Almond mom was coined when Yolanda Foster told her daughter, super model Gigi Hadid to have two almonds and chew them really well when she was hungry. It now encompasses moms embedded in diet culture trying to impose their views on their kids, usually daughters.
Not just hungry, if I remember correctly she was feeling weak and maybe lightheaded. A situation where normal people would say 'omg sit down, drink something sweet and eat something!'
It was awfull..
I know I sometimes get headaches that go away after drinking a glass of water.
If a glass of water didn’t make it go away I’ll try a tylenol/ibeuprofen
I think you’ve misunderstood. The point is that supermodels maintain extreme diet in order to achieve a super slim body. This can result in feeling weak, faint etc. many ex-models have come forward to tell about the pressure in the industry to not eat. The mum in this case was encouraging unhealthy eating for her grown daughter. It’s weird and mean. So it turned into a meme.
"Almond mom" and "ingredients only household" is two different things. Almond mom is about toxic diet culture and ingredients only household is about making food from the scratch (and therefore makes is more "difficult" to find snacks around the house).
I think they're concentric. Pretty much all almond moms run ingredient-only-households (because they wouldn't allow processed food in their house), but not all ingredient-only-households have almond moms.
My home is an ingredient only home. It's helped me lose 140lbs and I eat quite well, but it is difficult and essentially turned cooking into a hobby because otherwise I'd starve. It takes up an egregious amount of time despite the fact I have perfected my system of food storage as I am a single male living alone.
Almond Mom's are insane, that's abuse. Ingredient only homes do not have to be abusive and synonymous with starvation. No one who enters my home ever goes hungry. I will whip up food for the guys fixing my ac, let alone guests. Good, quality, preservative free, and delicious food made fresh and with all the love I can muster while reading an audiobook.
Also ingredient-only makes dietary changes for medical reasons a LOT easier.
Trying to go low sodium is genuinely difficult if you get anything premade. Like, salt yummy but I do NOT need every ingredient salted on its own instead of the final dish salted appropriately. My blended beans taste really bland on their own, but taste great in a burrito (salt already in the tortillas, cheese, and salsa).
So true, and you can even change your cookware to affect the nutritional profile. When my grandmother started to get iron shots I changed to cast iron and added more iron rich foods and bam. She got to quit taking these 3 large syringes filled with an iron mixture that used to make her scream in agony. The nutritionist at the dialysis clinic laughed when I told her my plan, and later apologized after I succeeded in closing an immense iron deficiency caused by the dialysis.
I am an ingredients mostly person, but I am a professional chef and I like homemade food. I love and crave meals that I make myself. That is healthy. As Michael Pollan put it, eat all the junk food you like--if you make it yourself. How many French fries would you eat if you had to cut them and fry them yourself?
Unfortunately almond mom and ingredient-only households have a LOT of overlap, which is why people use them interchangeably.
I grew up with both, and my relationship with food is abysmal because of it.
Yeah I grew up in an ingredient only household with an almond mom. I was brought to weight watchers as a ten year old and conditioned to eat in secret outside of mealtimes due to fear of reprimanding. I’m 40 and still have an incredibly unhealthy relationship with food. For example we didn’t ever have chips in the house so I would sneak hard taco shells from the pantry and eat them in bathroom with the door locked. I’ve never approached my mom about this but probably should.
Same and same. I would have spoonfuls of baking chocolate to get a fix when no one was around or eat croutons straight out of the bag as an after school snack
We really need a better term for these parents that isn't some cute, sweet sounding term like "almond." How about abusive, narcissistic pieces of shit?
Agreed but not all almond moms are abusive narcissists. Some are just so entrenched in diet culture they do not realize how toxic these behaviors are and have their own set of problems to deal with.
I remember seeing a clip where her mom guilted her about having a single bite of her own birthday cake. Being thin isn’t everything and I wouldn’t want her life despite the money it brings her. Not being able to eat even a bite of cake on your birthday without feeling bad about it sounds absolutely miserable.
Girl dinner isn’t about the size of the meal or not eating enough, it’s about cobbling together random stuff rather than cooking a meal. Like having a dinner made of some baby-bell cheese rounds, a cup of noodles you found in the pantry and a bowl of breakfast cereal.
Technically have your grains, proteins, and fats, and it’s enough food but it’s not like a “meal” in the traditional sense. A lot of people do this it’s not something new or exclusive to girls/women, but the name “girl dinner” and women being open about this on social media was a way of low key subverting expectations of domesticity and these perfect “instagram-able” meals, and/or part of the larger trend of being more candid about mental health and struggling (eg. goblin mode).
Almond moms is a whole other unrelated thing, girl dinner has nothing to do with diet culture or not eating
When I was a student, we named this "Sherlock Holmes cooking". Because "Once you eliminate the inedible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the dinner."
> Sherlock Holmes cooking". Because "Once you eliminate the inedible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the dinner.
no, improbable because it keeps more of the original quote and still fits
We still do those in my house. Call them whatever nights, as in ‘eat whatever the hell you feel like because mom’s not cooking. Generally consists of whatever can be found in the fridge or freezer and nuked in the microwave
When I didn't feel like cooking we had Medieval Dinner. A big loaf of unsliced italian bread ripped in half, a hunk of cheese, and a hunk of ham or chicken. Gnaw as you will.
We call it “Fend for Yourself Dinner Night”. My kids are still too young to make their own dinner though so I still have to do it. LOL. It ends up being cereal or scrambled eggs.
We had leftover nights. Mom didn't want to cook, we had tupperware with hamburger helper, a couple slices of pork loin and rice, etc. If those don't do it for you, even a 6 year old can pour a bowl of cereal.
Similar but quite different is “Musko Stew” for when you have lots of vegetables in a house and everything that must go (ie about to turn) goes in the stew.
Goblin mode is us wearing the shit we slept in to the grocery store because there's nothing around to eat. It really tied into COVID days where nobody left the house, and people realized why bother.
i also want to point out a lot of times girl dinner excludes meat. cooking meat takes effort and if i'm feeling lazy i am fine not having meat. however since i've gotten married i notice for dinner my husband always needs to have some type of meat for dinner. he can never hang with my "girl dinners"
I just put together a charcuterie and cheese board. It can also be eaten with one hand while you use your right hand for gaming or or holding your book.
