Someone finally wrote the article I wanted to see, about how shortages don’t actually represent hoarding. Many businesses manage supply/demand with little or no buffer—which means, practically speaking, that if even half of households buy one extra 4-pack of toilet paper (which we all OUGHT TO BE DOING, AS WE HAVE BEEN SPECIFICALLY INSTRUCTED TO MINIMIZE TRIPS TO THE STORE), everything collapses. Capitalism thrives in part by making the victims blame each other instead of blaming the corporations (we see this also with recycling/environmental blame), so we see endless dispiriting spitting about “hoarders.” It brings to mind that illustration where there’s a poor person, a middle-income person, a corporation/businessperson, and ten cookies: the corporation takes nine cookies, puts one cookie in front of the middle-income person, and says “That poor person is trying to steal your cookie.”
OKAY SO ANYWAY ABOUT BREAD. I used Jodie’s idea: she said her bread-machine recipe book had a good recipe for Italian Herb bread, and I checked MY bread-machine recipe book and IT TOO had a recipe for Italian Herb bread, so I made that, and it was really good. We ate it with spaghetti; and also, in honor of my childhood I made little iceberg-lettuce side salads with thin-sliced carrots and a few tomato pieces and Italian dressing. SO GOOD.
You probably already picked up on this from the sugar in the coffee and yesterday’s spaghetti/bread discussion, but I have stopped eating keto/low-carb for the time being. I kept it up for 11 days of quarantine, wondering the whole time how sustainable it was and how long I could/would keep doing it, and one evening while making dinner I was just DONE with it. I COULD keep going, but I didn’t WANT to, AT ALL. I wanted to eat the dinners I was making for everyone else, and I wanted to enjoy cooking/eating/baking instead of resenting it, and I didn’t want to have to worry so much about the egg/meat/cheese supplies. So. On that front I am having a wonderful time. Everything is so DELICIOUS.
That article is exactly right. It’s been oversimplifying to just say hoarding. We’re supposed to minimize trips. Plus we have to feed our kiddos who are now home, and a lot of people are no longer eating out at all. So all of that strains the grocery store supplies. We actually had a local restaurant allow the community to bulk order from their supplier….chicken breast, hamburger, paper towels, etc. They weren’t allowed to be open under our stay at home order but they could still call in an order to their supplier. We just paid when the truck came in.
A local really small grocer has been selling eggs in these flat things. Not sure thst is the right descriotion. But it is 30 eggs on a cardboard thing but with no top. Not easy to get them home from the store. Guessing they get them from a resteraunt that is not open right now.
Glad you are enjoying your food right now. I get grouchy when I prepare something for the family that I cannot eat because of celiec disease. It does not happen often, but when I do not have a great option of my own that grouchiness is tough to keep in check.
Yep, we are trying to stretch as long as we can (easier for us—smaller family of 3 but I’m 20 weeks pregnant too). We are shopping once every month or so and hitting a gas station if we run out of milk and NEED it. We are hemorrhaging food FAST though since we are eating 100% at home and dang my toddler can snack. Of course people are going to need more groceries if they are eating every meal at home for weeks between grocery trips. Plus many are not going into work so people who typically get some meals provided by that aren’t now.
SO MANY DISHES TOO. I know it’s going to be okay again one day. I am definitely looking forward to my weekly leisurely market trips.
I long for my Target aisle / perimeter strolls. That is one indulgence that I truly miss.
Welcome back (if temporarily) from keto-land.
My work is posting advice about how to cope in the current circumstances, and so much of it is about how to set lofty goals for yourself, doing all those things you don’t manage to do in normal times. I assume some people find this motivating, but I just don’t see the up side to encouraging people to make life harder for themselves. Life is making itself harder for us. The rest of us should stay in our lanes.
I posted a comment noting that people should consider lowering their standards.
The goal setting thing is annoying. Like, if that works for you/your life, great. If not, great. Pandemic your way. This tidbit really resonated with me (and ties into Swistle’s point about capitalism): “Any energy you spend beating yourself up for not “making the most” of a global pandemic (so fucking dark!!!) is energy stolen from you by capitalism. You are more than your output.”
That advice from your work also ignores the fact that a LOT of people are already having to do things that they don’t usually do right now. The obvious examples involve people with younger kids at home–supervising/assisting an early elementary student with online coursework take 2-4 hours out of an adult’s functional time each day at my house — but I’m sure people without kids at home (or with older ones) have their own balancing struggles.
My kids are older/self-,but even I do not need 25 (twenty-five!) tips on how to make my life harder right now. Or ever.
I barely managed to read them all.
dang.
My kids are self-directing
I love every post you’ve posted lately, but this one is resonating with me in a big way.
I am pre-diabetic. I’m doing blood testing every morning and night, and I had been recording my food all the time and I decided the other day to stop recording my food. I will start if I see the blood test numbers creep up, but until then, no. I resent it. I’ve never been an at-home snacker (different at work), and I’m not eating out where there might be unknown carbs, so…I can start again after.
That is such a great article, thank you!
I too gave up keto – it requires so much meat and cheese to sustain and it is so expensive and also so… uncomforting! There is nothing – to me – comforting about a hotdog or a plate of salami and cheese. But a big bowl of pasta is Very Soothing. I need as much soothing as possible these days.
