Food prep when you can't brain
A lot of things can contribute to food insecurity: lacking time, money, access, information; individual nutritional needs or limitations...
Except from people who have experienced it themselves, we don't often hear about lacking the mental/emotional resources to cope with the tasks of planning, obtaining, and preparing food. And the people who are low on these resources, unsurprisingly, often have more urgent things to do with their energy than explain how they manage. Or how we manage; although I'm fortunate to usually be relatively abled in this area, this isn't always the case. When circumstances conspire to use up my mental/emotional resources, I get to spend some extra time in the position where some people spend most of their time: needing to feed myself and my family while just keeping myself together is a struggle.
Times like that, I'm operating on autopilot. Planning and decision making are beyond me, organization and complex thought are limited, and everything feels confusing, daunting, overwhelming. I'm fortunate that my physical ability is not much impaired, but the coordination, attention, skill and patience I can bring to bear are far less than many activities require, and my ability to cope with frustration or difficulty is even less.
A few techniques help me get through these times with greater food security.
They come down to:
Remove obstacles (by planning ahead, by habit, by resource trading)
Don't feed the brainweasels (or: support myself)
These both could use some unpacking. I'll take them in reverse order.
When I'm low on cope anyway, it's easy for the pressures, fears, anxieties and shaming, blaming messages about food, eating, providing, autonomy, and self-worth to flare up and add themselves to my immediate practical difficulties with, say, attention and executive function, draining my resources further which makes me even less able to cope... vicious cycle. So to the degree that I'm able to, supporting my mental/emotional health & equilibrium supports my food security. And then having better food security relieves fears and physical/chemical triggers to contribute positively to my mental/emotional health, so there's a non-vicious cycle in the other direction. (What would you call that, a kindly cycle?) My guess is that every person has their own ways to support their mental/emotional health, and they know what works for them better than me (or are in better position to figure it out), so it'd be silly for me to give particular advice. Relating my own mental/emotional coping and repair strategies aren't really the point of this, either; they're probably not even illustrative for anyone who's not really super similar to me.
What I think is important --what has been important to me-- is remembering there are some things I can for my mental/emotional self, AND DO THEM. I would say, do the mental/emotional coping and repair even before doing anything about food-security, except that getting myself fed, sometimes specific kind of things or in a certain way, IS the support strategy. But for sure it works better for me to prioritize doing what I need to support my best-available functioning at the time, even if that doesn't seem to be the right or best way to get anything else done.
Removing obstacles, though, I can give some more advice and examples about.
A basic thing to do is to assess available resources and limits. I find this best to do this when at times when I'm relatively good on mental emotional resources, feeling pretty centered, alert, focused, creative. Thinking about it can be overwhelming, so I save it when I have a lot of cope. From time to time I re-assess what I have to work with in terms of skills, materials, money, time, access, support from institutions or other individuals... including the limitations and and conspicuous lacks of things I think I might need but haven't got, and considering both the usual situation, and a few of the most likely unusual circumstances. For other people doing this it might help to make a list or spreadsheet if your brain works that way; my spatial-structure-loving brain organizes by sort of 3D outline (in my mind because it doesn't fit on paper). Sometimes it's helpful to get the perspective of someone else with whom one has easy communication, and who is aware of one's situation and limits - maybe counselor/therapist if you have one, domestic partner(s), good friend or family (not excluding teens or older kids). It seems to be especially good if you are a person who thinks better when talking to someone --my partner is like that (I'm not; half the time the communication process is an additional distraction/stress and I can think better alone). Once I'm consciously aware of resources and limitations, I play them off against each other, experimenting with using different resources to offset lacks in others.
Pre-planning and establishing habits are two closely related ways to offset frequent or occasional lacks in attention or decision-making. Plus, for me, knowing what to expect most of the time reduces stress and helps keep my average 'cope' from being depleted. I often don't have time or energy to choose and prepare food during workdays (resource assessment), so for a while I was careful to plan and prepare extra on weekends for eating the "leftovers" (or premade meals if you don't like the thought of leftovers) for lunches and dinners all week. It works for me because I like leftovers and predictability, do have enough storage space and don't have distress about food safety. So I could keep doing it until it became a habit and took even less thinking about. For another person, a different solution might be a better fit (maybe planning to eat takeout regularly if you can afford it to reduce pressure to prepare food. Or maybe trading favors with another reliable person so that they have responsibility for the food and you do something else) but the general idea of assessing, then planning, then repeating the plan (if it works OK) enough to establish a habit or routine, can be useful in many situations.
Other resources that can be traded around to offset each other: personal connections--friendship or family can be traded for money by sharing purchases of things cheaper in bulk, or letting them supply materials if they are able to do that. They can be traded for cope or decision-making or skill/knowledge or physical ability by arranging for them to do the planning, deciding, or particular actions (like shopping or food prep or calling for a pizza to be delivered) on times when you aren't up for it. By way of illustration, at my house I am the primary food-provider and my partner mostly doesn't cook or care about food, but I can tell her "I'm out of cope tonight, I need you to handle dinner" and she'll do that... from one of the accesssible-to-her options we identified sometime previously. I really don't like talking on the phone, especially to strangers --enough that I would sometimes rather go hungry than call for a pizza if I'm already low on cope -- so if we want to phone order anything, she does the calling unless I'm having a really great day. Another example: my partner's mom and I trade off once a week, when partner and I give her an evening off from caring for the grandkids she's raising. We arranged that I cook for the family from whatever foodstuff she has on hand -- trading my skills and decisionmaking and time when she's stressed and scattered an in a hurry to be out the door, against her tools and materials when I am not in a position to provide those.
