What do you eat, and how? (Eating habits thread)

[sangfroid]

Straightforward question. I should add "when" in there somewhere. Do you eat cold pizza for breakfast? Pancakes for dinner? Sushi for a snack? Hot sausage grinder/sub/sandwich before bed? Chili on spaghetti?

I ask out of simple curiosity. Perhaps I am an anomaly in this regard. Long ago, I worked third shift (for about 5 years). I got used to eating "dinner" for breakfast, and "breakfast" for dinner, along with a few other unusual culinary habits. A nice cold beer at 9 am isn't always about alcoholism, y'know. This was my "evening". I learned to eat anything, anytime. This has stuck with me throughout my life.

Anyway, I can still get up early, say 4 or 5 am, and have a nice big salad and pasta with sauce and meatballs and not think twice about it. The carb boost is great when I have a heavy (early) work day ahead of me, and I usually get my veggies in as well. Much different from the stereotypical "coffee and doughnuts" scenario, though I also do that from time to time.

Depends on my mood, I guess.

Care to share your eating habits, unusual or otherwise?

[Dick Macy]

Every morning, I have a toasted English muffin, buttered, and a small glass of orange juice. Sometimes it's a cinnamon-raisin English muffin, usually just the sourdough kind. Now and then I have a banana also.

On the way to work, I drink a Diet Coke.

Lunch varies -- today I took a pot of homemade beef stew to the office. Usually, it's some kind of fast food that we send someone to get. Or I may pack a couple of sandwiches.

Dinner: we mostly eat fish or chicken, with red meat occasionally. Last Saturday, I cooked a pork tenderloin. Our meals tend to be pretty simple. We bake the fish or chicken, and have some kind of vegetable with it, usually one that was found in the frozen-food department at the supermarket. We try to eat healthy meals.

I confess to a certain amount of junk food. I love potato chips, Fritos, ginger snaps, ice cream, Cheez-its, and all that sort of stuff. And jelly beans. I'm really big on jelly beans.

No doubt, my eating habits are pretty boring. We tend to do the same things over and over, without thinking about it very much.

[LurkMeister]

Breakfast is a carton of yogurt and a glass of juice - usually orange, V-8, apple, or cranberry. Along with a Centrum Silver and an iron pill. On Sundays I have three eggs scrambled with whatever I have available and am in the mood for.

Lunch varies. I try not to have the same thing two days in a row, so I sort of rotate between a sandwich, some fruit and/or cheese, and either chicken or tuna salad on crackers. Occasionally I'll treat myself to something spexcial, especially if I go shopping at Trader Joe's in the morning.

Dinner can be something I pulled out of the freezer or something I threw together with whatever meat I took out to defrost the day before. Since when I cook I generallyb end up making more than I can (or should) eat at one sitting the rest gets put in a container and eaten as leftovers a few days later. Just like with lunch, I never eat the same thing, or even the same type of meat, two days in a row. Very occasionally I will send out for pizza or something, or go out to eat.

[Catzpjs]

Breakfast is usually a bowl of cereal (Cherrios or Corn Flakes) with milk or it can be a glass of juice, a couple of oatmeal cookies and fruit..apple or banana is the most frequent choice but sometimes it's grapes.

Lunch varies. If I'm home it's whatever I feel like eating, can be leftovers of some kind, a sandwich, or just another piece of fruit. If I'm out and stop at a restaurant it's usually something light, a salad with meat added or sometimes a BLT or a grilled cheese sandwich.

Dinner also varies. I cook a lot of soups and stews in the winter and will eat on one of those for several days. I never could make small amounts of home made soup or stew. I also will sometimes grill a small steak or chicken breast, add a few frozen veggies of some kind and a salad...it's a quick meal that is light but filling.

Like Dick, I love my junk food too. I've learned tho, that I can be just as satisfied with 1/2 cup of ice cream as I can with the whole carton. Same with chips and such...I just keep the servings small and only have ONE serving a day.

There are times, Christmas, Thanksgiving, the annual Family Reunion, that I throw caution to the wind and eat all I want. I can to that a few times a year and not pay a penalty for it, but I can't eat that way all the time and stay at the weight I want to be.

[rundogrun]

I'm a grazer. Especially when I am running a lot. I'll eat 4 or 5 times a day.

Breakfast is always homemade oat-bran muffins (cholesterol issues). Every morning for years. I still haven't tired of them thank goodness.

I'll eat an early lunch around 10:30 and another around 12:30. Usually leftovers, sandwiches, soup etc.

Afternoon snack will be homemade oatmeal bars (see breakfast comment) with a cup of coffee.

Dinners vary wildly...lots of pasta, chicken, tacos, meatloaf, leftovers.

[Ursa Major]

Breakfast is the only meal I eat on my own. My first choice is cold leftovers like chicken, pizza or tuna salad. We take out Thai food about 3 times a month and cold pad thai for breakfast is the culinary high point of my week. If there aren't any good leftovers in the fridge, I'll usually have a plate of crackers, gouda, and spicy chorizo for breakfast or if I'm feeling traditional, bagels and smoked salmon. On the rare occasions I eat out, I'll almost always have bacon and eggs (over easy) for breakfast.

Lunch is usually soups and/or sandwiches. Tuna sandwiches and clam chowder usually account for two lunches a week. frozen meat pies and pasties from any recent trip to Vancouver also account for a few lunches. Sometimes we'll just pop over to a nearby taco stand or gyro place.

Dinner varies widely depending on how much time my wife or I can devote to preparation. If we don't have much time, it's usually curry or pasta. The curry comes in a jar and we just add chicken (sometimes shrimp), onions and potatoes to it in a big skillet and then pour it over some rice. If we have more time we'll go with something fancier with a protein (grilled salmon or halibut, baked trout, pork tenderloin, or meatloaf if I have a lot of time), vegetables (usually fresh asparagus or spinach) and a starch (potatoes or rice). When I was crabbing, we ate a lot of crab cakes. If we're really busy we'll order a pizza or Thai or sushi takeout.