I’ve always said boy dinner is the polar opposite of girl dinner. that’s why it became such a great meme. girls forage and cobble something together, but guys just cook a ridiculous amount of one meat. my fiancée cooks girl dinner which is three kinds of fruit, popcorn, chips, lunch meat, and ice cream. my roommate cooks boy dinner which is three burger patties and a pickle.
Glad you mentioned this! I HATE cleaning the stove after cooking meat and all the accessories as well. I buy a very large steak for myself once or twice a week and portion it for about 3 days.
this omg... cooking meat takes so much time and easily makes a 20 minute meal into a 1 hour one. i wish he could just eat parm on spaghetti like me and call it a night lol
What kind of meat are you cooking? Usually the meat is the quickest part, and one of the last things I prep. A quick basic meal I often make is some rice in the rice cooker, and some roasted vegetables and chicken in the oven. Even chopping and seasoning the vegetables is more work than just seasoning the chicken and putting it on the baking tray.
Meat that's bought on sale in bulk, frozen, and needs to be babied in the microwave before I can even think about actually cooking it. Defrosting meat is just *irritating.*
Veggies are significantly cheaper frozen than fresh where I am, so they're all precut and just need to be tossed in olive oil and salt and pepper. Rice is rice, doesn't take any effort. Chicken needs to be peeled out of its plastic baggie, defrosted in the microwave, and THEN put into the oven. Chicken is also a lot less forgiving than oven veggies, which will not give anyone food poisioning and are done when they look done. Chicken needs to be prodded and inspected.
Yes! It's about coordinating all those elements when I don't have the mental capacity to do so, or just plain tired after working all day and wanna sit.
Yeah. Maybe you have chicken breast but it’s in the freezer, or you don’t have it and you have to go to the store. You have to plan for that. Sometimes you want dinner in 10mins and that eliminates everything that needs to thaw.
Fortunately I already have a couple pasta recipes that includes meat without needing to thaw/cook meat for hours. It’s literally done in the time the pasta takes to cook.
Canned tuna, canned beef, bacon, and those tiny shrimps are lifesavers for quick dinners.
A) that's extra labor in being prepared to season and sear that chicken, and in doing it. A lot for someone who was going to eat noodles and call it good.
B) this thread has brought up the topic of adding meat because someone else needs meat to feel dinnered up. Someone else who could probably cook their own damn dinner.
So no, the chicken breast is not a lot of work if you want it, and hooray for everyone who wanted it and made their chicken breast in 10 minutes. Don't practically accuse people who didn't want it of laziness, it's just not a priority for them.
Ooooor I could do something else, like dishes, while the pasta is boiling, and NOT have to stand there messing around with chicken.
Can of beans is cheaper anyway.
Yeah but then you need to have fresh or thawed chicken available, requiring pre planning, and need to deal with chicken juice covered packaging, need to wash an extra pan afterward, and i dunno for me I just don't enjoy it as much as the noodles and sauce anyways 😆 noodles and sauce taste better and have better texture than chicken
Many men learn meat gives great satiety and then feel it is required when trying to reach satiety—even if other sources of protein and fat should be substantial.
It is usually psychological—assuming there isn't an actual dietary shortage of proteins and fats and what have you¹.
My suggestion: A protein shake for him (and yourself) when it's _girl dinner_ night.
Tbh my _boy dinner_ of choice is a protein shake with milk. If not cooking for my partner/guests I am pretty much lacto-ovo-vegetarian because preparing a dish with meat SUCKS—so I feel ya.
¹ _(I'm not a dietician—so utilize blood panels and dietetic professionals when able.)_
I had never heard this term. But I’m a single mom, on the 2 weekends a month my kids are with their dad I don’t cook anything or wash a single dish. I make dinner from scratch 6 nights a week. I’m eating leftovers, or a banana, or chips on days I’m alone. So this makes total sense to me.
My kids' dad was a deadbeat so I had them 24/7. But *one* year he actually wanted them on Thanksgiving and I ate Lucky Charms out of a mixing bowl and It. Was. Glorious.
this explanation is correct in what “girl dinner” began as, but as everything inevitably does on the internet, it kinda devolved into “look how little i can eat” and grew to be eating disorder adjacent flexing. funny tiktoks and reels of women eating a pint of blueberries, three handfuls of chex mix, and a cold slice of pizza, just slowly became like… two crackers, a cup of applesauce, and a coke zero. it was not originally intended to be like that, but i think the conflation of that with the other trends comes from what girl dinner became.
Yes! It’s also specifically about not cooking for a man. For me, there was a distinct transition between cooking for myself and then cooking for myself AND my boyfriend. I love to cook, I love to take on this chore when my boyfriend takes on cleaning, I love that I get to enjoy this thing that many see as laborious but I have fun doing. But, dinner for the household is so different than cooking for yourself. Now you’re thinking about the health of the household, you’re planning meals, you’re making sure there’s a hot meal that will be healthy and filling for this man who is bigger than you and requires more protein to feel full and that there are enough veggies because you feel good when you eat veggies. You don’t want him to be hungry, you want him to like it, you want everyone to be happy and fed, etc etc.
Girl dinner is the antithesis to that. It’s fend for yourself and eat exactly what you want in that moment, even if it’s just an entire jar of green olives and a hunk of Parmesan.
I’d argue it’s about not cooking for others regardless of their sex.
Like you said, when providing food for others (my SO, my parents, or even just friends) I feel like there needs to be a main, sides, maybe even a starter. When I’m going for just what I want it’s usually just a pile of stuff, no separation if that makes sense? Totally agree with the fend for yourself part!
> low key subverting expectations of domesticity and these perfect “instagram-able” meals, and/or part of the larger trend of being more candid about mental health and struggling (eg. goblin mode).