Money, obviously, can be traded for lacks of lots of other things -- I almost think this barely bears mentioning -- but maybe it's worth noting that it doesn't have to be a LOT of money, or a perfect trade--sometimes just using whatever one has a little bit differently (here's that assessment thing again) can make the difference between struggle and survival, survival and safety, safety and thriving. When I was at my poorest and most stressed (college student), a choice worth about $60/month made a difference to me. I couldn't afford to both pay my minimalist electric bill and buy the kind of food other college students were eating around me--restaurant food, cafeteria food, pre-packaged convenience food. I could have done without electricity--I rarely had the lights on, never the AC or heat, took most of my showers at a friend's, did my homework on campus... but I figured I would eat better with the electricity so I could run a small fridge, stove, and crockpot to turn dried beans (cheap, easy for me to store, prep, and transport) into a warm and comforting soup while I was at work/class, and keep them til I ate them up--for as long as they lasted, food was one less thing I had to worry about. That's not to say that choice would work for everyone (not everyone likes beans as much as I do), or even anyone, else --someone else might might decide they feel more secure having some ready-to-eat stuff on hand and direct more of their money toward that compared to less expensive but more preparation-intensive food. No particular strategy is better. What I want to call attention to is how tradeoffs can make a difference, even little ones.
Skill and information can be traded lots of ways too, which
commodorified's Cooking for Those Who Don't blogging carnival is meant to help with... spreading around more information so that people have it to use.
Aaaand, I've got no tidy conclusion here. This is stuff I've noticed works for me, maybe it'll be helpful for someone else as well.
I welcome comments describing how you or someone you know has increased food security for times of lacking mental/emotional resources, or ideas you have for how someone might. I do not welcome comments that shame or blame people who lack resources or make "bad" (different) choices; nor assertions that anything is not "real," is "stupid" or "doesn't work" or the like. I've tried to speak out of my own experience only, but if I managed to step on someone else's and give offense, please do call it to my attention. (Also if I made any ridiculous typos. :-)
This entry was originally posted at http://indywind.dreamwidth.org/76634.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Except from people who have experienced it themselves, we don't often hear about lacking the mental/emotional resources to cope with the tasks of planning, obtaining, and preparing food. And the people who are low on these resources, unsurprisingly, often have more urgent things to do with their energy than explain how they manage. Or how we manage; although I'm fortunate to usually be relatively abled in this area, this isn't always the case. When circumstances conspire to use up my mental/emotional resources, I get to spend some extra time in the position where some people spend most of their time: needing to feed myself and my family while just keeping myself together is a struggle.
Times like that, I'm operating on autopilot. Planning and decision making are beyond me, organization and complex thought are limited, and everything feels confusing, daunting, overwhelming. I'm fortunate that my physical ability is not much impaired, but the coordination, attention, skill and patience I can bring to bear are far less than many activities require, and my ability to cope with frustration or difficulty is even less.
A few techniques help me get through these times with greater food security.
They come down to:
Remove obstacles (by planning ahead, by habit, by resource trading)
Don't feed the brainweasels (or: support myself)
These both could use some unpacking. I'll take them in reverse order.
When I'm low on cope anyway, it's easy for the pressures, fears, anxieties and shaming, blaming messages about food, eating, providing, autonomy, and self-worth to flare up and add themselves to my immediate practical difficulties with, say, attention and executive function, draining my resources further which makes me even less able to cope... vicious cycle. So to the degree that I'm able to, supporting my mental/emotional health & equilibrium supports my food security. And then having better food security relieves fears and physical/chemical triggers to contribute positively to my mental/emotional health, so there's a non-vicious cycle in the other direction. (What would you call that, a kindly cycle?) My guess is that every person has their own ways to support their mental/emotional health, and they know what works for them better than me (or are in better position to figure it out), so it'd be silly for me to give particular advice. Relating my own mental/emotional coping and repair strategies aren't really the point of this, either; they're probably not even illustrative for anyone who's not really super similar to me.
What I think is important --what has been important to me-- is remembering there are some things I can for my mental/emotional self, AND DO THEM. I would say, do the mental/emotional coping and repair even before doing anything about food-security, except that getting myself fed, sometimes specific kind of things or in a certain way, IS the support strategy. But for sure it works better for me to prioritize doing what I need to support my best-available functioning at the time, even if that doesn't seem to be the right or best way to get anything else done.
Removing obstacles, though, I can give some more advice and examples about.
