The hardest thing in the pandemic was the long waiting to go out and have a social time with our loved ones. The waiting went beyond our expectations sometimes and left us with no other options than to stay still. Going to a local restaurant, eating our favorite dish, and chatting with our friends remained so long in our hearts just as a wish. To be frank, we never expected such a thing to happen before the pandemic. Even though time has gone by and we learned somehow to overcome the challenges of the pandemic with a fighting spirit, it has made many impacts on the way we live. More precisely, they have made our lives upside down, including the way we eat. Now, it is high time to look back and see how the pandemic has made our eating habits change tremendously.
Own Cooking with Creativity
For someone like a college student or an office man, who relied upon restaurants to have lunch, the pandemic forced them to experiment with self-cooking. It was the time when we have lost connections to access the outer world. So, the desire to go out has made us bring the world comes to us through digital channels. Studies suggest that online queries on cooking tips, healthier food habits, and vlogs on self-cooking have witnessed a tremendous hike during the pandemic days. It brought us many benefits like exploring our own cooking ideas. Also, it catalyzed our creative ways to make food. No wonder we became more familiar with popular food channels and celebrity cooks!
Emotional Eating
Even though we started cooking meals by ourselves, the emotional imbalance, which is the by-product of the pandemic, also impacted our dining styles. The consumption of fruits and vegetables has witnessed an increase in consumption during the pandemic days for sure. At the same time, boredom and stress led to increased snacking. This emotional eating arises with boredom, fear, anxiety, and stress, leading to consuming large amounts of food in short periods. It then became the cause for many health issues like obesity and overweight. Across the world, the pandemic has resulted in disordered eating for various cultural, religious, and economic groups since they are all subject to stay at home for unknown periods.
Relying Upon Food Delivery Platforms
Food delivery apps have become more popular these days. As per the reports, E-buying has overperformed actual stores in many cases. Also, their influence on food habits remains even after the restaurants have opened recently. Apart from our self-cooking experiments, consumers relied upon online food delivery platforms more than ever. It has made us closer to junk food and food items that can be stored for long periods. In addition to ordering meals, it has caused an increase in the consumption of sweets, cakes, and unhealthy beverages like bottled soft drinks.
Consumption of Alcohol
It is a fact that more people in the U.S have consumed alcohol during the lockdown periods like never been before. Reports suggest that it is women who made more purchases on alcoholic drinks. It has become a trend in other European nations like England, Poland, Australia, and many other western countries. As per the studies, the situation in other third-world countries is not different. In fact, the emotional and mental issues generated by the pandemic have driven the tendency to consume more alcoholic products. Weight gain among students, office workers, and other groups who stayed at home has a connection to the increased usage of alcohol.
Higher Prices on Food Items
Restrictions in traveling, opening grocery shops, and many others have made consumers have limited options to access food. They could either adopt digital methods to buy products or store sufficient grocery items in their homes in advance. As a result, there experienced an imbalance in the food supply chain and enforced price hikes for food items. It ended up accessing less nutritious food all across the world. You can imagine the hurdles of it since governments struggled to sustain a fundamental food supply chain. In fact, the higher price for food products has not come to normal levels even now and expects to go higher further in the next year.
Conclusion
Eating styles have cultural and traditional roots, we all know that. But it is a fact that no practices can prevent inevitable changes. The world moves on with unexpected events like the pandemic and it has not gone forever. Even though it has changed our eating habits a lot, let us hope that it will lead us to tastier and healthier habits.