Eating Habits and Diet During Covid19

[casimira]

With everything out of whack to begin with, I am finding that over time our eating habits and diet have been all jumbled up in all kinds of ways.

We are not eating at regularly scheduled times at all.

The pantry, refrigerator and freezer are full so, there is a lot to choose from and my husband has been cooking up a storm.
Although there is a wide variety of restaurants with take out food available, I haven't felt comfortable ordering out. (I've seen far too many pics of advertisements featuring restaurant staff not wearing masks etc. so, that alone is enough to keep me away from that).

I find myself snacking more than usual. Sometimes to the point of not being hungry when regular mealtimes arrive.

I am eating many more carbohydrates and fattening foods, a lot of cheeses.

When I go to the grocery I am buying foods I ordinarily wouldn't buy.

I am having a lot more cravings for "comfort foods", (meatloaf, spaghetti and meatballs, macaroni and cheese...)

And, although I am physically active, walking, cycling, and a lot of gardening, I fear that before "this" is all over, I will be "big as a house".
At a certain point, I know I am going to have to crackdown and discipline myself to get back to a healthier way of eating. 
But, in the meantime, I really haven't addressed it nor really give a hoot.

How about the rest of y'all?

[lagatta]

My appetite goes up and down. Some days I'm so stressed I can't eat anything and am disgusted by what I have in the fridge (no, nothing "off" - much as it pains me to waste food, I dump anything dubious). Now I have what is left of two very good chicken legs, which I had roasted with little potatoes. I'm trying to think what to do with this nutritious meat; probably with rice and onions. Seasoning ideas?

[whatagain]

Hello. Good idea of a thread

So here goes for me. My wife cooks more often and has more time.
So we eat too well.
Schedules are worse than normal. Lunch at min 2 sometimes 3 pm. Dinner at 8 min most ifren 9 pm.

On top of this i drink too much coke eat too much chocolate but keep alcohol quite low.

I am gaining weight for sure !

[mickthecactus]

Being retired we haven't changed our times or eating habits at all although Mrs Cactus seems to be having more cakes...

[bjd]

Our eating habits are the same but there is definitely less exercise and more chocolate. I haven't put on much weight, maybe a kilo, but hope it will go away once things get back to normal. I don't snack in general, definitely don't drink Coke or soft drinks.

[patricklondon]

I haven't changed my eating habits (much) either, at least in terms of what I eat for regular mealtimes (I've slightly over-indulged on sweets and biscuits). For the first few weeks I was a bit spooked by having to find a different time to shop conveniently, but now I've found a "sweet spot" for doing a weekly shop at my usual supermarket and it's mostly up to pretty normal stock levels for anything I want. I still haven't quite got the balance right in terms of planning things to replace my lunches out, without dipping into what I think of as my strategic reserve in the freezer and cupboards. Time to stop being what-if paranoid about that, I think, and clear some room.

Not least because I want to make shepherd's pie tomorrow, and the smallest quantity of mince I could get at the supermarket means there'll be enough for several days' worth.


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[cheerypeabrain]

I'm baking up a storm. Bread, biscuits, cakes and pies...so of course we are eating them. I refuse to get on the scales because it will only depress me. I'm still exercising by taking long walks with the dog and I've done a fair bit of gardening...but I can feel the weight piling on.

I will get a handle on it. Obesity is a risky thing to toy with when Covid 19 is around.

[kerouac2]

Excellent idea for a thread, casimira!

I have actually changed my habits a bit, particularly my meal times. Since I used to go to a film in the morning and would be back around 11:30 if I had nothing else on my agenda, I used to eat lunch around noon, particularly as I nearly never have breakfast. Now I have been eating lunch as early as 10:30 although I generally try to hold off until a bit pas eleven. This has been making me have dinner as early as 18:00 some evenings. This is one of the major inconveniences of living alone, since there is no one to reason with you.

I have never been much of a snacker, but I made a point of forbidding myself any snacks until I can get out and have more meaningful exercise. I have a little bit of candy on hand for random cravings, but I keep it to a minimum.