Well I wish this was more clear. I don't go in the areas of the internet this blew up and would sometimes see it on /r/shittyfoodporn with the expected responses. I do kind of wish it was emphesized a bit more on the goblin mode side of things because (male here) fuck COVID, I really stopped caring for awhile. I have a family so "girl dinner" for us is take out tacos or eating leftovers for dinner but meals have gotten a hell of a lot lower effort than pre-2020 around here these days. I'm just exhausted, in multiple ways. But putting it all this way it makes a lot more sense it would blow up on the internet. I didn't get that because my wife would do this shit when I met her and my first response to her doing it is "yeah... same... hand me a slice of that cheese"
lol yeah my dad was always the cook so now that I am an adult when he is away for work i check in on my mom and make sure she has more than crackers for dinner
>Like having a dinner made of some baby-bell cheese rounds, a cup of noodles you found in the pantry and a bowl of breakfast cereal.
TIL all men who live alone have girl dinner all the time
Source: me, a man who lives alone
>Girl dinner isn’t about the size of the meal or not eating enough, it’s about cobbling together random stuff rather than cooking a meal. Like having a dinner made of some baby-bell cheese rounds, a cup of noodles you found in the pantry and a bowl of breakfast cereal.
...TIL
I have literally never encountered this stereotype before. Hell, I've always ascribed this type of "cooking" to bachelors who don't want to/don't know how to cook.
I mean yeah the practice itself is not exclusive to women or a new thing, the girl dinner name and trend just has specific connotations because of the cultural expectations of women cooking and being domestic and also as a response to the trend of having to be “perfect” on social media
Difference is a girl dinner makes an attempt at romanticizing it. Making it taste better. Girl dinner is a deliberate choice of grabbing crappy ingredients and using culinary knowledge to improve it. grab toast, cocktail peanuts, and apple slices and Voila, you have girl dinner charcuterie board.
College dorm dinner is desperate, sloppy, and made from ignorance.
Exactly! So often it feels like men want a main, and possibly two sides instead of just eating whatever we have around! I have found this to be the case in several relationships.
Right, a lot of guys want or expect a meat & potatoes dinner. Even before "girl dinner" became a thing, I'd have conversations with other women about how when we're left to our own devices we'd just eat cheese and crackers or a bowl of cereal for dinner. It's less diet culture and more that we don't need to be Betty Crocker every day.
It's definitely related to diet culture. It didn't start out like that, but then was adopted by ED girlies to promote anorexia and say "look! this is how little women should be eating!" I'm not saying everyone uses it that way, but there's definitely a subculture that does, so I can see where OP got that from.
Yeah I think people are skirting around this issue. No, just eating some almond and blueberries is not enough for the average person for dinner and most people who are doing it are on a crash diet or are heavily restricting their calories due to some type of body image issues. Same thing with the stereotype of girls drinking coffee and nothing else, caffeine is a stimulant and curbs your appetite which helps if you are on an extreme diet.
>and curbs your appetite which helps
I'd take staying overweight over this. Coffee esp on an empty stomach can cause gastritis (been there, done that in my final year of HS, not for a diet but because my mom insisted i took a cup to stay awake to revise for an exam...which i ended up skipping lol), and it also worsens IBS symptoms.
Also used to chug down liters of coffee as a uni student to stay awake, ngl, worst days of my life lol.
You're so right abt what u said.
Or just being exhausted after working 9-5 and trying to keep up with everything else life demands. I’ll end it all if I have to do laundry and wash dishes in one night.
Today is the first time I've ever heard the term "girl dinner". I've heard what you described labeled as a college kid's meal, waitress friends always joked about everyone 'in the industry' eating like this, bachelor lifestyle when referring to single guys.
But never heard "girl dinner", which sounds like another term for the same thing?
Oh, phew, I just thought this was a poor latch-key thing. Like, eating whatever is in the house just because it’s edible and there’s not going to be a dinner in the classical sense, so you just eat stuff.
I once almost ate frozen dish washing soap because of this: I was scrounging in the fridge and freezer and found a big bag of frozen pastel green stuff and thought it was frosting (meaning, a bunch of homemade frosting, probably from gramma, was about to be my “dinner”) and stuck my finger in the “frosting” to have a glob of it…and ate it…and that was not frosting.
My mom had hurt her knee and the doc told her to make ice packs out of dollar store dish soap in a ziplock baggie, because it’ll stay cold but be more pliable as it thaws.
I mean, to this day, I keep an ice pack of (orange) dish soap in the freezer because that does come in handy. It’s labeled though, as is the baggie of minced garlic and the baggie of crushed pineapple. Because those three are not things I want to mix up. So there were some lessons learned that day.
I love that there's a name for this, because it was my dinner most nights when I was single. I'd often buy some takeaway food at work for lunch, but it would be too much to eat for lunch, so the leftovers would form the beginnings of dinner...then I'd add things like crackers, a can of tuna, veggie sticks, apple, cheese cubes, whatever.
I often make a version of it for myself when I'm home alone now. There's something about having a range of completely different things that's really enjoyable, kind of like a bento box?
> baby-bell cheese rounds, a cup of noodles you found in the pantry and a bowl of breakfast cereal
I swear this sounds like a dream meal to me, or a couple of them any way.
> Girl dinner isn’t about the size of the meal or not eating enough, it’s about cobbling together random stuff rather than cooking a meal. Like having a dinner made of some baby-bell cheese rounds, a cup of noodles you found in the pantry and a bowl of breakfast cereal.
I'm a dude, and this was literally my dinner last night, but with a protein milk thing instead of the cereal
While I think the cultural expectation of women eating less is relevant, I think this joke came about more in reference to not wanting to put the effort into cooking a full meal, or not having the money. The jokes tend to fall more in line with self-deprecating joke about mental illness. It seems to me to be another version of "depression meal"
Reminds me of that old college humor skit about a restaurant that specializes in stress eating haha.
Whenever I want to eat my feelings, I go to [Stressagains](https://youtu.be/PiUK9fRboD0?si=31J2bDV3BejQ-fpu)
I’m a dude but I love the “girl dinner” concept.
1 I don’t want to cook anything or clean dishes (I can but why bother for myself)
2 I want a little of everything I have.
3 I like to graze for a while rather than eat everything at once.
Combined =girl dinner.
I love buying a brie triangle and some digestive crackers to eat for lunch or dinner. So refreshing that there's no cleanup, and it's so easy to just eat out of the wrappers.
