10 Meal Solutions For When You’re Sad and Hungry

If you Just Can’t a lot of the time, cooking probably isn’t on the table. But, honey, you need to eat. We’re all made of calories. Take the ego out of it and sustain yourself however you can. I call it survival food. You’re gonna make it. Don’t forget your vitamins.

Kim Aleong W.
Aug 24, 2017 · 5 min read

Most “easy recipes” are a joke. Lentils? Rice and beans? Do I look like a food-wizard to you? If I have to put it in a pot and cook it, that means I have to wash that pot possibly twice (before and after) plus keep track of the time plus read directions plus make something to go with it plus grocery shopping for the right items in the first place plus plus plus. When you’re chronically sad, even rice and beans can just seem like too much effort.

I have a lot of experience being chronically sad but also constantly hungry. I have a fast metabolism and a tiny stomach, and I also use up all my energy berating myself with mean commentary about myself.

At this point in my exhausting excuse for a life, I dwindle when I’m sad, but I don’t faint. Let me teach you some tricks of the trade.


Toast

When in doubt, put a thing on toast. It’s dizzying how many things you can put on toast, and if you’re tiny like me you’ll feel okay with two or three slices for dinner.

Bread is cheap. If it’s the main thing you’re eating for dinner, maybe you can even splurge on the fancy kind. People survived for thousands of years on a bread-based diet, you can tell yourself in a reassuring tone. You’re not wrong.

Put the bread in to toast. While you wait for it to ding, you can go back to exerting as little energy as possible.


Peanut Butter, Almond Butter, Etc.

Of course, nut butter is a reliable partner for toast. You’ll want to keep it around because not only can you spread it on bread, but when things get really desperate — when your ears are starting to ring and you feel too weak to stand in the kitchen long enough to find a clean butter knife — you can also simply take a spoonful and eat it plain. What you need right then is straight calories, fat and protein. Licking nut butter off a spoon is a satisfying sensory experience, and it will distract you for maybe a split second.

Pro tip: Keep plastic cutlery around, because eating nut butter with your finger is inefficient and messy.


Fruit is Magic

You may think that you are too sad to eat healthy food, but fruit is healthy and it’s one of the laziest things you can eat. Bananas are easy and they will fill you up and balance your stomach. The only downside to bananas is that they are so ugly when they go bad. They sit there all brown and disappointed in you. Buy just a few bananas and eat that for breakfast for the week. (If the bananas go bad, throw them away quickly and forget about them.)

Apples are even better because they take a long time to go bad, especially if you keep them in the fridge, and you don’t even have to peel them before you eat them. You should wash them, technically, but you can also just “rub the apple on your clothing” and call it clean. Again, they are good for your stomach, they have vitamins, and they will save you when you are psychologically unfit to make a real meal.

Eating fruit is great. Sure, you should be eating salad too, but you need to forgive yourself for not eating salad. Forgive it. Don’t waste another second beating yourself up for not eating salad.


Cereal

Even happy adults sometimes eat cereal for dinner. If you don’t believe me, take a poll.


Not Just for Kids Anymore

Gummy vitamins are not just for kids anymore.

Those cheese sticks that they sell for children? They are cheap, they are a good snack-sized food, and I’m not gonna lie, they are also delicious.

Graham crackers are also not just for kids anymore. You might think to yourself I don’t really like graham crackers, but you might also be surprised after you eat one and find yourself eating the whole package.

Yogurt — the single-serving ones. Get the squeezeable kind that you eat with your hands, no one is judging.


Microwaveable Meals

You may look at these in the grocery store and think to yourself “I’m too broke for this extravagance. I’m too hideous for this extravagance. I’m too lazy for this extravagance.”

Okay. You’re both right and wrong, but mostly wrong. Even though the prices seem a little high, they are less than you would spend on buying take-out, which is the whole thing we are trying to avoid here.

Trader Joe’s is reliable for cheap microwaveable meals. Trader Joe’s is a sad, healthy, lazy person’s church.


“Nachos”

The key to eating while sad is keeping ingredients around that are very, very unlikely to go spoiled prematurely, provided you leave them in the refrigerator. For example, salsa.

Chips and salsa don’t feel enough like a meal to curb your feelings of failure, but “nachos” do! Chips on a plate, salsa on the chips, cheese on top. Into the microwave it goes. You just made a “dish”.


Alter Your Flavors

To feel like you have made both dinner and dessert, try making two pieces of toast: one sweet, one savory. Maybe cheese on one, peanut butter and jam on another. Jam is good because it will always be there waiting for you.

Frozen waffles will never go bad. You could have a waffle or two plus a slice of toast with cream cheese. That is basically a whole meal.


Tea

We all know drinking water is important. Don’t ask me why, if it’s so important, it then has to be so hard. It seems like the more you think about how important it is, the harder it gets to drink it.

Tea is a way around this because you’re not drinking plain self-punishment water, you’re drinking tea. Electric kettles make it very easy, and you really don’t have to wash out your mug — no one is checking. Just rinse it, if you want. Or don’t.

If you don’t finish the tea before it gets cold, or you forget about it — fine. No one is checking. Reheat it, pour hot water over it again, or just throw it out and leave the mug empty for your next try.


Crackers

This is very similar to stuff-on-toast except stuff-on-crackers involves different stuff. Got a block of cheese? Eat it with crackers. Now you’re full and you’re fancy and you’re a genius.


Next, we’ll cover some ideas for when you’re starting to feel a little better and you need to upgrade your meal rotation but you’re still not a food-wizard.

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Kim Aleong W.

Written by

Writer, teacher and gardener. Philly-grown, NOLA home.

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