Covid-19 brought with it, anxiety, stress, disruption from normal daily activities, apart from the newly discovered virus. This disruption of the typical day has thrown our plans for healthy eating out the window.
With more and more people, staying at home, people have resorted to comfort eating. Meal planning has become a challenge as now there are people to feed with different tastes and more food stores with limited groceries and shopping times.
Also, the uncertainty of vacant shelves in the supermarket, normal staples of a nutritious diet has become unavailable, at least temporarily. Whether or not something is part of your normal diet, it is tempting to buy whatever is available.
When boredom kicks in, we are reaching for those tasty, crunchy, fatty, salty snacks. Once the bag open, it’s hard to regulate the portion size. If we are feeling blue, it’s easy to fix the mood by eating cookies or baked goods that contain a lot of simple carbohydrates but create a yo-yo effect on our blood sugar, which can enhance anxiety and worsen mood.
How to Make Good Food Choices?
Let me tell you these simple steps where you can manage your food choices.
- Prepare a daily schedule or daily meal plan, which is predictable for you and for everyone in your household.
- Connect with your friends and family through Skype, Zoom, or FaceTime to share recipes or cook virtually together.
- Plan your groceries to prevent buying processed, high-salt or high-sugar snacks.
- Buy fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, whole grains, and lean proteins.
- Save your money by skipping on high-sugar soda juices and instead go for home-made juices.
- Pick a cheat day where you can enjoy an occasional comfort food for a weekly treat.
- Manage your environment by removing everything which might tempt you. After all, if it’s not there, you won’t eat it.
It is interesting that certain nutrients in foods have been shown to reduce anxiety or spur the release of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, which helps us feel good. As people are feeling the stress right now, there are at risk of harming their immune system. Thus, it is better to have immune-boosting food that will have a dual effect of lowering your anxiety and boosting your immunity.
Follow these immunity-boosting diet plans:
- Increase your intake of citrus fruit and red bell peppers, which are both rich in vitamin C.,
- Consume spices such as, ginger, turmeric, garlic, and capsaicin that can be easily added to soups, stews, stir-frys, or salad dressings.
- Eat food rich in zincs such as oysters, clams, mussels, liver, beef, cashews, and egg yolks, which have some virus-fighting effects.
- Magnesium-rich foods such as legumes, leafy greens, nuts, seeds, and whole grains may help you to feel calmer, and help support immunity.
- You can eat fatty fish like wild Alaskan salmon, which contains omega-3 fatty acids and help in reducing anxiety.
- Eat probiotic-rich foods such as sauerkraut, pickles, miso, and kefir.
- Also, don’t forget to add some antioxidants to your anti-anxiety diet, which can support your immune system.