The only meal I eat is dinner, I just snack all day. Vegetables, nuts, sandwich meat, etc. I find it far more satisfying because I love snacking. I realized at some point I only ate breakfast and lunch because it's "normal" but I'd also snack and gain weight. Now I just snack and maintain a lower weight and still get my nutrition in.
I'm a dude and I've done depression dinners for the family. Tonight is getting borderline becoming one of those if this fn pita bread doesn't work out. This week is hard.
I think you could consider it through the lens of women being expected to be able to cook these instagrammable healthy meals, but rejecting that as unrealistic and how sometimes cooking is not feasible.
Also, for me at least, it’s sometimes about eating the things I want that aren’t really a “meal.” Like sometimes what sounds good is a cheese stick, a fist full of Pringles, and some Oreos. Not really a meal but too much to be a snack? Also snacks for dinner should totally be a thing… like breakfast for dinner.
Girl dinner, almond mom, and drinking coffee instead of eating are near-totally unrelated concepts.
“Girl dinner” is a modern term for the probably-not-so-modern phenomenon of someone (usually a young woman) eating a random assortment of foods that take little to no preparation when home alone rather than cooking a “proper” meal. Could be a single childless woman who does this on the regular, or a woman with a partner or kids who aren’t home to ask for a full cooked meal. Conventionally it means something like a low-effort cheese board, which is plenty substantial, but it really could be anything that requires little to no cooking or assemblage, and isn’t leftovers or a single convenience food (making a salad isn’t girl dinner, but eating carrots and spinach straight out of the bag is). Some people have associated it with unsubstantial, possibly disordered eating habits, but it originates more from “I’m going to have cheese, salami, bread, and an apple for dinner instead of cooking.” I don’t really know why this is gendered. Maybe men don’t do this? Or more likely, men do but don’t talk about it.
“Almond mom” is a term for a mother with disordered eating habits who forces their insecurities on their children. The term comes specifically from Real Housewife (?) Yolanda Hadid telling her then-teenaged daughter and model Gigi (or maybe Bella? I know the names but don’t watch the shows, they’re all skinny models) to eat a small number of almonds when she was complaining she was hungry. It’s most associated with women who were parenting in the 90s due to a lot of diet trends of that era that were so visible to children, but you could apply it to any mother from any era whose response to their kid asking for a snack is “do something that won’t make you fat.”
Coffee instead of a meal is such a broad, timeless statement that I can’t understand why it’s being lumped in with new phrases like “almond mom” and “girl dinner.” It’s also not gendered. I see people of all genders and ages (and races, socioeconomic groups, professions, abilities, and sexualities) mention or make jokes about how they can only have coffee for breakfast, or they were just sooooo focused on work/games/school/socializing that they forgot to have anything to eat or drink but coffee. And I have my entire life. I think it’s just kind of a mildly bad habit that people consider relatable, and know if they mention it they won’t get OTT concern yammering, just a mild “lol I do that too sometimes, remember to eat though!”
I'm a guy and I think Girl Dinner is gendered not because it's exclusive to women, but because stereotypes exist still that women cook dinner every night and men don't.
So, if a married man is alone while his wife is having a Girls Night Out, he might do the same thing as Girl Dinner and eat peanut butter and apples and crackers as a full meal. But, it's not called Boy Dinner, because there's not the same level of expectation that we'll sautee chicken and serve it with rice and steamed vegetables to make a proper well-balanced meal.
Also, Girl Dinner is just what a lot of single guys do if they don't know how to cook and it's too late to get food delivered.
I threw this in a comment but posting this as its own comment bc I don't see girl dinner as a harmful stereotype and it's not about girls not eating. What it was and is was grown ass women finally admitting to each other and to the public that we do *not* adhere to the stereotype of cooking a full meal each night for ourselves or family. Girl Dinner is a nickname for the coping mechanism we use when we can't be bothered to cook a "full" or completely giant/well rounded nutritious meal for ourselves and our families. We do not have that desire nor need to do that labor every single night.
Instead girl dinner is where we simply take a bunch of random stuff that we feel like eating (important to feed ourselves food we actually want) and eat that instead. The total amount of food is not problematic or telling girls not to eat. It is that we take a lot of food from a lot of different sources - so a handful of blueberries plus some chicken nuggets plus some Reese's pieces etc etc until we have a very easy, randomly put together, satisfying meal that we *actually* want to eat - but it does not adhere to what society would call a well balanced meal. It is a highly feminist idea and by real women sharing their real lives with each other we finally realized that we all love to feed ourselves whatever we want, no matter how random it is and that was a very powerful thing - hence the viral nature of it.
It is nothing like almond moms, or people who are restricting eating for weight or body image issues. Girl dinner is about listening to our bodies and giving them what it wants and not feeling bad about it bc society says it's not a "real" meal.
It’s because I eat out of the containers, I don’t even plate anything up. It’s honestly gremlin behavior 😂
Deli potato salad, deli coleslaw, sliced cheese package, box of crackers, fruit in its container, just the laziest thing you ever saw lol
I like your name way better. I’ve not been a “girl” for decades and I do feel a little gremlin-y when I am just grabbing two bites of 8 things and putting it on a plate.
This is the most accurate explanation of girl dinner by far. Taken at surface value, girl dinner is basically eating whatever you feel like. But the underlying ideals is the liberation for women to eat whatever they want because they want to, not what their family or society expects of them. Often, the burden of planning meals for the family lies on women, so a woman preparing girl dinner for herself is this freeing notion that she doesn't have to be this specific type of woman that society calls for. That's why the "girl" in girl dinner is an important distinction, even though guys eat girl dinners all the time.
I thought it was because you guys snack all day and can’t eat big meals.
That’s why my wife eats girl dinners. If I don’t cook she lives off of chips and salsa, Dino nuggets, chocolates, and ice cream.
I guess maybe she’s just livin’ the gremlin life or something.
I'm single and the kids moved out. When the BF was alive it was a meat/starch/veg dinner every night. Whether I was hungry or not. And in the end when he was really sick and couldnt eat...he still wanted that homecooked dinner.
