Self Care – Nutrition & Cooking

As of 2/2021

• Grocery Shopping Safety:
  • Limit your trips to the grocery store by taking advantage of online grocery shopping services or outdoor farmers markets. However, if you do go, make sure to use disinfecting wipes on shopping carts, maintain a safe distance between yourself and other shoppers, avoid touching your face and unnecessary items in the grocery, and wear a mask or double mask if possible. Lastly, be sure to wash your hands with warm soap and water for a full 20 seconds before AND after you shop! 
  • Currently, there is no evidence to suggest that handling food/groceries is associated with COVID-19. The risk of getting sick from COVID-19 from eating or handling food is considered by the CDC to be very low.

• There are many outdoor Farmers Markets across the DC area that allow for a safer, COVID-friendly grocery shopping experience while also contributing to local small businesses.
  • A list of open Farmers Markets run by the non-profit FRESHFARM can be found here and you can learn more about their COVID-19 safety measures here.

• Cooking at Home:
  • Make an inventory of what you already have at home. Use recipe builders such as Supercook where you can plug in the ingredients you already have at home to make creative, yummy meals!
  • Avoid overeating. Being at home all day within walking distance of the kitchen can make overeating and snacking tempting. Try to keep to your regular eating habits during this time.
  • Miss dinner parties with friends? 
    • There are a lot of great free resources out there to keep cooking. See what others around the world are cooking during the pandemic:
      • Self-Quarantine Recipes – NYT Cooking 
      • What America Is Cooking During Coronavirus
      • The 10 Most Popular Instagram Recipes Since Coronavirus Lockdown
      • Recipes and Meal Plans for Cooking During the Coronavirus Era
      • smitten kitchen – Fearless cooking from a tiny NYC kitchen.
      • Budget Bytes – Delicious Recipes Designed for Small Budgets

• Host virtual cooking parties:
  1.  Share a recipe with your friends prior to the virtual cooking party
  2. Buy the ingredients and make sure your friends do too
  3. Meet on Zoom or another video chat application and chat while you follow the recipe steps.
  4. Compare dishes and cooking strategies
  5. Enjoy the yummy food that you cooked with friends!

• Restaurant Dining:
  • With many restaurants beginning to open up, eating at home or getting take-out are much safer options and will lower your chance of being exposed to COVID-19. If you are going to a restaurant, make sure they are following safety protocols and try to sit at an outdoor table rather than inside the restaurant: http://www.emro.who.int/nutrition/nutrition -infocus/nutrition-advice-for-adults-during-the-covid-19-outbreak.html
• Nutritional Impact on COVID-19:
  • Diets high in saturated fats, sugars, and refined carbohydrates contribute to the prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes, which could place individuals at an increased risk for COVID-19 long-term complications: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih .gov/pmc/articles/PMC7165103/