MORE IDEAS FOR DEALING WITH THE CORONAVIRUS

…An example of coronavirus hoarding

Two week meal planning is a very good idea

One of the interesting things that has been created by the Covid-19 pandemic is from a very different part of the world.  A dietitian and a doctoral candidate from the Medical University of Poznan in Poland, Ms. Joanna Michalowska, has worked with a team of health professionals to create the Omni Food Calculator.

As it turns out, among the needed activities during our mandatory “stay-at-home orders”, is that we still must go, “grocery shopping”.  However, the experts agree that US residents should cut back on their number of trips they make to the store as part of the necessary “social distancing strategy”.

One key to this Omni Food Calculator  is to create a list of essentials and stick to it.  The calculator is designed to help people understand how much food they need for a two-week period.

Ms. Michalowska's advice is to first, do an inventory of your pantry, refrigerator and freezer. Then, create a healthy meal plan for the next two weeks. Finally, that is when you make that grocery list.

The team demonstrated how to do this by using some new software designed to create a handful of healthful meal plans that emphasize lean protein, fruit, whole grains and vegetables. They then replaced some items with those items with longer shelf life. For example, you won’t find strawberries under fruit, but you might instead find apples.

The team then applied multipliers, so people can enter the number of adults and children in their household and calculate how much perishable, nonperishable, canned/frozen and fresh foods they might need to follow the meal plans.

The recommendations in the calculator must be adjusted to suit the family’s tastes and the availability of foods.

The calculator is based on the specific meal plan developed by Ms. Michalowska. The daily eating plans are plant-based with little meat included. They rely heavily on eggs, for example, as a protein source. So, while she might recommend that three people need 45 eggs for a 14-day period, that’s about one egg a day per person,  if your family gets its protein from another source, you may require fewer eggs. Also, because there’s a shortage of eggs right now, substituting other sources of lean protein, such as chicken breasts or tofu, may be required.

Unfortunately, the Omni Food Calculator is not available in English or even in the United States.

But the concept doesn’t really require the software or the food calculator, if you just apply the same concepts for developing your two week grocery list.

“You’ll also be surprised at how little you need, even for 14 days,” she said, stressing that the team also wanted to discourage the hoarding.

“Don’t panic-buy,” she said. “That’s the most important thing. Think about: What do you need and what will you eat? Think about the other people in your community. Those other people will also need their food items.”

“But making healthy choices is essential”, she said. She predicts that due to the lack of physical activity from staying home, many people will gain weight during the pandemic. (And her meal plans do include the occasional treat.)

“In Poland, at the beginning of the disease, all the pasta and rice started to disappear, but also the sweets,” she said. “I was thinking, if you’re preparing for quarantine, you should have essentials, not just junk food, especially because we’re not getting as much physical activity.”

She offered these general tips for shoppers:

• Stick to the list of essentials. Prepare to vary dishes based on availability, but don’t be swayed because an item is in stock or you see others buying it.

• Don’t overstock. It leads to waste and prevents others from getting essential items.

• Check the dates on perishable foods to be sure you’ll be able to consume all of it before it goes bad.

• Choose nourishing products with long use-by dates, such as whole-grain pastas, brown rice, canned milks, seeds, grains and legumes.

• Avoid unhealthy snacks and sweets. “You will eat all of them really quickly if you stay at home,” she said.

Buy products that you will use even after the pandemic is over. Don’t buy items that you may not like just because they have a long use-by date and are available.

The last tip is important because it doesn’t do any good to buy pounds of something, if only one family member in your house enjoys them.

“You can’t build a meal plan that is good for every person,” Michalowska said of the calculator, noting that tastes, availability and health requirements vary so much.

Still, she said, she hopes the concept of the calculator and meal plans can serve as a guide as people navigate their strategies for staying healthy and slowing the pandemic.

Copyright G. Ater 2020