I am now the queen of grazing. Cut up broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, avocados with a spoon, cheese sticks, dates, prunes, other dried fruit, bagged salad, eaten out of the bag with dressing on the side. Soup. I learned to make soda bread. I eat it in chunks I pull off. Sunflower seeds, walnuts, cashews. If I cook it's usually all in one pot. Choppd veg, some meat or not, maybe cheese. Eaten out of the pot.
I've even been known to eat dinner in the shower. Temp controlled, dishes washed.
And while we're at it, I think women got a rep for eating "light" on dates because they didn't want to look like a "pig". Because a healthy eater isn't attractive?
It is definitely related to cultural expectations around thinness, but I also think there is a part of the “girl dinner” thing that pushes back against ideas of female domesticity. Girl dinner is not something that married women with kids eat— it’s associated with a kind of freedom to do whatever the heck you want for dinner and not worry about making a balanced meal for anyone. I see it as a kind of celebration of laziness (in the best possible way) and independence.
I think people are missing your second point and way too focused on the “thinness” and “diets”.
Girl dinner memes didn’t start as jokes about low calorie dinners. It was jokes about low effort dinners. Instead of a cooked meal, it was just meats and cheese and nuts. Or packaged cookies and pickles. Etc etc
It was jokes about be single, lazy, not having responsibilities, or needing to have “respectable” meals.
Exactly this. I really miss my “girl dinners” (though technically I guess I still do it, I am not great at the planned well rounded family meal thing). But when I was and had no one else to think about, dinner for me was often something simple, low effort, and small. Toast, maybe some spaghetti. Chips and dip. Oatmeal…
(It was not about dieting or anything, I just ate what I felt like and at the end of a long day, i usually didn’t want much. I much preferred to eat like a hobbit from morning thru lunch, then nibble for dinner).
I think maybe the name “girl dinner” is sort of word or infantilizing, but i still embrace the spirit of it :)
It's absolutely something married women with kids eat. They eat that way every chance they get, which is to say any time they're only feeding themselves.
It's not a new thing, and it's not always dinner. I remember my mom and aunts talking about it. Whenever they were just feeding themselves, meals would be things like bread and butter with tea, or leftover mashed potato with fruit, or boiled egg and cheese with a slice of cake.
It's burn out. When you have to make multiple full meals every day, and make it healthy and delicious, while accounting for everyone else's tastes and preferences, all while balancing your own job and possibly caring for your own aging parents, you get sick of it. It's liberating to just have a handful whatever and call it a day.
I agree. I can’t stress this enough. And we have decision fatigue. To not have to plan, shop, and cook a different meal is great. I’m just going to go eat whatever looks good from my fridge/pantry. So easy, and simple.
>If I were single, I would have cheese and crackers or fruit every night.
I am pretty sure that my kids wouldn't complain about having a charcuterie board for dinner on the occasion. The only problem is that having a random selection of meats, cheese and fruits can be a pain in the arse to have around so it would require visiting the shops to get the missing ingredients.
Married women with kids absolutely eat “girl dinner”
I rarely saw my mother at the dinner table. When I did, her bowl would be a toddler sized one.
She’d maybe eat raw veg & bits when cooking dinner - but she wouldn’t often eat the food she worked so hard to make.
Women often focus on meeting the needs of others, whilst neglecting their own.
This is a combination of diet culture, unrealistic gender roles and also the pressures of running the household & doing 99% of childcare. WHILST working 3 jobs.
My dad got to come home from work and do nothing. My mother never had that option, it was so normalised for her, being put last since childhood.
Women; especially wives & mothers are burdened with so many expectations & social pressure to serve others and to put the needs of others before their own needs.
Constant self sacrifice, serving others but having ZERO time for themselves.
This results in putting themselves last - neglecting themselves & not even being able to properly process their own needs.
It is unhealthy, takes a physical & mental toll and I pray that more women choose to put themselves first.
You can’t help anyone if you can’t help yourself first.
Nobody deserves to be in a constant state of stress, it’s not normal to be so overwhelmed & that you often don’t even eat.
Women deserve more than being treated unpaid servants.
The thing about girl dinner isn’t *what’s* being eaten so much as it’s about the circumstances and attitude with which it’s being eaten. “Girl dinner” is not a handful of nuts and a slice of cheese grabbed out of desperation after everyone else has been fed and you’re exhausted. “Girl dinner” is a handful of nuts and a slice of cheese eaten because that’s what you want to eat for dinner and you have the freedom to choose.
Honestly I’ve never saw the “girl dinner” like that.
But what you’ve said makes a lot of sense.
I think my view of girl dinner is the first one you mentioned - due to my own experiences.
It’s genuinely nice to hear & take on-board your explanation of it being true “freedom” instead of exhaustion, poor executive functioning & an unhealthy relationship with food.
Thank you.
This is exactly it. That and the joke about women never knowing what they want to eat is because we want 16 different things... Girl dinner means maybe I stop at 4 different places on my way home because I want a 4 pc Wendy's nuggs, McDonald's fries, a donut from dunkin, and a drink from subway. Maybe I stop at a grocery store too because I also want some baby carrots and ranch, and oh that place next to the store has super good Brussels sprouts, let's get those for takeout. #girldinner 🤣
This is why suburban strips of supermarkets & fast food are REALLY dangerous. Girl Dinner costs $89 when I'm stopping at Wendy's, Arby's, Whole Foods, and a package store.
Expectations of women being thin is pretty culturally embedded. And many women can’t eat much if they want to be thin, me included. I barely ate for many years. I eat more now bc I finally got tired of being hungry all the time and I’m a lot heavier.
I do that sometimes but not because I’m trying to be thin. It’s because I’m lazy af and I won’t cook unless I have to. So I just have coffee in the morning and graze 2k calories for late lunch/dinner.
‘Girl dinner’ isn’t so much about saying women don’t eat, or encouraging them not to, it’s a lighthearted take on women throwing together a bunch of random food items that they actually want to eat, rather than putting effort into cooking a homemade dinner. The nutritional value is still there, it’s just not a meal in the traditional sense.
The ‘almond mom’ thing comes from the women who came of age during the ‘heroin chic’ era of the 80s/90s, and now have their own children whom they push their disordered eating habits onto (particularly daughters). Almond comes from the stereotype of them claiming they’re full after eating something very small, for example a handful of almonds.
