Items

• 2020-09-01

  Incense, Prayer, and Wool

  One of the most profound sensory experiences I had over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic was the new yet comforting experiences that engaged all the senses of visiting St. Anthony the Great Monestary in Florence, Arizona. My first visit, I stayed for a long weekend. Visitors remaining at the monestary for more than a day are put to work on the grounds, aiding the monks in their daily work. I was put in the kitchen due to my previous experience in a commercial kitchen setting. The diet at the monastery is remarkably simple; a bean and rice soup, bread, and tangerines grown at the monastery. None of the smells of these foods were new or remarkable to me, but instead this provided an interesting aural experience. The monks pray constantly in everything they do, and kitchen work was no different. Low, repetitive Greek prayers were the only auditory input in the kitchen, aside from the hum of the dishwasher and the clinking of utensils against pots. Services were held in the early morning, around 3:00am. While making my way from the guests' lodging to the church, I heard a rhythmic wood-on-wood striking, reverberating across the monastery. I saw the source. A monk was striking a wooden board, suspended in the air by two chains, with two wooden mallets. This was essentially the call for the service to start. I later learned from another pilgrim that this practice was adopted by Greeks living in Ottoman-controlled Greece when restrictions on church bells were implemented. The service itself, too, was a sensory experience unlike any other. Sonorous Byzantine chants, clouds of aromatic incense, all lit by candlelight and a handful of small oil lamps. The sense of touch was also engaged; I felt the wool prayer rope in my hand, each knot a tactile counter for the number of prayers completed. Nearly every sense was full engaged in this temporary and much needed respite from the chaos of the outside world during uncertain times.
• 
  2022-04-29

  Need another reason to boost fruit, veggie intake? Try COVID-19

  This is a news story from the American Medical Association by Timothy M. Smith. Doctors mentioned in this article bring up the importance of diet and how it relates to fighting off COVID-19. According to a 2019 survey, researchers found only 1 in 10 adults meet the daily recommended intake of fruit and vegetables. There is a racial disparity as well. The researchers also noted that meeting vegetable intake recommendations was highest among those 51 or older. There were also differences in vegetable intake between groups defined by income level and race. While 12.2% of adults in the highest-income households got enough veggies, only 7.7% of those living in middle-income households did. Meanwhile, 6.9% of Black adults met vegetable intake recommendations, compared with 10.1% of white adults. Other barriers in getting the daily recommended intake have class issues, where some groups are more likely to have access to fresh food than other groups. “Perceived barriers to fruit and vegetable consumption include cost, as well as limited availability and access,” the report notes, adding that “for some persons, such barriers might have worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic related to economic and supply chain disruptions that could further limit ability to access healthier foods.” Dr. Kirley said she hopes the pandemic “will draw attention to this longstanding problem and that we’ll start to see more investment in innovative solutions to promote health through better nutrition.” With these things in mind, it demonstrates the barriers some people might have in fighting off COVID.
• 
  2021-01-01

  Navigating my mental health during COVID- Working out and Dieting

  Have you ever had a hobby that was critical to your mental health? Well ever since High School, my sanctuary has and still is, the gym. As someone who works out almost every day, the pandemic put a hamper on the manner in which I would have to work out. Gyms were closed, at the time it was winter, so it was not like I could go outside to workout. I was left with only lightweight dumbbells. During this time, things were hard for me as I felt out of shape and weaker than normal. I always felt as if I could go to the gym and block out the rest of the world and now I couldn't do so. I struggled at first, and there were times I would get so mad at the world over it. But what could I do? Nothing. So, I had to figure out what could help me get through this awful time. Which led me to learn how to properly diet and make myself the best out of the workouts I could perform. By counting my calories in a journal and still using those dumbbells in different variations, I was able to get into the best shape of my life. Now I weigh around 170 (was around 190 prior to doing this) and feel more energetic and happier than I have been in a long time. My mental health in my opinion is the best it has been in a long time. I figured that without the gym my life would go through a spiral, but it got better. This was the one time that I have been grateful for the pandemic because although it has unfortunately ruined many lives, it forced me to better myself in ways I would not have thought of prior to that. Now because of the experience, I know now that no matter what, you have to make the best with what you have and never let it bring you down. There is always a bright side to things, and contrary to belief, things WILL get better. For me, finding new ways to work out and diet helped me tremendously. I am grateful I was able to find another way to be in my "sanctuary" without actually having to be at a gym and hope others can find their "sanctuary" The moral of this story: Don't let COVID completely control your life, there are ways to battle this Pandemic and stay in good mental health. Find your method and take off with it as I did!
• 
  2021-10-08

  Just monkeying around with Covid

  This meme provides much needed comic relief while also pointing out the dangers to physical health and well-being due to Covid social distancing procedures. Being creative about maintaining a healthy diet and exercise regimen is an important response to the evolving pandemic. Has Covid changed the way you eat? If so, how?
• 
  2021-06-20

