There’s psychology behind the foods we don’t buy in a crisis

On a basic human level, what’s being left behind shows us what people just won’t eat, even in the worst-case scenario. It’s the large-scale focus group that no one asked for. Across the country it’s clear that despite the growing numbers of Americans reducing their consumption of animal products, alternative proteins marketed as ersatz meat are currently a hard sell, and no one is stuffing their carts with chickpea pasta.

At the supermarket in Boston, I also noticed that beef broth seems to be the least-loved broth, and a canned mushroom is appetizing to few. Products that rely on other products were also left untouched: What good is Hamburger Helper when the meat section is sold out? The current run on stock makes it easier than ever to see, by way of what’s left, that a capitalist, industrialized food system is inherently opportunistic and chock full of products that—on their own, or in a limit-testing crisis—offer limited intrinsic value. 

Beyond preferences and comfort-seeking, what remains on shelves also reveals something deeply human: evidence of the short-term thinking characteristic of a fight-or-flight response, where immediate solace—not long-term strategic planning—is the priority. In a Burlington, Massachusetts, Wegmans on March 12, the produce section was nearly entirely wiped out, save for a row of untouched, potted basil plants—the only regenerating produce in the room. From Seattle to Philadelphia, pasta aisles are mostly flat-out except for lasagna noodles, the building blocks of one of the best big-batch, freezer-friendly, we’re-in-it-for-long-haul dishes a person can make. 

But even if some of the finer details of strategic planning have gotten lost in the panic, it is broadly clear that people are aware they’re preparing to hunker down for weeks, not days, and that this is a pandemic, not a snow day. Shoppers are mostly prioritizing raw ingredients—like produce, meat, beans, and grains—over prepared foods and snacks. In many freezer aisles, the vegetables are completely gone, but the microwaveable dinners remain, even the pizzas. 

“It makes sense because when you’re stuck at home, cooking is one of the ways to distract yourself, kill time, and have some common activities with people you live with,” says Fabio Parasecoli, a nutrition and food studies professor at New York University. “You see on social media, people are posting their meals and discussing recipes. It’s become an important way of keeping some sort of normality and a sense of, ‘Okay, we can’t leave the apartment, but we are able to eat decently.’”

He adds that frozen dinners and snacks can also be the most expensive grocery items, in terms of unit price. While their allure is strong for a time-crunched population with a hectic work schedule, now, when that same population is buying in bulk to stock up for the possibility of weeks at home, the price point becomes a negative and the convenience becomes less relevant. In a way, it feels like a certain class of people remembering what food really is, can, and should be when they’re freed from the constraints of a 9-to-5 life.

“There’s going to be no rush hour during any of this,” says Small. “For city-dwellers that’s obviously a huge reduction in business, in general, but even for people who drive, the traffic patterns are massively shifting.”

As our housebound hours and days all blend together, Small says the sudden absence of rush hour and the relative dissolution of weekends should provide stores a respite from customer swell and a chance to restock. Importantly, this will also allow shoppers to spread out and avoid joining health-hazardous crowds. 

Parasecoli notes that the way big-box grocery stores are set up cuts consumers off from truly understanding where their food comes from, making it harder to trust that there’s plenty more food coming to refill those empty shelves. It’s part of what fuels the panic-buying spiral that Small mentioned. But Parasecoli is confident that the empty shelves are largely a reflection of the way that supermarkets rotate stock, which is to say: They don’t keep months worth of food in the back at all times.    

Even if the strength of the supply chain isn’t a major  concern at the moment, the long-term arc of human behavior might be. Parasecoli, who lives in Fort Lee, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, recalls that grocery stores looked similar leading up to and in the weeks after Hurricane Sandy, but says the particular contours and outlook for this pandemic is unprecedented.

“When there was Hurricane Sandy in New York, at a certain point food was running out because there were no trucks coming in. At that point, people started freaking out, but that crisis lasted like one week,” he says. “This kind of crisis, I don’t know, do we have a precedent that can tell us how people will behave after two weeks, a month, two months?” 

Small is more optimistic that we will learn to adapt, but, crucially, only if we can catch a small break from the ever-changing outlooks for our collective short-term future. 

“It is the case that we’re all going to somewhat adapt to this if it goes on for a long time, but there’s so much uncertainty, it’s hard to predict what will happen with people’s behavior,” she says. “But if we can maintain a steady state of life for a few weeks, I think people … will not be as extremely anxious.” 

And what better sign that our collective anxiety is lessening than a fully stocked supermarket?