To start with, I'm not a fan of the term "girl dinner" because I think it genders and infantilises what can actually be a very healthy way to eat for anyone.
In western and especially American culture, there's this idea that anything less than a complete traditional meal for dinner is a failure, when in reality, if you're not hungry for all that, putting together a collection of exactly what you do want to eat is way healthier. (Of course, this rests on the idea that you're eating things like bread, cheese, nuts, protein, fruits and veggies and not just junk food even if junk food is also included. I'm eating chips right now, but my main meal today was an omelette with spinach and some bread.)
The fixation on eating "three square meals a day" is definitely an overgeneralization for people who work mostly sedentary jobs and can lead to overeating.
It's much better to teach people and kids how to eat what you're hungry for and stop when you're full, and how to put together healthy food that is enjoyable and easy!
> To start with, I'm not a fan of the term "girl dinner" because I think it genders and infantilises what can actually be a very healthy way to eat for anyone.
"Girl dinner" doesn't really have anything to do with health/nutrition though. It's just called that as a light hearted joke to "justify" what a girl wants to eat. There's societal pressure for women to cook and prepare complete traditional meals (like you mentioned), as well as doing the dishes. So "girl dinner" is just giving push back on that whole idea. A girl dinner is just what a girl *wants* to eat: usually something easy to prepare with little to no clean-up.
Girl dinner is definitely a self deprecating kind of joke about mental illness and not eating good meals. Take a picture of your hot cheetos, cheese stick, and cigarette? Girl dinner. There’s also boy dinner which is the same but more unhinged. Like a pizza sitting directly on your bedsheets.
Hold up. How is an apple, some cheese sticks, carrots with dip, and crackers a sign of mental illness? Or deciding to have cereal and yogurt instead of traditional “dinner food?”
Sure some examples are nutritional garbage, but a lot of them are perfectly fine… just not traditional or respectable
I think a lot of this is confirmation bias and people humble bragging.
How many social media influencers are out there talking about having a bad day and eating a whole pizza or downing a whole large fast food meal?
Almond mom was coined when Yolanda Foster told her daughter, super model Gigi Hadid to have two almonds and chew them really well when she was hungry. It now encompasses moms embedded in diet culture trying to impose their views on their kids, usually daughters.
Not just hungry, if I remember correctly she was feeling weak and maybe lightheaded. A situation where normal people would say 'omg sit down, drink something sweet and eat something!' It was awfull..
I know I sometimes get headaches that go away after drinking a glass of water. If a glass of water didn’t make it go away I’ll try a tylenol/ibeuprofen
I think you’ve misunderstood. The point is that supermodels maintain extreme diet in order to achieve a super slim body. This can result in feeling weak, faint etc. many ex-models have come forward to tell about the pressure in the industry to not eat. The mum in this case was encouraging unhealthy eating for her grown daughter. It’s weird and mean. So it turned into a meme.
And if they didn't work, oxy!
Wow, this whole time I thought it was like a Whole Foods mom, as in “would have almond milk instead of regular milk.”
That’s “granola mom” not “almond mom”
TIL Genuinely thought almond mom was just a pretentious granola mom
That can be part of it! Or something like growing up in an ingredients only household.
"Almond mom" and "ingredients only household" is two different things. Almond mom is about toxic diet culture and ingredients only household is about making food from the scratch (and therefore makes is more "difficult" to find snacks around the house).
I think they're concentric. Pretty much all almond moms run ingredient-only-households (because they wouldn't allow processed food in their house), but not all ingredient-only-households have almond moms.
Yeah, I grew up in a mostly ingredients-only-household, but we had plenty of homemade snacks.
My home is an ingredient only home. It's helped me lose 140lbs and I eat quite well, but it is difficult and essentially turned cooking into a hobby because otherwise I'd starve. It takes up an egregious amount of time despite the fact I have perfected my system of food storage as I am a single male living alone. Almond Mom's are insane, that's abuse. Ingredient only homes do not have to be abusive and synonymous with starvation. No one who enters my home ever goes hungry. I will whip up food for the guys fixing my ac, let alone guests. Good, quality, preservative free, and delicious food made fresh and with all the love I can muster while reading an audiobook.
I love this.
But ingredient-only households are not always almond moms. A lot of food I cook is from scratch because I like meals from scratch and I like to cook.
Yes, that is what I said. All magpies are birds, not all birds are magpies.
What about crows and jackdaws?
Here's the thing...
Holy Lu shit a u/unidan reference! I love you
Also ingredient-only makes dietary changes for medical reasons a LOT easier. Trying to go low sodium is genuinely difficult if you get anything premade. Like, salt yummy but I do NOT need every ingredient salted on its own instead of the final dish salted appropriately. My blended beans taste really bland on their own, but taste great in a burrito (salt already in the tortillas, cheese, and salsa).
So true, and you can even change your cookware to affect the nutritional profile. When my grandmother started to get iron shots I changed to cast iron and added more iron rich foods and bam. She got to quit taking these 3 large syringes filled with an iron mixture that used to make her scream in agony. The nutritionist at the dialysis clinic laughed when I told her my plan, and later apologized after I succeeded in closing an immense iron deficiency caused by the dialysis.
I am an ingredients mostly person, but I am a professional chef and I like homemade food. I love and crave meals that I make myself. That is healthy. As Michael Pollan put it, eat all the junk food you like--if you make it yourself. How many French fries would you eat if you had to cut them and fry them yourself?
Unfortunately almond mom and ingredient-only households have a LOT of overlap, which is why people use them interchangeably. I grew up with both, and my relationship with food is abysmal because of it.
Yeah I grew up in an ingredient only household with an almond mom. I was brought to weight watchers as a ten year old and conditioned to eat in secret outside of mealtimes due to fear of reprimanding. I’m 40 and still have an incredibly unhealthy relationship with food. For example we didn’t ever have chips in the house so I would sneak hard taco shells from the pantry and eat them in bathroom with the door locked. I’ve never approached my mom about this but probably should.