I have made a point of trying to go for more unusual items rather than comfort food for dinner. For example, tonight I am making an octopus salad with a bit of help from the internet to avoid making major mistakes. It is cooling off in the refrigerator at the moment, and for once my dinner will be at a more reasonable time, because it is 19:30 at the moment, and I won't eat before about 20:15.

I have lost a little bit of weight, which is a good thing.

[onlyMark]

Being by myself for an extended period of time means I expend a lot less effort in making meals as usually, being the good househusband, I try and have dinner on the table for when she gets back from work. Not needed now though so I tend to have something like a couple of slices of toast and jam around 10am and then I've reverted to my favoured way of eating, and one I was brought up with like many, in that I have 'dinner' around 1 to 1.30pm.
That is my main meal and later I'll have a sandwich or cheese and biscuits or a bowl of cereal about 6 to 6.30ish.

I don't particularly snack on anything but usually keep in the fridge in a plastic container with water in, some cut carrot or, now I'm back in Germany, sliced raw kohlrabi and dip into those willy nilly.
My problem is that after not being able in Zambia to buy decent salami and all those meat variations, I've been a bit over the top with stocking up on them and have great trouble deciding what to have on my bread rolls I try not to open too many packets at once 'just to try' them but I have resorted to having open sandwiches so that I can double up on the filling.

I buy one large packet of salt and vinegar crisps every week, no chocolate or sweets but as with the mortadella/salami etc, I have a whole shelf of different yogurts, grießbrei (UK would be ground rice) and yummy pots of different stuff I have for my puddings.

[lagatta]

Hard not to fall into the salami in Germany or other places in Central or Northern Europe! They even make things such as very good leberwurst! lvegetarian leberwurst

Such substitutes exist here but they taste like cardboard. I actually found tasty ones in the Netherlands and Germany. And no, I'm not vegetarian.

I like the German habit of open-faced sandwiches for supper, if you have hearty rye bread. But also lightened with salads.

[bixaorellana]

One thing about living alone is that I'm in complete control over what comes in the house, i.e., no using the pretext that someone else likes something to have it around. That means that I pretty much don't ever buy seductive crap because I know for a fact that I will eat it.

My biggest fear about quarantining was that I'd fall into boredom eating. Luckily that hasn't happened, maybe because it's uncomfortably hot here right now. What I have right now is a lack of inspiration or any interest in thinking ahead about meals. If I'm lucky I'll come across something that piques my interest. Last night for supper I made a dish of bavette & swiss chard inspired by something Mich had invented. Today for lunch I made a stewed cabbage thing I came across in a book. I had that with a tamal I picked up when I went to the market for cabbage. Except for the very occasional popcorn-instead-of-supper, I do try to make sure every meal is nutritious.

To entertain myself I have made some danger foods, starting with homemade peanut butter, segueing into fudge and then into cookies. Luckily I have people I can give these treats to, saving only a safe amount for myself.

[lagatta]

And you don't even have Livia bringing in live mice!

My danger foods aren't sweet, they are savoury and full of butter. In a way I was almost relieved that La fête du croissant had been cancelled this year! Not that I eat croissants often, but they are such a treat. In the Netherlands, there are savoury cheese biscuits of various forms!

[fumobici]

Apr 25, 2020 22:47:51 GMT huckle said:

My diet hasn't changed that much because I have a super delivery service from my local supermarket. Fresh produce, most of my diet, is readily available. Anticipated, because of meat plant closings, is the loss of pork and beef to the American diet. As of right this minute, beef and pork production is down 25 percent due to Covid-19 victims and the failure of plants to provide safe distancing and/or basic PPE. Reading the details of the situation in the meat plants, I'm certainly reminded of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Like in The Jungle most of the stricken workers are immigrants.

The Chicago meat plants unionized and pay and conditions became far better. Then the industry moved South to states with fewer worker's rights and regulations, undocumented labor being the gold standard for exploitation since they are frightened, have no bargaining leverage and no legal recourses. Upton knew how ugly and cruel unrestrained capitalism could be, a lesson we've since been mercilessly propagandized to forget.