  Comfort Food Redefined

  I spent the first few weeks of the pandemic and subsequent banishment to my home by my workplace eating bag after bag of potato chips. Something about crunching down on food was calming to me. I didn’t eat a lot of other food; when I am stressed, my digestive system is the first body part to put up a fuss, so besides the therapeutic potato chips, I didn’t feel much like eating. I don’t own a scale and didn’t feel that I was putting on weight, but one day I looked at my dog, who was the recipient of the chips I had dropped on the floor, and thought to myself that he if had gained weight. I made the leap in thought that if he had gained weight, perhaps I had too. I had to redefine my notion of comfort food from fatty food that crunched to food that truly comforted both my digestive system and my nervous system. This food was comprised of roasted veggies (to get that crunch!); veggie, protein powder, and fruit smoothies to give me the nutrients to deal with pandemic stress; and nuts and fish such as salmon for omega-3 fatty acids to counteract inflammation, fight depression, and nourish those brain cells so necessary to deal with all the changes required by the pandemic. All these changes in my daily food menu have had a massive and positive effect on me. I’m calmer, my intestines aren’t complaining, and I have more energy. And, I've maintained a health weight. I haven’t gained weight. Before the pandemic, I hated to cook and mostly just ate to survive without paying much attention to what I was putting in my body. The pandemic and its accompanying stress forced me to realize that the quality of one’s life is truly related to the quality of one’s food choices. Healthy food is truly comfort food.
• 
  2021-06-14

  Embracing the Plants

  Once the pandemic was in full swing, food became rather scarce out in the county where I live. Frozen meals? Gone. Frozen vegetables? Gone. Meat? Gone. Dairy products? Sparse. What I could find in abundance were fresh fruit and vegetables. Largely because these do not store long term and people were stocking up on everything that they could hoard for the long haul. Could I really sustain my meat-loving family of 4 on fresh fruits and vegetables to help stretch our very thin stock of meats and dairy products? I have included some basic recipes that I used to help get through the pandemic. This massive change in diet left a lasting impact on my experience of the pandemic through my sense of smell, taste, and hearing. Meals no longer smelled like warm cooked meat with roasting potatoes. Meals became light and fresh. My house began smelling more like a garden every time I prepared a meal. I also no longer smelled the warmth of the stove or the smell of a pan heating up, since we chose to eat a lot of the plants and fruits in a more raw style to get the maximum nutritional value. The taste of meals and snacks changed from processed foods to natural snacks like nuts, dates, and dried fruit. I could taste the change from the pandemic. Everyday noises that would occur in my pre-pandemic household were no longer present in my pandemic household. No longer was there the sound of the oven turning on, the microwave running, or oil popping in the pan on the stove top. Instead, the new normal sounds were that of the food processor to make hummus, the sound of the blender making smoothies, and the sharp tap of the knife colliding with the cutting board. The recipes I chose to include are ones that we started with that have changed the way we eat. These were the easiest to sustain with readily available produce in my rural area.
• 
  2020-09-06

  Quarentena sedentaria

  Meme from Being Peruvian Instagram. It makes light of how inactivity leads to weight gain during the pandemic. Peru has some of the strictest lockdown orders, and it's a society that is accostomed to walking and traveling across the city daily. Loosing daily activity has slowly, but surely affected everyone's health.
• 
  2020-08-10

  Powering your immune system

  After much investigation about COVID-19 I have realized that your health and wellbeing have more importance than anything else, especially wealth. I have embarked on this "getting healthy" journey, and eating a more balanced diet with lots of fruits and vegetables and cutting processed foods has helped me deal with stress and given me strength to continue and cope with the new normal. The media should be encouraging people to eat a healthy balanced diet and exercise, if this were the case; the mortality rate would be much lower. Healthy people don't get as sick. Let's all get on the good health boat and remember that together we can fight this. Get your health back, be metabolically healthy and COVID-19 will be yesterday's news faster.
• 
  2020-03-31

  Sourdough bread fail

  During the first few weeks of COVID-19, I found myself not wanting to grocery shop and to focus on making do with what we had. However, as I have a number of food allergies, I have to be careful about what I eat. So I attempted to make bread—not in the TikTok viral-trendsetting-sense, but rather as a means to an end. My efforts were shortlived. I tried three recipes. Each was a disaster. Here is the beginnings of a sourdough starter that is vegan and gluten free. I fed it and cared for it gingerly for a week - nursing it along with fresh g-f flour every day, as a ritual to puncuate my day in the way that commuting to work used to do. On the 8th day, mold grew in the bowl and I tossed out the starter.
• 
  2020-04-07

  Buckwheat bread fail

  During the first few weeks of COVID-19, I found myself not wanting to grocery shop and to focus on making do with what we had. However, as I have a number of food allergies, I have to be careful about what I eat. So I attempted to make bread—not in the TikTok viral-trendsetting-sense, but rather as a means to an end. My efforts were shortlived. I tried three recipes. Each was a disaster. Here is buckwheat bread that is vegan and gluten free. It tasted like dirt.
• 
  2020-07-30

  Institutional Fatphobia

  This post shared publically through Instagram discusses the issues that fat people face when seeing a doctor. This was shared in response to not only the weight bias spurred on by the pandemic but to highlight the institutionalization of fatphobia in the medicine. The media and health experts have been having a field day pointing the finger at obesity for death rates and complications for months. All while toting the advice to lose weight and their preferred diets to do so. Despite the fact diets fail 90% of the time no matter how dedicated the individual or that obesity is not a condition but a symptom of conditions that put people at a higher risk from COVID-19 complications such as other health issues, poverty, access to medical care, access to nutritional foods, access to sick pay and sick leave, and so on.
• 
  2020-03-16

  Patty Cooks

  A website dedicated to cooking, many posts starting 3/16/2020 are pandemic related