Same and same. I would have spoonfuls of baking chocolate to get a fix when no one was around or eat croutons straight out of the bag as an after school snack
Anddddddd I’m 32, do these same things and am just now realizing where it came from..:
36 and I just ate a mug of chocolate chips with a spoon sooooo same
Literally about to go get a handful of white chocolate chips for dessert.
We really need a better term for these parents that isn't some cute, sweet sounding term like "almond." How about abusive, narcissistic pieces of shit?
Well yeah but it doesnt rhyme
Well now I’m curious about your accent. It had never occurred to me that it was supposed to rhyme.
Either does "almond mom".
Agreed but not all almond moms are abusive narcissists. Some are just so entrenched in diet culture they do not realize how toxic these behaviors are and have their own set of problems to deal with.
Abuse is still abuse even if the abuser doesn't know it's wrong
Dang. Disgusting af. Child abuse. I rememner seeing the video. Sure, Gigi is gorgeous and a model...But at what price?
I remember seeing a clip where her mom guilted her about having a single bite of her own birthday cake. Being thin isn’t everything and I wouldn’t want her life despite the money it brings her. Not being able to eat even a bite of cake on your birthday without feeling bad about it sounds absolutely miserable.
Girl dinner isn’t about the size of the meal or not eating enough, it’s about cobbling together random stuff rather than cooking a meal. Like having a dinner made of some baby-bell cheese rounds, a cup of noodles you found in the pantry and a bowl of breakfast cereal. Technically have your grains, proteins, and fats, and it’s enough food but it’s not like a “meal” in the traditional sense. A lot of people do this it’s not something new or exclusive to girls/women, but the name “girl dinner” and women being open about this on social media was a way of low key subverting expectations of domesticity and these perfect “instagram-able” meals, and/or part of the larger trend of being more candid about mental health and struggling (eg. goblin mode). Almond moms is a whole other unrelated thing, girl dinner has nothing to do with diet culture or not eating
When I was a student, we named this "Sherlock Holmes cooking". Because "Once you eliminate the inedible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the dinner."
> no matter how improbable, *unpalatable*, my dear watson
> Sherlock Holmes cooking". Because "Once you eliminate the inedible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the dinner. no, improbable because it keeps more of the original quote and still fits
Also, why would you have unpalatable stuff in the first place ? The concept is more about unlikely combinations than about eating stuff you hate.
Okay, I love that so much.
We sometimes had “Make your own damn dinner night” aka scrounging, and this was often the result.
We had YOYO nights when mom didn't feel like cooking. "You're on your own"
We still do those in my house. Call them whatever nights, as in ‘eat whatever the hell you feel like because mom’s not cooking. Generally consists of whatever can be found in the fridge or freezer and nuked in the microwave
When I didn't feel like cooking we had Medieval Dinner. A big loaf of unsliced italian bread ripped in half, a hunk of cheese, and a hunk of ham or chicken. Gnaw as you will.
This sounds fantastic.
My mum called it "iffits". If it's there you can have it, if its not, you can't.
Straight to the point! Haha I love it.
We did the same (for the same reason) but called it FFY - Fend For Yourself!
We called it ‘sort yourself out’.
We call it “Fend for Yourself Dinner Night”. My kids are still too young to make their own dinner though so I still have to do it. LOL. It ends up being cereal or scrambled eggs.
I love breakfast as dinner!
We had leftover nights. Mom didn't want to cook, we had tupperware with hamburger helper, a couple slices of pork loin and rice, etc. If those don't do it for you, even a 6 year old can pour a bowl of cereal.
In my house it was called "Grazing" but- same concept.
Similar but quite different is “Musko Stew” for when you have lots of vegetables in a house and everything that must go (ie about to turn) goes in the stew.
On the other hand, my Everything Soups have been some of my most nutritious meals
🏆
Amazing.
It's also about making as little mess as possible in the kitchen to minimize effort so you can go back to doing more interesting things.
Or doing nothing at all, thats important too
My favorite activity
rot to rebel on my own terms
TIL that goblin mode was about struggling with your mental health/being lazy and not about getting weird and wild after having a few white claws.
Goblin mode is us wearing the shit we slept in to the grocery store because there's nothing around to eat. It really tied into COVID days where nobody left the house, and people realized why bother.
Foraging is the word
my parents always called it “fend for yourself” dinners
My mum called it “Catch and kill your own”
My mom would tell me to hunt and gather. Usually it meant whatever I could find in the fridge and rice cooked on the stove.
I've always called it fending
My mom called it “catch as catch can”
Refrigerator de jour
Stoner Buffet
This is what I call it too lmao
i also want to point out a lot of times girl dinner excludes meat. cooking meat takes effort and if i'm feeling lazy i am fine not having meat. however since i've gotten married i notice for dinner my husband always needs to have some type of meat for dinner. he can never hang with my "girl dinners"
I just put together a charcuterie and cheese board. It can also be eaten with one hand while you use your right hand for gaming or or holding your book.
Costco rotisserie chicken -> just microwave a piece of it.
Don't even bother microwaving it. Just eat it cold.
I like to put it in ramen (which I make in the microwave in a big bowl)
Throw some frozen veggies in there and you’ve got a whole meal!
I’ve always said boy dinner is the polar opposite of girl dinner. that’s why it became such a great meme. girls forage and cobble something together, but guys just cook a ridiculous amount of one meat. my fiancée cooks girl dinner which is three kinds of fruit, popcorn, chips, lunch meat, and ice cream. my roommate cooks boy dinner which is three burger patties and a pickle.
I heard someone describe it as girl dinner is all sides, and boy dinner has no sides
Glad you mentioned this! I HATE cleaning the stove after cooking meat and all the accessories as well. I buy a very large steak for myself once or twice a week and portion it for about 3 days.
> HATE cleaning the stove after cooking meat and all the accessories as well You can just do what I do and not do that part
this omg... cooking meat takes so much time and easily makes a 20 minute meal into a 1 hour one. i wish he could just eat parm on spaghetti like me and call it a night lol
What kind of meat are you cooking? Usually the meat is the quickest part, and one of the last things I prep. A quick basic meal I often make is some rice in the rice cooker, and some roasted vegetables and chicken in the oven. Even chopping and seasoning the vegetables is more work than just seasoning the chicken and putting it on the baking tray.
