Foods just fuel to me unless I’ve had weed. But when my husband first started working long hours I didn’t enjoy eating alone. It didn’t matter what the food type was.
But unless I’m expecting someone around for meal time, I couldn’t care less if I eat alone or not
Eating is a social deal in every culture (as is smoking, doing edibles, or partaking in any other consumable, generally). It might even be an instinctive thing. I know when my wife isn’t around (often due to business) I’ll just make something simple for myself (like the stereotypical can of tuna) and when she doesn’t want to eat (migraines, etc.) then I feel disappointed that I won’t be making dinner for us.
Curiously, when it comes to dessert, I am a little sad if we don’t eat it together, if say, there’s pie and she had her slice while I was dogwalking or something.
And I say this as someone who’s eaten alone for most of my life. My usual thing was just to make myself one of a few staples and snack while playing video games. (This also led to a preference for food I could handle without flatware but also wasn’t greasy. Things wrapped in tortillas and carrotsticks.)
Now that I’m in the habit of prepping dinner every night, it feels weird when I don’t.
I’ve been poor before but I’ve always had access to food and decent shelter. I use to eat ramen noodles, chili and rice, and baloney sandwiches. I could really stretch out a $20 a week food budget.
When I eat a microwave meal I’m just happy I can afford to enjoy variety in my meals now though I still like sandwiches.
Self-judgement; it sucks and is useless and generally bad for you.
Maybe you're judging yourself for not cooking, but a lot of otherwise functional people can't cook or simply don't want to after a busy or tiring day. Enjoy your easy dinner!
Maybe you're judging yourself for eating a cheap meal on your own, but not every day can be a big party or expensive feast. Don't compare yourself to other people, especially when so much of what people depict on social media is misleading or exaggerated. It's fine to eat on your own (loneliness is a separate issue) and it's good to save money or live within your means.
Maybe you're judging yourself for eating something that you know is low quality or unhealthy, but health and fitness are much more about long term behavior patterns than any single day. As long as we're trying to be active and eat healthy on a regular basis there's nothing wrong with occasional junk food.
Anyway, the point is this: if you feel bad or depressed about something as small as what you're eating for dinner, it might be a sign of deeper problems with depression and self-judgment. And if you find yourself judging yourself, it can be very helpful in my experience to really think about why you're doing it, whether it's a reasonable critique, and whether you'd judge someone else for doing the same thing in your shoes.
You probably wouldn't judge someone else for eating a microwave dinner, so why judge yourself?
Same, I cook a big pot of whatever for the week so I don’t have to worry about dinner till my next day off. Shredded chicken or pork, ground meat goulash, taco fillings, etc. Easy to make, satisfying to eat.
Prepagaged food is generally quite bad for you. Rancid oils, high fructose corn syrup in everything, low fiber, mystery preservatives, and so on. When i lived on that kind of food, i rapidly gained weight to 210 lbs. I look at pictures of myself from back then and it’s horrifying. I look like I’m dying. I started cooking my own food from simple ingredients, and within a year i was down to 140. I’ve kept it off ever since.
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