You're Alone, Feel Like Crap, and You're Hungry

Where's that friend with the chicken soup?

Ya gotta eat. Haven’t all of our moms told us that?

But Mom isn’t here, and we’re on our own.

If we live alone, we are the sole hunters, gatherers, preparers and chefs. Some of us are better at it than others. That’s why nutritionist and health coach Carla Johnston has established Eating for One, a workshop to help singles eat better. She has heard too many people, mostly women, say they just eat a bowl of cereal for dinner.

She asks, “If a dear friend were joining you for lunch or dinner, would you serve cereal?”

Of course we wouldn’t. Don’t we deserve to be treated as someone special, too? Cooking for one is a challenge. How do you prepare enough without preparing too much? Where is the inspiration to cook when you’re the only one eating it?

In an article at On Purpose Woman Magazine, Johnston offers some good ideas for planning and preparing meals for one. She also offers suggestions for connecting with other singles by forming a group where the members take turns cooking and sharing the leftovers; hosting a cooking dinner where everyone works to prepare the meal and they all go home with leftovers; or sharing bulk shopping and meal prep with a friend.

These are great ideas, but what if you are sick or injured and don’t have the energy? What if you get caught unprepared like I did last week when my body went kaput?

Ideally, we have a team of family, friends or church mates who activate the “meal train” and make sure you don’t go hungry. I will be looking into forming my team in future posts. But what if we don’t have that yet? How do we get nutritious food?

Here are some options:

1. Don’t let your fridge and pantry go empty. Prepare! Here in tsunami country, we are always being urged to have at least two weeks’ worth of supplies on hand. I don’t. I won’t starve, but what I have is not very appealing. In my freezer last week: two pork chops, two loaves of bread, five bottles of Dead Guy Ale, and some questionable popsicles.

I’ll make my spinach soup, I thought. It takes onions, frozen spinach, milk, and one can each of Campbell’s cream of chicken and cream of potato soups. I got out the big pot, chopped the onion, turned on the burner, and . . . discovered I did not have the soups I was sure I had in my cupboard. I looked around. I was feverish and brain-fogged. Maybe I had already gotten them out. No. I didn’t have them at all. I turned off the burner and stored the chopped onions for later.

I cried a little then made a cheese sandwich.

My friend Cheryl, who eats an all-natural vegetarian diet, fills her freezer with homemade “TV dinners” ready to thaw and eat as needed. It takes some time and effort, but she always has something healthy to eat. I could do that, too.

Folks used to grow, can, pickle, and preserve fresh foods for winter so there was always something to eat. My dad grew up on a ranch, where most of his food came from the land. Considering all the reasons we might not get to the store, maybe it’s time to rethink that plan.

2. If you are caught unprepared and determined to handle it yourself, there are some options if you live anywhere near a city. One is preordering your food to pick up in the parking lot, ala COVID.

I ordered groceries from Fred Meyer, using the online app. In theory, I got everything I asked for. But:

• I have a five-pound bag of potatoes, enough to cover me for a year.

• I have a massive bag of salad, enough for a family of six.

• The ranch dressing does not taste good, and that’s why I never buy that brand.

• The jar of pasta sauce is tiny and will not go far.

• The chicken thighs are miniature, not the “southern” ones I usually get.

• The box of tea bags is half the size I usually buy.

• None of the things I thought of after I submitted my list are there because you can’t change your mind.

Ordering groceries online takes very careful ordering, paying attention to quantities and sizes. It rules out on-the-spot decisions–those artichokes look good, I think I’ll get one, or I think I’ll get fish instead of chicken, or oh yeah, I forgot I needed butter.

I was feeling pretty poorly when I put my order in. I was also a bit daunted by the app. But I avoided walking through the store with a cart and standing in line to check out. That’s not nothing.

Ironically, I was in the Fred Meyer parking lot trying to figure out how to let them know I was there when my friend Laura called. I had missed her earlier text offering to buy my groceries for me. Sigh. It was too late. I trusted an app. Would I trust my friend to pick out my food?

