How has the pandemic affected your cooking and eating habits?

Not eating out at all, cooking is fun and okay.

Cook dinner for two of us and make a enough for three or four nights.

We’re not dining out but we are having nice dinners at home.
In fact, things are better than ever in that regard as he is cooking more because he’s home now.
I’m not eating more than usual as I still want to be able to fit into my pants when it comes time to put them back on. XD

We have been eating more food than normal and I am gaining weight. Cooking has become a big part of each day. This week we are reigning that in a little and reducing the portion sizes.

I’ve lost weight and don’t seem to be as hungry at home. Recently we started picking up a few curbside meals again to support the businesses, with gloves and mask, etc…(please note: because our area has a low infection rate.) Generally we cook and eat at home the majority of the time still.

The main difference is I’ve been having food delivered more. And since I’m at home with my parents, they’re doing more cooking and I’m doing less. Since I’ve been getting less exercise (overall), I’ve been trying to eat more healthily. My weight’s pretty much been the same for the past eight years, so I’m not really worried about that, but I don’t want to lapse into constant snacking just because I’ve become more sedentary.

I live in a small town of 3000 people. There is no bus service, and no grocery store. The nearest grocery store is a five hour walk away. I am visually impaired and can’t drive. I am on blood-thinners because of a recent pulmonary embolism, so I can’t even ride a bicycle because if I fall and hit my head or cut myself, I’ll bleed out and die on the spot. I used to use Amazon to feed myself, but it’s now completely sold out of food.

Before the pandemic, I was surviving mostly on rice, instant mashed potatoes, and microwave popcorn because it’s all I could afford. I lost 50 pounds over four months on that diet. Now I’m eating rice. Just rice. I have enough left for perhaps a month. After that, I guess I just starve. I might actually starve to death. I’m sure I won’t be the only one.

I had to stop cooking 30 years ago after having my stroke. My husband loved to cook, so he did ALL the cooking. He cooked some wonderfully delightful meals!!! After he died, I tried to get back to cooking for myself & found it more difficult than I had remembered. A great meat & 3 restaurant opened up about ¼ mile from my house, so I started eating there every day. The price is very reasonable, they cook much better than I do, & I have absolutely NO pots, pans, & dishes to wash after the fact. I got to know all the waitresses & got to choose the one that I like best to wait on me almost every visit. She takes great care of me & lets me know the extra special items each day. When the dining area was closed due to the virus, they opened a drive thru, so I still get my delicious meals every day…I just have to bring them home to eat. We’ve set up a system to where I call in my order. As I go through the drive thru, I let down my passenger window & the same waitress sits the bag in my passenger seat. I hand her the exact change + tip, she thanks me, & I drive back home to eat. When I finish eating, I toss everything in my trash can to be picked up with my next garbage pickup.

A friend of mine is manager of a local convenience store & we do much the same when I need a loaf of bread. I pull up out front, she grabs the bread, I give her the money, & she sits the bread in my passenger seat. That way I don’t have to mingle with any of the weirdos that frequent her store.

I live in a really small town & we just had our first confirmed case of the virus last Friday. Although I did ALL the suggested protective things to keep from getting the virus, I felt relatively safe with my system of doing things.

I’ve only been to the grocery store 3 times since this started & that was to get some dog food for my dog & fresh veggies for me to snack on. I must be eating less as I’ve lost 4 pounds since I started self isolating.

I tend to graze, I am not really interested in eating except for craving certain things at times, like candy sometimes or salty snacky things.

My friend just gave me a few pounds of self-rising flour, and since I can’t use it for bread, I guess I’ll figure out different things to do with it.

Any suggestions???

I’m cooking much more. I’ve gained 2 or 3 pounds due to eating more sugar, so I’m stopping that.

@smashthestate Are there no food banks in your town?

@canidmajor I’m working on a sourdough starter to use instead of commercial yeast. It’s actually easy, just takes a week or so.

@SmashTheState I’m seeing all kinds of food available on Amazon

@canidmajor Can you use self rising for bread and decrease the yeast? I’m not a bread baker so I don’t know.

I’ve been really enjoying cooking and eating since this has started. A cooking project helps occupy my time and makes me feel productive. I’ve made three batches of soup in the last month – red lentil, cream of carrot and this morning, cream of broccoli. Luckily, I have a deep freezer in the basement.

It’s interesting to me because usually in times of great stress, I stop eating. I lost seven pounds when I broke my ankle last year but in this, food has been very important to me. Part of nesting I guess.

In addition to savoring my meals, I am snacking too much through the day and have put on a few pounds. I weigh myself daily and won’t let it get too high but I do love sweets and baking.

One difference I’ve noticed is that I am being more resourceful about using up food. Where i might have thrown things out, I am finding ways to make meals out of bits and pieces.

I have also been doing more baking and have brought cookies and brownies and soup over to some of my friends and neighbors. (Leaving them on porches with a text warning.)

I don’t want to chance wasting the flour, so I’ll do other stuff. Thinking cornbread and brownies…

I never use self-raising so can’t help you but there might be some equivalence charts online.

@canidmajor Biscuits and pancakes, maybe banana bread for self-rising flour. Or cookies if you cut back on salt and baking powder.

Fortunately, as evidenced by my presence here, I have access to the Internet. I am looking for ways to use it with stuff I have on hand. What a good excuse I have to be goofy with fun food!

IF you bake up some biscuits, you can freeze them & heat them back up later. Not as good as fresh baked but does come in handy when you’re busy once again or at home by yourself & craving a biscuit. Same with the pancakes. Freeze them & pull our a few, toss in the microwave & you’ve got a easy breakfast when in a crunch time!!!

@ARE_you_kidding_me Now check the Kanadian version.