[tod2]

Apr 25, 2020 17:12:18 GMT cheerypeabrain said:

I'm baking up a storm. Bread, biscuits, cakes and pies...so of course we are eating them.

Likewise Cheery except I'm no baker so every recipe is an experiment. Right now I have a chocolate cake in the oven. Taken off the internet, it has no eggs, no butter just simply flour, cocoa powder, sugar, milk, salt, oil ,lemon juice and vanilla. If it turns out like the one the woman on YouTube made I will be amazed!

[casimira]

I'm glad that I am not into baking. I did bake a blackberry pie for my T's birthday a couple of weeks ago but other than that nothing in the baking department.
I also try to avoid using the oven because it's been hot here and I don't want to heat up the house any more than necessary.

I am not a big bread eater although we have a neighbor who takes a daily early morning walk to a bakery nearby and often times brings us a fresh baguette which I don't turn my nose up at.

I am trying to discourage T from cooking so much. One of the alternatives/tactics I have used is to fix some plates of food for a couple of the elderly neighbors on our block. 
Early on, some younger people we know were bringing us food until we politely told them we were fine.

I finally broke down and weighed myself early this morning and to my surprise my weight has remained the same.

I attribute this to having abstained from alcohol (it started as a Lenten thing but I felt so much better and continue to abstain) and drinking copious amounts of water. I have never been a soft drink person and if I don't drink just plain water I drink Pelligrino with lemon or lime.
T occasionally has a pilsner in the evening.

One thing I really miss is being able to go swimming. I had been riding my bicycle to a fitness center that has a salt water pool and was going 3 times a week or more.

[bixaorellana]

Apr 26, 2020 13:08:24 GMT casimira said:

Early on, some younger people we know were bringing us food until we politely told them we were fine.

Sorry to laugh. I had to read the sentence twice for the implication to sink in.

Also genuinely sorry about the swimming being cut off, which must feel like a real loss.

[patricklondon]

I FOUND A SHOP SELLING BREAD FLOUR THIS MORNING!

Sorry for shouting, but life has been a little short of excitements.


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[lagatta]

I don't blame you. Oddly, I don't feel much like baking though I should make some pizza or focaccia. I'm limited in what I can bake as I have only a countertop convection oven. By the way, do look at Rachel Roddy's piadana recipe in the Guardian (Food, obviously). I've had piadana in Italy and it looks both easy to make and a good foundation for interesting sandwiches. Since she live in Rome she suggests central-southern toppings/fillings but fine mature English and other UK cheese would be every bit as good. I do have most of 2kg of organic unbleached bread flour in my freezer.

I'm heating up my vaguely authentic Indonesian chicken curry and some basmati rice (added a bit of chicken broth to the latter, so it's not too dry. Drinking a local cidre brut pétillant, really dry, not too strong.

[casimira]

I overheard someone today being real excited about finding yeast in the grocery so, between flour and yeast there must be a lot of people baking out there.

Bixa, I can understand why you laughed at my post about the younger people bringing food over.

Actually, it happened more than once and some other younger people have offered to go shopping for us.

All very kind mind you, but it's not as though we are feeble or walking with canes or anything.

The one couple who brought over some food, it was a large aluminum foil "vat" of baked ziti with an excellent red sauce and good ground Italian sausage. It was very good but we did end up giving much of it away to some other elderly people.

(BTW Bixa, you would be thrilled that the old K&B turned Rite Aide turned Walgreens at Oak and S. Carrollton is now a Canseco's Grocery. An old New Orleans Italian family who have 3 other groceries in the metro area. Super kind people, well stocked, clean, fresh produce along with a large selection of prepared foods. A most welcome addition to our neighborhood.)

[questa]

I can't say my eating habits have changed. I've always been indifferent cook and inclined to grab something simple rather than plan and create a 'nice meal' It turns out that I eat the right diet according to the Healthy Eating programs...more by luck than good management. The price of food has become an issue with the drought and bushfires destroying much of the usual crops of cereals and meats.

