When quarantine began, I worried about how I would keep myself fed three times a day. In my five years living in New York City, I’d become accustomed to grabbing salads or sandwiches from corner delis, ordering take-out or heating up frozen dinners from Trader Joe’s.
It turns out I wasn’t alone: only 64 percent of millennials know how to cook, compared to 76 percent of Baby Boomers, according to a study by the USDA. Before the shutdown, we spent more time at restaurants than any other generation, a testament to our love for food fads and communal eating.
But now that restaurants are closed indefinitely and trips to the grocery are better kept to a minimum, quarantine may change the ways we eat.
For the past decade, Millennials have eaten healthier diets than previous generations. Nearly one-fifth of millennials eat plant-based diets. A report released by Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center in Oklahoma predicted that food trends in 2020 were generally going to go in an eco and health-conscious direction. Among their predictions was an increase in consumption of probiotics (i.e., kombucha), more greens, and less alcohol.
But Andrea Graves, a Business Planning and Marketing Specialist who helped draft the report, said that quarantine might shift some of their earlier predictions.
“There might be a greater trend towards comfort foods,” she said. “Things like eggs, processed snacks and bread.”
Already, consumption of snacks high in sugar and salt are on the increase. Mondelez, which manufactures Oreos and Ritz cookies, saw a nearly 7 percent surge in its last quarter as people stocked up for the pandemic. Meanwhile, Kellogg’s waffle sales increased by 45 percent in March.
But even comfort snacks can replace full-blown meals: sometimes, we need something more substantial to keep us full throughout the day.
Jordi, who lives in Pennsylvania, said she has eaten less since quarantine began and fills the gaps between actual meals with snacks and chips. On Twitter, she posted a picture of a makeshift meal consisting of bagel topped with ham, cheese, ketchup and mustard.
“I make struggle meals of just stuff laying around the house,” she said. “The only thing it should cost me is my time.”
She’s following a trend of young people using the term #StruggleMeal, which refers to the quick and easy dishes meant to keep them full through the day.
Struggle tweet struggle meal pic.twitter.com/9xKxOwipC4
— astral trap / daribroko (@AstralWytch) May 14, 2020
it’s struggle meal o’clock pic.twitter.com/MF4U4bbqdF
— LAiLA (@illestlaila) May 13, 2020
The ultimate struggle meal pic.twitter.com/vdEWQ31M8S
— ℝ ℕℂℍ ℝ ℕℕ ℝ (@theTrenchRunner) May 11, 2020
Meanwhile, quarantine has encouraged others to cook much more often. For “Cheflebeard” (Instagram name), who lives in the Bronx, his go-to “struggle meal” is eggs over easy on white rice. For him, it is also a nostalgia meal that reminds him of his grandma in Puerto Rico.
“When making your struggle meal, it helps if you have a deeper connection to it,” he said. “Something like rice and eggs was so delicious as a kid that I never imagined it was being served to me because we were poor.”
While the long-term impact that quarantine will have on our diets is not yet clear, it’s likely that economic uncertainty — 36 million Americans have filed for unemployment— and staying at home all day will change how we eat for the months to come.