@chyna No. This is an extremely religious Mennonite community, and they pull their children and dogs away from me on the street. I am not well loved here, and the local community orbits around their church.

There are no simple, easy solutions to my situation or I’d already have solved it. The fact is, a lot of poor people are in my situation right now, especially those with disabilities. The hospitals withdrew their care from most people with disabilities to prepare for COVID-19. We’ve been “triaged” since the disabled use a disproportionate amount of health care. They stopped testing my blood, for instance, forcing me to make guesses at the proper level of warfarin to use; too little and I’ll die in my sleep from a blood clot. Too much and I’ll die from a nosebleed. Others have it much worse than I do; paraplegics and quadriplegics are starting to get UTIs and bedsores because of lack of health care.

Those of us who started out desperately treading water before the pandemic are now totally underwater and starting to drown. And no one cares. Lebensunwertes leben, I guess.

@SmashTheState That’s really terrible. So nothing you can do to improve your situaton?

May I ask why the Mennonites ostracize you? I mean, they don’t really ‘hang out’ with us, but they are helpful and friendly neighbors, usually willing to help the less fortunate, even indirectly. Are they old order?

@KNOWITALL Yes, in both senses. It’s a very traditional order, and there’s a Mennonite retirement home. I run an occult shop, which is why they’re terrified of me. Not a single one of them has entered my shop in the entire time I’ve been here. Not a single person, even out of curiosity.

I used to have a shop in the city nearby. I spent every penny I ever saved renovating an old, abandoned storefront. A week after my grand opening I was evicted because the landlord’s wife is a devout christian and decided she didn’t want a tarot reader in her building.

No one else in the city would rent to me because I have no credit rating. I haven’t filed my taxes in 20 years, have no credit cards, no insurance, no mortgage, no loans, nothing. I don’t officially exist. Even with first and last rent in hand, cash, no one would rent to me because I don’t exist. Facing homelessness, I spent the last of my money moving to this tiny town because it was the only place which would rent to me. I didn’t know before I got here that it was an extremely conservative religious community, and now I’m trapped here.

edit: If you’re curious here is a picture of my shop.

@SmashTheState Well that doesn’t surprise me much, after your explanation. I hope your situation improves, truly.

@SmashTheState Ok

@ARE_you_kidding_me The last time I had money a few weeks ago, they were out of stock on everything. Delivery time for my last order was three weeks. Currently it looks like it’s now two weeks. You can see that there’s not much there, and what IS there is too expensive for me to eat. My food budget is $50 a month. Like I just wrote, I’ve been surviving on rice, instant mashed potatoes, and microwave popcorn – and I can see those things are still out of stock.

Do you really think you’re going tio catch me in a lie or something? Do you think I haven’t explored every possibility?

No, just trying to understand. There is plenty of food on Amazon.ca. $50 a month for food is not workable in any situation.

No change, really. We usually cook our own meals. We might get takeout once a week. We could only afford to dine out about once per month, so the only thing that has changed is no dine out.

Since chef cried off like a virus afraid bitch, the wife has taken over kitchen duties.
The fire service are regular visitors!

Originally, I was nervous to eat anything that wasn’t cooked, but just this week I started eating raw vegetables again.

I also was nervous to eat restaurant food, so I have been eating only at home. Usually, we eat out about 2–3 times a week, so going a month without any restaurant food is unusual. I have decided to venture out and get some Chinese take-out sometime soon. I just need to finish some of the food in my fridge.

At home my food has been fairly unchanged. I wish I was eating even healthier. I have lost 4 pounds barely doing any physical activity. I attribute that to not eating out and not buying extra junk food in this situation.

Just weighed and I’m down a full 10lbs during my SAH. I’ll take it!

I’m pretty sure I went about 10 the other way.

@ARE I suggest being the only person cooking and cleaning then. My love of food couldn’t survive all that after week 3. Haha!

The irony is I was eating more because I was busy. Just putting it in my mouth at the appointed time. Now I nibble lunch and eat a simple dinner. Last night was 7 shrimp and cup of angel hair pasta with parmesan and real butter. I would love to get this extra weight off and come out looking fly and feeling great.

@KNOWITALL I am the cook, that’s the problem LOL. I have time to make proper meals right now.—-gets up to get the next batch of cornbread out of the oven for brunch.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Sounds to me like you’re boredom eating, my friend.

Fresh buttery cornbread sounds amazing though. What are you serving with it?

Have you ever made Mexican cornbread with cream corn, jalepenos and cheese? Really good.

@KNOWITALL: Someone I used to work with made something with cornmeal, sour cream and creamed corn. It was very moist, almost like a pudding, even though you could cut slices of it. It was sooo good!

@jca2 Oh wow, never tried to add sour cream, interesting take…hmmmm.

@KNOWITALL @jca2 It’s mexi-cornbread with bacon, jalapenos, cheese and corn kernels. I do add about a half cup of sour cream since I’m substituting regular milk for buttermilk, funny @jca just mentioned that. It also helps keep it from drying out so fast. I’m actually stress eating. I don’t like sitting still at home and this work from home thing forces me to. I also started back at the university distance part-time and that is keeping me stationary also. On top of that all my regular bike trails are closed now too so my exercise dropped off. I have been trying to find other ways to exercise but the fun factor is lacking on a treadmill or riding in my neighborhood.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Now you’re making me hungry for it, I may whip up a batch later. Dang it! The bacon in it sounds amazing.

Interesting, you are stress eating now at home, but I was stress eating before because I was always so busy. I even bought some cocktails this weekend, which I haven’t done in a long time. When I’m relaxed I find myself and enjoy life much more, when I’m running I just get through the day the best I can then collapse.