She who can’t do it herself has to give up some control.

I’m putting Laura on my team.

Preordering did not get the heavy bags from my car to my kitchen, and that’s something to consider. My father didn’t buy groceries on his own toward the end because of that car-to-kitchen transfer. He could lean on his shopping cart like a walker as he picked out his groceries. A worker would help him transfer the groceries from cart to car. But once he got home, what then? He devised methods with his walker and wheelchair, but it was a pain and he would go days with nothing to eat except Hungryman frozen meals which had all the wrong ingredients for a heart patient.

3. Delivery is an option. I’m not sure which companies will come all the way to where I live, but I plan to try it.

Instacart handles Fred Meyer’s deliveries as well as many others. There’s a service fee and, sometimes, a delivery fee. This could add up.

I looked up DoorDash, thinking they only offered McDonald’s and Taco Bell here, but they SEEM to also work with Yummy Bowl (Chinese), Momiji’s (Sushi), Taste of India, and several grocery stores. I need to try this, too. Uber Eats is an option in some places.

4. Prefab meals delivered to your home. If you’re like me, your social media is loaded with colorful photos of meals delivered by companies like Factor, Hungryroot, and Hello Fresh. They’re not only easy but claim to be healthy, offering low-carb, low-cholesterol, Mediterranean, or whatever type of meal you need. In most cases, you receive a “meal kit,” with all the ingredients ready to prepare. I don’t know how much prep this requires, whether one could do it while unwell.

They do offer less shopping and fewer dirty dishes, but all that plastic packaging bothers me. I wonder if I would really enjoy the meals. Would the cost be more than buying my own groceries? I believe they offer one meal a day. What about breakfast and lunch? I have more research to do.

Will we all be eating our meals from plastic packages sometime in the near future? Yikes.

Meals on Wheels is an option for seniors over 60 or disabled persons who qualify. From what I have seen, the food isn’t thrilling; it’s institutional. But it’s cheap, and somebody will bring it to your house, with the bonus that a human being is making sure you’re still alive. If you’re willing to pay full price, some of the qualifying hoops are eliminated. The meals average about $5 a day.

You can get Meals on Wheels short-term if you’re ill, recovering from surgery, etc.

Caregivers who are unable to go shopping can also get them.

Always a Challenge

Feeding yourself when you live alone is always a challenge. Produce goes bad before you can eat it–I found four moldy ears of corn at the bottom of my fridge the other day–so you can’t buy much in advance. Food tends to be packaged for families of four; it’s hard to get just enough for one. Frozen meals of the sort we used to call TV dinners are usually loaded with salt, cholesterol, and other unhealthy ingredients.

When you’re sick, it’s even harder to eat nutritious meals when you aren’t up to shopping or cooking. What if you can’t make a call or get up to answer the door? When that happens, we need other people, whether we want them or not.

Even if all we have is a cold, we’re not going to feel like cooking. If we’re determined to take care of ourselves, we need to fill our pantries and freezers with good food, scout out the delivery options, and be ready when it hits the fan.

Let’s Talk

I have barely scratched the surface here. I honestly don’t feel very well, and I still don’t have answers as to why. But let’s get the discussion rolling. Have you found yourself alone and short on food? Have you tried delivery services, prepared meal plans, or other options? How well did it work? What are the advantages and disadvantages? What do you do when you’re feeling lousy and need something to eat?

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I have written quite a bit about cooking for one:

When You Eat Too Much or Too Little Alone

How Do We Cook Just Enough for One?

Avoiding the Ew in the Back of the Fridge

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Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

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How did I end up alone? My first marriage ended in divorce. My second husband died of Alzheimer’s after we had moved to the Oregon coast, far from family. I never had any kids, only dogs and cats. Now I live by myself in a big house in the woods. You can read our story in my memoir, No Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer’s, available at your favorite bookseller.