What's your diet like if your partner works away or you're single, live alone?

[TheBellas]

My husband works abroad & when he first left - that first week-week and a half I was so good- did a roast, curry, lots of vegetables, ate properly. Next week it was toast, biscuits & tea, cereals. Then I succumbed to takeaways 🙁Now about a year in my diet is a mix of takeaways and oven meals like fish fingers & chips. I really need to add more veg and I have great intentions I buy loads then it just sits in my fridge. I'm living like a student, I can't be arsed cooking a proper meal for one! It's not like I don't have the time to meal prep. Pure laziness!

I'm a single mum, when my children are with their dad I only eat salads, sometimes I add tuna, sometimes bacon etc..easy to make and healthier than take away

Live alone
I batch cook in portions of 5 so I eat one and freeze 4
So a week might look like
M - cottage pie (frozen) and veg
T - omelette with whatever needs using up
W - pasta bake (frozen)
T - salad or soup depending on weather with some part baked rolls
F - pizza from the supermarket or takeaway
S - jacket potato and salad
Su - beef stew (frozen) and veg

Most evenings I'm out doing stuff. When I'm in, I tend to make fairly standard pasta with veg. Occasionally I cook myself a proper more complicated meal or don't have a proper dinner at all, just cheese and biscuits or similar.

Having the freedom not to think about cooking and eating is a great joy, though I do like cooking for other people and sometimes invite a friend round for this reason.

Single mother here. I use gousto (promise this isn't a promo thing) 3x a week. It's for 2 adults, so 1 and a child means there's always leftovers and works out goof value for money. So 5 x a week we have proper homecooked meals and 2 nights a week we'll have something simple like pesto pasta, mackerel on toast or a fish finger sandwich.

I love cooking and I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t eat well just because I’m on my own! In fact, it’s far easier because I don’t have to take someone else’s likes and dislikes into consideration.

The trick is meal planning, I find.

I "batch cooked" otherwise I would end up the same. So instead of cooking for one, if it was freezable I made 3 portions. Worth the effort then

He doesn't work away, but he does work shifts so I'm often alone for dinner. We do hellofresh too and if it's a night I'm alone I take the leftovers for lunch or save it for the next night. It just saves so much of the mental load. You could do three meals a week hellofresh, a takeaway/oven meal two days a week (everyone needs a break), and batch cook chilli etc to defrost two days a week?

It's been about a week & half since I posted & I've had only one takeaway - that I ate over two days and have cooked/ batch cooked. Very pleased with myself!

Anyway I have some meals in the freezer for the week but woke up and fancied roast chicken so off to the supermarket I went. In my basket I had an extra large chicken, bag of potatoes, full cauliflower head, bag of sprouts, spring greens and wine. Those ingredients will make multi meals and worked out cheaper for me. Queuing up at self checkout and there's a lady behind me, conversation goes like this:
Lady "Oooh Sunday roast for the family lucky them"
Me: "Nope all for me"
Lady now with sympathetic look "awww are the kids wanting pizza or something like that instead?"

It was a long queue so I thought I'll engage, had nothing better to do at that point.

Me: "There are no kids, my husband is working away, this is just for me"
Sympathetic lady now looks stunned: "You're having an entire roast dinner yourself?"
Me: "Not all at once, it will last a few days plus I can make other meals with the the ingredients"
Stunned lady: "but that's a huge chicken meant for a family!"
Me: "There are plenty of chickens left, I don't think I deprived any kiddies of a roast chicken"
Stunned lady: "but you can't have a roast lunch alone"
Me: "Says who"
Stunned lady: "What's the point?"

By this point I was getting bored so stuck my headphones on. She tapped my shoulder a couple times but I ignored her.

I've just stuck the chicken in the oven and the potatoes are boiling away. I cannot wait!

We used to do Hello fresh & the first few boxes were great but I started getting too many bad boxes so cancelled it.

Fuck that, @TheBellas . What a ridiculous woman.

I'm solo (with a toddler who usually eats at nursery and is sometimes with his dad), and for lunch I just had roast chicken wraps with the leftovers from yesterday's roast chicken.

I have been alone most of my adult life and fuck me if I'm not eating what I fancy when I fancy.

I do the rounds of Hello Fresh/Gousto whatever when i get a good discount email, and take the leftovers to work for lunch, but honestly I find the dates short and I hate feeling I "have" to cook something or other that I fancied last Thursday when I ordered. I am massively short on time mid-week, if it takes more than 15m it's not happening.

There you are, you’re having a Sunday lunch and you educated someone on the virtues of self care. Excellent all round.

DH is often away but normally max 10 days. I have a boring rotation.

I sometimes make a batch of meat sauce and have it with fries/ pasta/ grilled cauliflower/ baked potato/ other grilled veg.

