Food-Levels-Induced Stress due to the social distancing situation

NovusDies

gallicinvasion wrote: »

kimny72 wrote: »

Even in the hardest hit areas of the world, people are able to get some groceries, so maybe try to focus your stockpiling urge on shelf stable stuff and really put effort into reminding yourself that you will be able to get more fresh food next week. Maybe not exactly what you want, but something, and you have plenty of shelf stable food to make things work.

I haven't been able to find eggs for two weeks, so I find myself trying to "save" the eggs I have. It's not logical of course, how is not eating eggs this week but having eggs for next week better than just eating them this week and taking next week as it comes? Our fears find all kinds of annoying ways to come out!

You're not alone, it is really hard to stay logical and positive right now, and all this takes some getting used to

Thank you for this! I’ve got to work on my perspective. Luckily other people do too.

Probably best. You don't want to create a chain where overstocking leads to anxiety which will likely lead to somewhere else undesirable.

I look at it as if I take something more than I need I may be causing someone else to either make several return trips to that store or visit multiple stores looking for it. If that person is infected but not showing symptoms yet it increases the potential for spread which is not good for anyone including me.

janejellyroll

NovusDies wrote: »

gallicinvasion wrote: »

kimny72 wrote: »

Even in the hardest hit areas of the world, people are able to get some groceries, so maybe try to focus your stockpiling urge on shelf stable stuff and really put effort into reminding yourself that you will be able to get more fresh food next week. Maybe not exactly what you want, but something, and you have plenty of shelf stable food to make things work.

I haven't been able to find eggs for two weeks, so I find myself trying to "save" the eggs I have. It's not logical of course, how is not eating eggs this week but having eggs for next week better than just eating them this week and taking next week as it comes? Our fears find all kinds of annoying ways to come out!

You're not alone, it is really hard to stay logical and positive right now, and all this takes some getting used to

Thank you for this! I’ve got to work on my perspective. Luckily other people do too.

Probably best. You don't want to create a chain where overstocking leads to anxiety which will likely lead to somewhere else undesirable.

I look at it as if I take something more than I need I may be causing someone else to either make several return trips to that store or visit multiple stores looking for it. If that person is infected but not showing symptoms yet it increases the potential for spread which is not good for anyone including me.

Yes. Having what I need helps me. Having more than what I need doesn't help me and it may wind up hurting others. That's how I'm thinking of it.

cwolfman13

We have a fairly large pantry and it has always been stocked fairly well with shelf stable goods. We also stock up on meat and seafood and fill our freezer with those things. Unfortunately, this whole thing hit in my state right before the weekend that we were supposed to stock up the pantry and freezer and I was unable to get my normal Costco run in because they were out of everything. Spent the first couple weeks just hitting the regular grocery store for things we would need for the week. I went to Costco yesterday to see if there were any improvements, and it was basically back to normal for the most part and I was able to get most of our staple type of goods, and the best part was that pretty much nobody was there. I've never been able to walk around Costco so freely.

For our fresh produce and whatnot we discovered that the local Vietnamese grocery store had plenty of everything and then some so we've spent the last few weeks just getting our fresh produce there. We'll likely continue to do that as we also discovered a greater selection and lower prices than our regular grocery store...especially for herbs and whatnot.

Most of our grocery stores appear to be starting to resemble something a bit more normal and are getting restocked and people seem to not be doing as much panic buying as they were initially.

acpgee

My experience in London with ethnic supermarkets is the same as @cwolfman13. The Vietnamese, Japanese and Bangladeshi grocers near me are well stocked, including fresh produce, frozen meat and fish. I even bought facial tissues (alas no toilet paper) at the Bangla grocer on Sunday. The Italian grocer is running a little thin in the charcuterie section but still has pasta, tinned tomatoes and tinned beans.

My suspicion is that the mainstream big supermarket chains use just in time logistics to manage their supply chains. These are algorithms for minimizing the cost of inventory and warehouse space needed to keep a business running. I imagine these techniques would fail when demand is higher than normal. I am guessing smaller businesses like ethnic supermarkets use traditional stock management and have a warehouse containing a week of supplies, not a few hours.

gallicinvasion

acpgee wrote: »

My experience in London with ethnic supermarkets is the same as @cwolfman13. The Vietnamese, Japanese and Bangladeshi grocers near me are well stocked, including fresh produce, frozen meat and fish. I even bought facial tissues (alas no toilet paper) at the Bangla grocer on Sunday. The Italian grocer is running a little thin in the charcuterie section but still has pasta, tinned tomatoes and tinned beans.

My suspicion is that the mainstream big supermarket chains use just in time logistics to manage their supply chains. These are algorithms for minimizing the cost of inventory and warehouse space needed to keep a business running. I imagine these techniques would fail when demand is higher than normal. I am guessing smaller businesses like ethnic supermarkets use traditional stock management and have a warehouse containing a week of supplies, not a few hours.

I agree. There’s plenty of bodegas and smaller delis/ethnic grocery stores that have plenty. And I know the problem is not with our supply lines, but our flow of demand changing. It’s not so much that I’m worried that the stores won’t have anything, but I worry that we won’t be able or allowed to go out at all (due to sickness, sheltering in, etc)

acpgee

In the UK we are asked to self isolate for two weeks if any member of the household show flu like symptoms or fever.

Maybe if you make a list of all the meals you could make with the contents of your freezer and pantry you could convince yourself that you could survive two weeks without leaving the house?

And don't forget you can get meals delivered if you are in self quarantine. There is likely an option to pay online so the delivery guy only needs to leave the package on your doorstep before ringing the bell and running way.

gallicinvasion

acpgee wrote: »

In the UK we are asked to self isolate for two weeks if any member of the household show flu like symptoms or fever.

Maybe if you make a list of all the meals you could make with the contents of your freezer and pantry you could convince yourself that you could survive two weeks without leaving the house?

And don't forget you can get meals delivered if you are in self quarantine. There is likely an option to pay online so the delivery guy only needs to leave the package on your doorstep before ringing the bell and running way.

You are right; I haven’t really taken advantage or explored grocery delivery options, so this should definitely be my next step. There’s Instacart, stop n shop delivery, etc. I know we can make it work.

shaumom

Hugs, hon. Just extending empathy your way. A few years ago, I got really sick and started reacting to a lot of foods (turned out to be a rare disease). And I mean a LOT of foods - I had 6 I could eat, at one point.

And it ended up with food scarcity even though there was food all around; I just couldn't have it.

But I remember my food anxiety going really high, because if had food, I did not know for certain the store would have it the next week, or the next (and one of them, it DID run out, and didn't get that food back for 3 months). And I was trying to plan, and figure out how to preserve, because I hate food waste as well, and ...yeah, it was highly stressful and frustrating and overwhelming.

So just..I've been there. Figuring out those different ways of preserving definitely helped, like was suggested. I ended up dehydrating lots of veggies, and used them to make soups later. I dehydrated fruits for snacks. I did the fermenting thing to make pickled foods. All of it definitely helped me feel more in control, and helped avoid some of the food waste and felt much better about having some of these.

If it helps to know WHAT to give to food banks vs. what you might want to preserve, it might be good to think about what is seasonal, and what is imported.

Imported food supply lines are likely to be disrupted within the next few months. Like, spices from India? That's likely not happening any time soon, you know? It'll take a while to get through current stock, but this'll eventually be an issue.

And for fresh produce, we are used to having a lot of produce year round, because we import it from elsewhere when it's out of season. That, too, may change, so preserving some of these foods might be useful to have for later, whereas anything in season now would be good to donate, if you have too much, you know?

Wishing you good luck, and i hope that you and yours are safe!