A coronavirus health crisis has plagued almost every aspect of people’s daily lives – including what we eat.
Nearly a year into social distance, many people enjoy food that has been forgotten or rejected for taste, feel or smell. Some have added healthy foods to their diet to strengthen the body’s natural defenses.
Home cooking activity is up everywhere due to restrictions on restaurants and other grocery stores. People are increasingly exploring new food experiences in their own kitchens.
The joy of pears
Maeri Ferguson is a 31-year-old woman living in Brooklyn, New York. She received a COVID-19 last year and recovered. However, the disease damaged her sense of taste and smell for months. Many of her favorite foods were no longer satisfied.
Ferguson can once again feel a sense of sweetness, salinity and spiciness, although many foods do not seem to have a strong taste – but not pears. The products were not part of her pre-COVID diet.
“I knew what a bad, unripe pear looked like but it wasn’t good,” she said. Thanks to a gift from a friend, she pushed herself to find a good example. This was one of the first foods she could taste again.
“I’m a whole version,” said Ferguson. “I’ll never forget biting into a red, red pear. ”
Biadhan ferment
The fruit of pleasures is simple. But ferment food has become very popular too. Ferment foods last a long time in the refrigerator which is helpful if you go shopping as often as before.
Happybellyfish.com is run by Anastasia Sharova, a chef in Stuttgart, Germany. The company is an online cookery school that works on healthy eating. He took fermentation classes in late 2019. Then, a coronavirus crisis struck.
Suddenly, interest in making kimchi and sauerkraut, two types of ferment cabbage; and miso, soybean ferment, suddenly increased. Earlier, Kombucha, a ferment tea, had helped make home fermentation a popular choice.
“Health became… number one for many last year,” Sharova said. She said being at home caused a lot of culinary discovery. She said ferrying is something like a community activity done by families or in online classes.
Thirty-year-old Alicia Harper has also discovered ferment food. She is a nutritionist in New York City. She did not like the strong taste and smell of fermented foods at first.
“Since I tried them again recently, my opinion has changed completely. I have now become fond of taste and smell, ”she said.
Anne Alderete of Los Angeles, California, now enjoys natto. Made with fermented soybeans, natto is very popular in Japan but many people consider it unconventional.
“I’ve been melted down many times since I was half Japanese and lived in Tokyo after college for seven years,” the 47-year-old said. But she was never fond of eating natto before COVID-19.
“I feel something influential when I eat natto because the health benefits are many, but it is also because it has brought me closer to my roots, ”said Alderete.
Anxiety and comfort food
Some experts believe that changes in the way we eat also come from having more time to consider information about how food comes to our tables.
Ryan Andrews is a dietitian who wrote a book on plant-based foods. Ryan is also a consultant for Precision Nutrition, which trains nutrition coaches. He said that many people are learning painful facts about the food system.
Andrews said: “People have learned about the unsafe working conditions in meat packing plants, the unfair pay of farm workers.” He said other problems included “diet-related disease,” “cruelty to farm animals and the cost of industrial agriculture.”
Meanwhile, search firm Semrush has unveiled a Google study related to changing food interests during the COVID-19 crisis. Their findings suggest comfort food and some strange compounds are still on people’s minds.
The company found a 17 per cent increase in searches for peanuts and coke in December compared to December 2019. It found a 33 per cent increase for prosciutto and melon. And, he found a 95 percent jump in searches for “bacon and jam. ”
A service called WoodSpoon uses technology to connect home cooks with people willing to pay for home-cooked food. The company is based in New York. Its boss, Oren Saar, spoke to the Associated Press. He suggested that, before the health crisis, there was a growing interest in healthy, less processed foods. Subsequently, orders for bread, pasta and lean meat increased.
“Inside challenging times like this, jeans look assured, home cooked food, ”said Saar.
My name is Mario Ritter Jr.
And I’m Ashley Thompson.
Leanne Italie told this story to the Associated Press. Mario Ritter Jr. e for VOA Learning English. The editor was Caty Weaver.
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Words in this story
comfort –N. a condition or feeling of not being anxious, upset or unhappy, free from pain
ferment –Adj. chemical changes in food (and some industrial products) that change the nature of food and often preserve it
jam –N. sweet, sticky food made with fruit and sugar
challenging –Adj. sorry
assured –Adj. true, true
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