Otherwise grilled veg (from frozen) with tomato pasta sauce, olives, and melted goat cheese is quick and easy.

Also grilled cauliflower with a big pile of cheese melted on top.

Otherwise I default to stuffed pasta.

@TheBellas what do you mean, bad boxes? As in the ingredients were off, or just you didn't like the meals? @LividGas ah see that's why I like Hellofresh! It forces me to meal plan and if I don't cook it's waste, so it forces me to cook and not be lazy. I always think ahead and if we have a busier week will order the quicker dishes, pasta etc. It is time-consuming though, we're just about to drop from 4 to 3 hellofresh meals a week for that reason and will eat chilli etc from the freezer the rest of the time since it's coming into winter. It's not just the cooking, it's all the cleaning up too of multiple pans etc.

That woman in the supermarket queue was incredibly rude. Are childfree women not allowed a roast dinner now?!

People are mad
My dad was "that's a HUGE cottage pie!!"
Me "am I meant to make a cottage pie for one then? Or is it easier to make 6 portions and freeze it?"
Dad ummmm
Me "right then"

TheBellas - people are really strange sometimes about what you should be eating if you're on your own; it's as if they think we should be living on yoghurt and takeaways. I've bough a whole chicken for me before now and had a roast, salad, sandwiches and big pots of stock from the carcass.

Laughing at the 'huge chicken meant for a family!' as if they're going to take it off you at the checkout.

Alone here. It has to be quick as I'm impatient and I tend to eat crappy stuff whilst waiting for a "proper" dinner to cook

So it's omelettes, scrambled or poached egg on toast, home made veg soup and brown soda bread(made in advance) home made sandwiches. I make up fruit and spinach smoothie to last a few days and have that with Greek yogurt for breakfast. Porridge with maple syrup and soya milk when it's cold. I'm doing fine, recent bloods at GP were spot on and I'm not overweight. Not slim either but within range.

Eat what's handy and reasonably uncrappy.

My lunch was delish! I just had a toasted chicken, roast potato and gravy sandwich for dinner which was also really good.

@Possimpible bad as in food gone off, missing ingredients, late or no deliveries. Honestly every single one after I think my fourth box had an issue.

Very rare I’m on my own only maybe 2 weeks a year and the odd evening
I don’t eat pizza, pasta nor do I eat leftovers or ready meals and take aways!
so I tend to just cook a chicken breast and eat that or I go with out
when my husband has his 2 weeks away I just rarely eat anything hot,
we’ve tried the hello fresh/ gusto boxes and there’s an awful lot of meals I wouldn’t eat, and we found the quality of the food disgusting, fresh stuff mainly off, so stopped having them

spanish omelette, jacket potato with tuna or cheese or beans or chilli, salmon with veg, soup, salad, chicken breast, make large curry and freeze .. all easy stuff.

I marinate tofu sometimes & use it over a couple of days in stir fries or baked in the air fryer with whatever I feel like adding. I use cannellini or butter beans, lentils & pasta a lot too.

Unless I’m cooking for guests, frozen veg all the way - it’s so much easier & quicker & no worry about wastage.

Very rare I’m on my own only maybe 2 weeks a year and the odd evening
I don’t eat pizza, pasta nor do I eat leftovers or ready meals and take aways!

OP - for those who live alone/whose partner works away...

PP - well that's not me, I'm rarely eating alone, BUT you're all disgusting for letting a takeaway or ready meal pass your lips! (Oh also I don't bother eating when alone because what's the point if my DH isn't there???)

Why are people like this? 🤣

My hellofresh box has rarely been spoiled/off, but on the odd occasion their customer service team has compensated us generously

Depends on my mood. It's just me and I go through phases of 'really can't be bothered to cook' so it's beans or poached eggs on toast - then I'll be flipping through the recipe books for dinners. I try to eat healthily as I get older - hardly any meat (although sausages tonight, yum), lots of veg and salad. I like homemade soup for lunch, as well.

*PP - well that's not me, I'm rarely eating alone, BUT you're all disgusting for letting a takeaway or ready meal pass your lips! (Oh also I don't bother eating when alone because what's the point if my DH isn't there???)

Why are people like this? 🤣*

I think Delia Smith really made a good point when she said that the reason people don't cook for themselves when they're alone is a very carefully hidden lack of self-acceptance and they don't actually feel they're worth it. Eating is a social activity; you do it with friends or family and it's a reinforcing of social bonds. Where's the social bond if you're alone?

I feel very lucky that I'm secure enough not to let that worry me.

Me too. But I wonder if that poster can see the difference between what she’s talking about - skipping meals occasionally because her DH is away - and what other people are talking about - eating alone most of the time.

What does what you eat have to do with not having children? People with adult children or children who don't live with them may also live alone/eat alone most of the time. HTH.