My eating habits have changed. Now it's just me, so I'm not cooking big meals. I have plenty of meat, chicken, pork and beef. I like meat and vegetables. Trying to stay off the carbs, but eating junk food when I go to Groveton the work on that house. Now I have my kitchen packed up, ready for the move. I'll be here for a week or two and will probably subsist on more junk food than good food. I'm trying to keep my weight at 135 or below. I went on the Covid diet and dropped 15 pounds, I'm going to keep it off.
It’s a mix of hunger and a schedule. I have certain times I won’t eat a meal before. No breakfast before 7, no lunch before 11, No dinner before 5:30. If I’m hungry when those times come around then I eat. If not I wait until I’m hungry. I usually end up eating a big snack sometime between lunch and dinner because if I don’t my blood sugar will drop.
The main reason would be that DW is a great cook, I'm an OK cook, and we love eating together. Now that I am retired, we only eat two meals a day... a light breakfast, and a good balanced dinner. DW has to watch her blood sugar, and I have to watch my winter weight, so our diets are very compatible. Besides, we have to do something with all of the veggies we put up. We both snack lightly in the early afternoon, usually nuts and/or fruit... although I confess to having a fondness for black bean corn chips which sometimes gets the best of me. The urge to snack is stronger at this time of the year, I think cold weather causes (or increases) the craving for fatty food & empty calories. Or maybe we are trying to feed our inner bear? I've learned it is best for me to avoid the bakery aisle in Winter, because I know my weaknesses.
Although we are not rigidly disciplined about our meal schedule, our meals are timed around some of DW's medications, that need to be taken with food. That schedule becomes much more flexible in Summer, when we often spend long days in the gardens.
It saddens me that one of the most important reasons for a meal - gathering with family & friends - hasn't been possible for awhile. DW & I are both praying that things will change for the better soon.... DMs & video chat are a poor substitute for pleasant conversation & loud laughter around the dinner table.
@Zeedman You brought up an idea I hadn’t considered-bonding and fond memories of those gone. I know breakfast on weekends (or days off) are eating foods that remind me of Mom and G’ma. I cook them for 2 g’daughters (&/kids before them) in hopes that they will remember me (& their G’ma) when I’m gone.
My great grandmother made eggnog on Christmas, then my grandmother, then me. My great grandmother made spicy, crunchy sweet pickles, then my grandmother, then me.
Interesting topic. I eat when I'm hungry. I'm not a big fan of cooking, so I'll make a big pot of something (this week it's spaghetti, last week was chicken with rice and green beans), stick it in the fridge, and dish out and microwave small portions at various times of the day over the course of a week. Often I cook enough that I can freeze half for a cook-free week at a later time.
Usually in the morning I get up and feed the dogs but just drink a cup of tea myself, and then go looking for food a couple hours later, either some of whatever is in the pot, or sometimes something more breakfast/brunch-like (bagels, English muffin, sandwich, etc).
I don't make any effort to curtail eating, but I do try to hold off as late in the afternoon (3 or 4) before uncorking the wine to spare my liver.
Like others here I miss eating dinners with my late husband. We used to each fend for ourselves during the day, but would regroup in the evenings and eat dinner together in front of the TV. Now I do the same, but it's just the dogs and me now.
Later at night I go to bed (again in the livingroom on the couch with the TV) with a cup of herbal tea, sometimes with a salad and a slice of buttered bread, and always with a bowl of fruit cut into bite-sized pieces to eat before falling asleep. It's funny but this late night menu appeals only at that time, and not so much during the day, and vice-versa with what I eat during the day.
Everything I eat and drink is organic (dairy, produce, staples like rice and bread) and the meat I buy is grass fed.
I have told this story before and it may be why I developed an interest in cooking and reinforced an interest in food and where it comes from .
We lived with my mother's mother for a year when I was 3 and 4 years old. Two years after we had moved to another town and another state - she died. My grandmother died on Thanksgiving Day. My mother's sister and her family had come about 85 miles to have Thanksgiving dinner with us. Everything had just arrived on the table and we were all standing there looking at it when the phone rang and we learned the sad news.
We did not celebrate Thanksgiving for the next few years. When my mother was finally willing, I felt that I had to help her. I was about 9 when I started as a pumpkin pie baker . I helped Mom with other things, I remember the canning of peaches and peach jam. Of course, as one of only two children, I had household chores which included days when I washed the dishes.
We lived on a farm with only cattle for most of this time and I became soooo tired of beef. We even had the packing house cure and smoke sausage and bacon, all beef. Therefore, I was interested in anything other than beef for dinner! Some of my choices were the result of my own activities - I hunted and fished. Yep. Brought home the bacon ... uh, the doves, quail, ducks, geese, trout, perch ...
Mom was not much of a stovetop cook. I don't think that she really wanted to be. For example, her mother told her never to learn to milk a cow so when Dad & Bro went on hunting trips, 8 year old Steve's digitS' were doing the milking. Anyway, Mom would overcook/burn every single vegetable that she would cook on the stove. Good Gravy, what was I supposed to do?!