Here is a cool article about how my local grocery chain prepared for this and is doing a great job keeping most stuff in stock: https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/heb-prepared-coronavirus-pandemic/
But also, the cops had to stop three people in one day last week who went into the store when it opened, bought a bunch of meat, and then were selling it out of their trunks IN THE HEB PARKING LOT. Ugh.
We’re good on groceries because my husband works at above mentioned grocery chain in the pharmacy. (Which comes with its own set of worries right now obviously, him being out in it all day every day.)
We’re an HEB family too! They have been pretty incredible. That’s terrible about the parking lot people.
I’m trying to use our bread machine (well, my husband’s bread machine, but he only uses it for pizza dough) to make yummy bread. Any recipe I want to try from the cookbook requires dry milk. We’ve checked the stores when we have been out, and all I can find is a huge thing of it (which I am not going to buy). Very small frustration, but still, grrr.
My bread machine manual says “If your recipe calls for powdered milk and you prefer to use fresh milk, simply substitute the milk for the water and powder.” It does suggest that you might get a softer crust, but whenever I’ve used fresh milk in this type of recipe, the results have been very good. Of course if you are short of fresh milk, that’s a whole ‘nother problem… I’m finding it hard to source milk where I am, at least when I am placing grocery pickup orders.
Oh THANK YOU, Elizabeth. I didn’t think of researching an alternative. I will try this. We have milk! I’m glad I fussed about it here. :o)
Ugghhhhhh I just posted on a friend’s FB feed about this hoarding thing – he posted a note saying basically “if we could all just agree to stop being idiots and panic buying for ONE WEEK the supply chain could catch up.” DUDE. I require like 3x as much food right now as I used to AND I’m supposed to be limiting trips to the store. I used to shop 1x/week for just a few dinners and snacks at home each week, PLUS random trips to top off individual recipe items as needed. I now need to feed four people three meals a day, plus snacks, PLUS ideally buy enough for 2 weeks at a time. I am nowhere close to hoarding but I can’t just “go back to my usual shopping habits” and it makes me angry & resentful when people suggest it. WELL. ANYWAY. MOVING ON.
you have all inspired me to make some bread this weekend :)
This! So much this!
I mentioned to my mom a few things I’d bought in larger quantities than usual and she’d said “so you’re hoarding then”. AUGH! NO! I am buying what we need plus a little extra to try to not have to go to the store as often, and to tide us over a bit longer if the store is out of those certain things at the same time we run out. That is not hoarding, that is buying a reasonable amount of provisions. We’re eating at home almost exclusively, we’ve been told not to go out unless we have to, so we’re doing our civic duty, and buying a little bit more than we normally would is inevitable.
Now the pictures and videos I’ve seen of people with two full carts or a pickup truck full of nothing but TP at the beginning of it all? THAT might be hoarding! Or preparing for price gouging!
On a different note: I’ve been dieting since the beginning of January, but it’s involved weighing myself daily and tracking my calories (and exercise, when my gym was open). This approach has let me add more fun/comforting foods while isolated, as long as I stay within my calorie budget (I do this by eating a lot of “green” foods to make room for “red” foods, so I’ve mostly cut down on “yellow” foods). To be honest, I’ve even let myself go a bit above my targets most days, as long as I stay below 2000 calories. I’ve actually continued to lose a smidge during the last 3 weeks as I’m down another 1-2 pounds overall. I feel like this is a victory, since I feel like not eating ALL THE FOOD right now is a challenge, so I’m happy even if I just hold the line and don’t gain. At the beginning of the social distancing, I’d lost around 20 lbs, so I really don’t want to gain it back and start over!
Oh, and YES to the SO MANY DISHES! But also, what is with the SO MUCH LAUNDRY?!? We’re all living in our PJs and sweats over here – how come I’m finding so many pairs of pants and socks in for wash?
Same here. Just wear those pants twice kiddos.
Just a note to say how much I’m enjoying your posts more than ever! So nice to have an option of something to read other than news or Facebook. Thank you!
If you feel at all like really leaning into total diet abandonment (which I did almost a year ago) I recommend the delightful F*ck It Diet by Caroline Dooner and the informative Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison. Both books were great. And bread and pasta are delicious! Yum!
I just read an article on NPR about dairy farmers dumping milk and produce farmers plowing crops back into the ground because they can’t sell it. WTF? The article goes on to explain that with restaurants and schools closed the farmers have too much supply and not enough demand. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2020/04/03/826006362/food-shortages-nope-too-much-food-in-the-wrong-places
Meanwhile, it’s pretty hit or miss finding milk and produce in the grocery stores in my area.
Speaking of comfort food, your pumpkin chocolate chip muffin recipe is my “abandon everything, seek comfort” exercise in self care. It has seen me through the dark hours of being a mom to young multiples, the stressed mom of a deployed spouse, the eager but clueless committee member and now hunkered downed, isolating to save lives, but especially people like my really old grandmother. Your recipe was our math exercise today. I am a relatively silent but devoted reader. I appreciate you so much.
OH HOW NICE! We still make that recipe year after year; the kids eat those muffins for breakfast nearly every morning.
Also people are pooping at home more! Causing more demand for consumer toilet paper and less for commercial!