[akennett]

I'm still trying to lose weight (though it's a losing battle right now), so my eating habits are in flux.

When I'm at my best in terms of the weight loss, I'm eating 4 or 5 times a day at around 400 calories or so each, so meals, such as they are, aren't regimented as "this is breakfast", "this is lunch", etc. I'd eat what I felt like at the time: it may be a yogurt, piece of fruit, and handful of pretzels for one "meal" then Egg Beaters, Morningstar "sausage" patties, and toast for the next. Tunafish sandwiches, soups, string cheese, and roasted veggies were other typical "meal" components.

Unfortunately, I like pasta too much to stick with this plan all the time. Sometimes I will have a large meal of pasta tossed with a lot of veggies, either a drizzle of olive oil or a can of tomato sauce, herbs and spices, and perhaps some morningstar "chicken" products. This will be around half my calorie-budget for the day, so the rest of my eating is small snacks of one of the items in the last paragraph spread throughout the day.

Recently, I've been trying to get back to a hybrid of the 5 "meals" a day plan, with one larger (but not half-the-day's-calories large) meal timed around the hamsterette's work schedule. I'll cook a dinner for us, usually around the 700-800 calorie size and then plan 3 or 4 smallish snack/meals through the rest of the day. Tonight's dinner will be balsamic-glazed chicken breast, parmesan-flavored couscous, and, I think, a spinach salad.

[Luvsadawg]

Breakfasst at Chez Luvs is usually a bowl of cereal (high fiber) and a banana (shared with the dawgs) If Tom feels like cooking, its eggs and toast or hashbrowns. Very rarely will I make pancakes or waffles.

Lunch, which usually turns out to be the big meal of the day is a sandwich and a piece of fruit. Sometimes potato chips and a pickle. We are most likely to go out to eat mid day and will have our dinner then.

Evening we'll graze on leftovers or make some kind of quick or frozen entree. This is when we are our weakest, and will hit the freezer for the ice cream.

[OpalCat]

I'm an ovo-lacto (eggs & dairy) vegetarian, so that puts a certain limitation on my diet right there. I generally eat eggs for breakfast, almost always with cheese and some variety of seasonings. Often I have chili on my eggs. I find that turbo-charging my protein with my first meal helps me get through the day much better, with less fatigue (see my sleep study results thread...oy veh)

I eat a lot of spicy foods. When we go out, we eat Mexican, Thai, Indian, etc, and usually order dishes as hot as the kitchen will make them. Dominic (14 now, can you believe it!?) has finally acquired enough of a tolerance for hot foods that I no longer have to make two batches when I make spicy foods at home. Hooray! By the way, he told us a couple of years ago that he was intentionally trying to increase his tolerance for spicy foods because he wanted to be able to enjoy them.

For lunch I often have leftovers of whatever was for dinner the night before. Otherwise I may heat up a can of soup or make a quesadilla or something simple. In the summer I eat a ton of cucumber sandwiches. Now that we live in Massachusetts in this amazing [rented] house, we have cucumbers growing in our yard, so I expect the quantity to go up even higher next summer.

Dinner is usually home-cooked. Tonight it was chimichangas. Last night it was (store bought) cheese ravioli with (home-made) sauce and a side of brown rice and mushrooms. The night before that was broccoli and "vegetarian chicken" casserole with something else that I can't remember. Quite often it's chili with cornbread. We also eat a lot of (home-made) quiche.

I generally eat a smaller meal in the middle of the night after everyone is asleep. This is almost always just some small serving of leftovers from the last couple of days.

I also have a rather serious addiction to Rold Gold Tiny Twists pretzels and eat them on a daily basis.

[Suerreal]

Breakfast:
Most days, I'll have an Almond nut bar. (see pic)
Sometimes, I'll have a Sonic Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Toaster.

Lunch:
Whatever the drug reps bring in. Or a sandwich - either PBJ or ham & cheese.

Supper:
Whatever my Iron Chef cooks. He really is pretty amazing.

- Sue

[sangfroid]

Originally Posted by Suerreal

Lunch: Whatever the drug reps bring in ...
- Sue

I'm not normally the jealous type Sue, but dang - my sandwich with a pickle and chips just pales by comparison.

[sangfroid]

Thanks to all who have volunteered replies so far. Interesting reading.

Some have mentioned their guilty pleasures.

(One of) mine?

Nutty Buddies


I try not to, but they be mighty tempting...

[Suerreal]

Originally Posted by sangfroid

I'm not normally the jealous type Sue, but dang - my sandwich with a pickle and chips just pales by comparison.

Well, what they say about no free lunch is true. In return for eating their food, you have to let them bend your ear for a goodly part of any break you might have. We actually tried to throw the lot of 'em out. It lasted a month before the nurses blackmailed us into letting them back.

- Sue

[bbs2k]

I have very bad eating habits. I'm usually up by 5PM after sleeping during the day, then I'll rise and usually stop to pick up some take out on my way to work. Could be anything from a sub, a small pizza, a salad from Whole Foods, or even Chinese. I get in to work around 9ish, and munch on that as well as a bunch of snacks I have hidden in my locker. Beef jerky, crackers, peanut M&M's, cups of soups or noodles. After work I'll either pickup some breakfast on the way home, or make some dinner in my kitchen.

Yeah, short story: I don't cook much, and I eat throughout the day rather than sit for a meal.

[OpalCat]

Eating throughout the day is much healthier, actually. Not necessarily M&Ms or beef jerky, but lots of snacks is way better for you than big meals with long spaces between them.