share more about themself actually ends up feeling better to your kid.”

Specific praise helps kids develop inner efficacy, which means they’ll believe in their own abilities and be more likely to challenge themselves in pursuit of their goals, developmental psychologist and author Aliza Pressman wrote for CNBC Make It last year.

Like Kennedy, Pressman agreed that parents don’t need to eliminate the phrase “good job” from their vocabularies completely — but it should always be followed by specific praise.

“When we say ‘Good job!’ it’s got to be sincere and specific. Tell kids when you recognize their real effort, persistence, creativity, independence, and competence,” Pressman wrote.

As for self-validation — learning how to validate oneself without waiting on generic praise from someone else — Kennedy considers it one of the most important core skills children need to learn to eventually succeed as adults, she said.

Kids who grow up relying on the outside world for validation can be “very empty and very fragile [and] very, very anxious,” Kennedy said. “What’s really helpful down the road is when you produce something — maybe it’s art, maybe it’s a [work] project — and being able to give yourself some estimation of that before others do is very helpful to your whole self-concept and protective of anxiety and depression.”

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