A basic thing to do is to assess available resources and limits. I find this best to do this when at times when I'm relatively good on mental emotional resources, feeling pretty centered, alert, focused, creative. Thinking about it can be overwhelming, so I save it when I have a lot of cope. From time to time I re-assess what I have to work with in terms of skills, materials, money, time, access, support from institutions or other individuals... including the limitations and and conspicuous lacks of things I think I might need but haven't got, and considering both the usual situation, and a few of the most likely unusual circumstances. For other people doing this it might help to make a list or spreadsheet if your brain works that way; my spatial-structure-loving brain organizes by sort of 3D outline (in my mind because it doesn't fit on paper). Sometimes it's helpful to get the perspective of someone else with whom one has easy communication, and who is aware of one's situation and limits - maybe counselor/therapist if you have one, domestic partner(s), good friend or family (not excluding teens or older kids). It seems to be especially good if you are a person who thinks better when talking to someone --my partner is like that (I'm not; half the time the communication process is an additional distraction/stress and I can think better alone). Once I'm consciously aware of resources and limitations, I play them off against each other, experimenting with using different resources to offset lacks in others.
Pre-planning and establishing habits are two closely related ways to offset frequent or occasional lacks in attention or decision-making. Plus, for me, knowing what to expect most of the time reduces stress and helps keep my average 'cope' from being depleted. I often don't have time or energy to choose and prepare food during workdays (resource assessment), so for a while I was careful to plan and prepare extra on weekends for eating the "leftovers" (or premade meals if you don't like the thought of leftovers) for lunches and dinners all week. It works for me because I like leftovers and predictability, do have enough storage space and don't have distress about food safety. So I could keep doing it until it became a habit and took even less thinking about. For another person, a different solution might be a better fit (maybe planning to eat takeout regularly if you can afford it to reduce pressure to prepare food. Or maybe trading favors with another reliable person so that they have responsibility for the food and you do something else) but the general idea of assessing, then planning, then repeating the plan (if it works OK) enough to establish a habit or routine, can be useful in many situations.
Other resources that can be traded around to offset each other: personal connections--friendship or family can be traded for money by sharing purchases of things cheaper in bulk, or letting them supply materials if they are able to do that. They can be traded for cope or decision-making or skill/knowledge or physical ability by arranging for them to do the planning, deciding, or particular actions (like shopping or food prep or calling for a pizza to be delivered) on times when you aren't up for it. By way of illustration, at my house I am the primary food-provider and my partner mostly doesn't cook or care about food, but I can tell her "I'm out of cope tonight, I need you to handle dinner" and she'll do that... from one of the accesssible-to-her options we identified sometime previously. I really don't like talking on the phone, especially to strangers --enough that I would sometimes rather go hungry than call for a pizza if I'm already low on cope -- so if we want to phone order anything, she does the calling unless I'm having a really great day. Another example: my partner's mom and I trade off once a week, when partner and I give her an evening off from caring for the grandkids she's raising. We arranged that I cook for the family from whatever foodstuff she has on hand -- trading my skills and decisionmaking and time when she's stressed and scattered an in a hurry to be out the door, against her tools and materials when I am not in a position to provide those.
Money, obviously, can be traded for lacks of lots of other things -- I almost think this barely bears mentioning -- but maybe it's worth noting that it doesn't have to be a LOT of money, or a perfect trade--sometimes just using whatever one has a little bit differently (here's that assessment thing again) can make the difference between struggle and survival, survival and safety, safety and thriving. When I was at my poorest and most stressed (college student), a choice worth about $60/month made a difference to me. I couldn't afford to both pay my minimalist electric bill and buy the kind of food other college students were eating around me--restaurant food, cafeteria food, pre-packaged convenience food. I could have done without electricity--I rarely had the lights on, never the AC or heat, took most of my showers at a friend's, did my homework on campus... but I figured I would eat better with the electricity so I could run a small fridge, stove, and crockpot to turn dried beans (cheap, easy for me to store, prep, and transport) into a warm and comforting soup while I was at work/class, and keep them til I ate them up--for as long as they lasted, food was one less thing I had to worry about. That's not to say that choice would work for everyone (not everyone likes beans as much as I do), or even anyone, else --someone else might might decide they feel more secure having some ready-to-eat stuff on hand and direct more of their money toward that compared to less expensive but more preparation-intensive food. No particular strategy is better. What I want to call attention to is how tradeoffs can make a difference, even little ones.
Skill and information can be traded lots of ways too, which
commodorified's Cooking for Those Who Don't blogging carnival is meant to help with... spreading around more information so that people have it to use.
Aaaand, I've got no tidy conclusion here. This is stuff I've noticed works for me, maybe it'll be helpful for someone else as well.
I welcome comments describing how you or someone you know has increased food security for times of lacking mental/emotional resources, or ideas you have for how someone might. I do not welcome comments that shame or blame people who lack resources or make "bad" (different) choices; nor assertions that anything is not "real," is "stupid" or "doesn't work" or the like. I've tried to speak out of my own experience only, but if I managed to step on someone else's and give offense, please do call it to my attention. (Also if I made any ridiculous typos. :-)
This entry was originally posted at http://indywind.dreamwidth.org/76634.html. Please comment there using OpenID.