What has changed is my remembering to take my medications. I have a clutch of pills that I should have at 7am, 1pm 3pm and 7pm Lately I don't wake until 8am so move everything up one hour. Breakfast pills are OK but the lunch and 3pm pills get forgotten easily as this is when I am absorbed in some project that has waited years for this un-interrupted time. Alarm clock didn't work, I would turn it off and think, 'just do this bit' and forget again. Only when my hands got the tremors would I realise the time and re-set my schedule.

Stuck in this isolation for 5 weeks it is easy to lose track of time, days and dates. I can understand the urge of prisoners, castaways and the like to carve notches in trees or scratches on cave walls to create a time-record.

[lagatta]

Congratulations on Canseco's! I have a similar grocery close by, Milano, though they've gone rather upscale and I wouldn't do a complete shop there anymore, though some foodstuffs remain cheaper than major chains and they always have good fresh produce at a reasonable price. The owners are from nowhere near Milano, they are Abruzzese; a high percentage of Italian immigrants here are from Abruzzo and Molise. They chose the name Milano simply as easy to pronounce for francophones, anglophones and others,

[bixaorellana]

Apr 26, 2020 23:55:37 GMT casimira said:

we did end up giving much of it away to some other elderly people.

Yeah, you oldsters gotta stick together! Sheesh.
I am thrilled to hear about the Canseco's. What a perfect location for it, too.

[casimira]

I read a piece somewhere that addressed the phenomena of some people craving certain foods during COVID19.

It went into detail about certain chemicals in the brain that when people are under stress it triggers a myriad of different areas of the brain that induce cravings for food that people wouldn't ordinarily eat. 

Most of them were "comfort foods" that transported people back to childhood or some happier time.

[kerouac2]

And yet I want to be transported to the other side of the planet in my plate, the opposite of comfort food.

I would love to see an analysis of the reactions of different people to the same confinement situation. I suspect that I am not really under stress but just bored by being confined -- so I want totally different things from normal.

[lagatta]

Yes, I want Southeast Asian food! I'm just hoping that those modest family restaurants in my hood survive.

Other than them, there is a local restaurant of good standing that has shut down and is being incorporated into an overpriced Greek-origin chain. I love Greek food, but this restaurant charges twice what similar ones do and isn't really any better. Just better branded. Hope our favourite one survives!

I am experiencing bizarre taste changes. I bought a little tub of goat-milk labneh today and it tastes terribly acid (it is utterly fresh and I've always loved it).

I refuse to buy large shops for a week, as I loathe wasting food.

[mickthecactus]

Our local Turkish restaurant is opening up next week for takeaway.

Great food and great value for money. We are all delighted.

[lagatta]

Yes, when in Amsterdam, the Turkish restaurants were great value, and I was glad that the NGO I was working for moved farther east where there were more "ethnic" restaurants. The local market is cheaper too. I'm really not very concerned about food safety or sanitation in the Netherlands. I've seen householders cleaning their doors and "stoops" (a Dutch word for outdoor steps below a front door, which became common in NYC) on a Saturday.

The Moroccan shop where I bought the goat labneh had a lot of Ramadam promotions, including lamb neck (obviously bony but delicious) and different cuts of local duck.

[casimira]

I have heard predictions that say 50% of the independently owned restaurants here in NOLA will likely not be able to reopen if this goes on for too long.

Some are already saying they can't reopen at all with the current situation.

I fear/dread that many of our favorite eateries will be among these.

Fast food chains here they come...

[lagatta]

Horrors, the same thing could happen in Montréal. Many of my favourite restaurants have closed, often permanently, at all price levels.

[bixaorellana]

May 2, 2020 20:16:47 GMT casimira said:

Some are already saying they can't reopen at all with the current situation.I fear/dread that many of our favorite eateries will be among these.

Have any of them moved to delivery? Restaurants, even really little ones, moved quickly to become delivery only. One thing that helps is that the comida corrida (quick meal), what we'd call the blue plate special is an entrenched tradition. So when restaurants offered revolving specials for home delivery, it caught on quickly. Let's hope it keeps those places afloat.