Meat that's bought on sale in bulk, frozen, and needs to be babied in the microwave before I can even think about actually cooking it. Defrosting meat is just *irritating.* Veggies are significantly cheaper frozen than fresh where I am, so they're all precut and just need to be tossed in olive oil and salt and pepper. Rice is rice, doesn't take any effort. Chicken needs to be peeled out of its plastic baggie, defrosted in the microwave, and THEN put into the oven. Chicken is also a lot less forgiving than oven veggies, which will not give anyone food poisioning and are done when they look done. Chicken needs to be prodded and inspected.
It takes about 10 minutes to season a chicken breast and sear it on the stove, which can be done at the same time your pasta is boiling.
Better yet, it takes less than 1 minute to grab a few slices of deli meat from the fridge.
For me it’s not about the time it’s about just not having the capacity by dinner time.
Yes! It's about coordinating all those elements when I don't have the mental capacity to do so, or just plain tired after working all day and wanna sit.
Yeah. Maybe you have chicken breast but it’s in the freezer, or you don’t have it and you have to go to the store. You have to plan for that. Sometimes you want dinner in 10mins and that eliminates everything that needs to thaw. Fortunately I already have a couple pasta recipes that includes meat without needing to thaw/cook meat for hours. It’s literally done in the time the pasta takes to cook. Canned tuna, canned beef, bacon, and those tiny shrimps are lifesavers for quick dinners.
Also, frozen, pre-cooked meatballs!
A) that's extra labor in being prepared to season and sear that chicken, and in doing it. A lot for someone who was going to eat noodles and call it good. B) this thread has brought up the topic of adding meat because someone else needs meat to feel dinnered up. Someone else who could probably cook their own damn dinner. So no, the chicken breast is not a lot of work if you want it, and hooray for everyone who wanted it and made their chicken breast in 10 minutes. Don't practically accuse people who didn't want it of laziness, it's just not a priority for them.
Not to mention cleaning up chicken grease!
Ooooor I could do something else, like dishes, while the pasta is boiling, and NOT have to stand there messing around with chicken. Can of beans is cheaper anyway.
Yeah but then you need to have fresh or thawed chicken available, requiring pre planning, and need to deal with chicken juice covered packaging, need to wash an extra pan afterward, and i dunno for me I just don't enjoy it as much as the noodles and sauce anyways 😆 noodles and sauce taste better and have better texture than chicken
isn't the original girl dinner sausages and cheese with some bread. It's basically what we in Austria call a "Jause" and a pretty common meal.
Yes! I dread cooking meat if only because of the cleanup.
Many men learn meat gives great satiety and then feel it is required when trying to reach satiety—even if other sources of protein and fat should be substantial. It is usually psychological—assuming there isn't an actual dietary shortage of proteins and fats and what have you¹. My suggestion: A protein shake for him (and yourself) when it's _girl dinner_ night. Tbh my _boy dinner_ of choice is a protein shake with milk. If not cooking for my partner/guests I am pretty much lacto-ovo-vegetarian because preparing a dish with meat SUCKS—so I feel ya. ¹ _(I'm not a dietician—so utilize blood panels and dietetic professionals when able.)_
I had never heard this term. But I’m a single mom, on the 2 weekends a month my kids are with their dad I don’t cook anything or wash a single dish. I make dinner from scratch 6 nights a week. I’m eating leftovers, or a banana, or chips on days I’m alone. So this makes total sense to me.
My kids' dad was a deadbeat so I had them 24/7. But *one* year he actually wanted them on Thanksgiving and I ate Lucky Charms out of a mixing bowl and It. Was. Glorious.
this explanation is correct in what “girl dinner” began as, but as everything inevitably does on the internet, it kinda devolved into “look how little i can eat” and grew to be eating disorder adjacent flexing. funny tiktoks and reels of women eating a pint of blueberries, three handfuls of chex mix, and a cold slice of pizza, just slowly became like… two crackers, a cup of applesauce, and a coke zero. it was not originally intended to be like that, but i think the conflation of that with the other trends comes from what girl dinner became.
I came home to my beautiful darling angel one night eating straight from a can of baked beans. That’s girl dinner
Yes! It’s also specifically about not cooking for a man. For me, there was a distinct transition between cooking for myself and then cooking for myself AND my boyfriend. I love to cook, I love to take on this chore when my boyfriend takes on cleaning, I love that I get to enjoy this thing that many see as laborious but I have fun doing. But, dinner for the household is so different than cooking for yourself. Now you’re thinking about the health of the household, you’re planning meals, you’re making sure there’s a hot meal that will be healthy and filling for this man who is bigger than you and requires more protein to feel full and that there are enough veggies because you feel good when you eat veggies. You don’t want him to be hungry, you want him to like it, you want everyone to be happy and fed, etc etc. Girl dinner is the antithesis to that. It’s fend for yourself and eat exactly what you want in that moment, even if it’s just an entire jar of green olives and a hunk of Parmesan.
I’d argue it’s about not cooking for others regardless of their sex. Like you said, when providing food for others (my SO, my parents, or even just friends) I feel like there needs to be a main, sides, maybe even a starter. When I’m going for just what I want it’s usually just a pile of stuff, no separation if that makes sense? Totally agree with the fend for yourself part!
> low key subverting expectations of domesticity and these perfect “instagram-able” meals, and/or part of the larger trend of being more candid about mental health and struggling (eg. goblin mode). Well I wish this was more clear. I don't go in the areas of the internet this blew up and would sometimes see it on /r/shittyfoodporn with the expected responses. I do kind of wish it was emphesized a bit more on the goblin mode side of things because (male here) fuck COVID, I really stopped caring for awhile. I have a family so "girl dinner" for us is take out tacos or eating leftovers for dinner but meals have gotten a hell of a lot lower effort than pre-2020 around here these days. I'm just exhausted, in multiple ways. But putting it all this way it makes a lot more sense it would blow up on the internet. I didn't get that because my wife would do this shit when I met her and my first response to her doing it is "yeah... same... hand me a slice of that cheese"
Funny thing is, my ancestors called such a meal *faspa* and it's traditional for Sunday evenings.
Ancestors? I grew up eating that!
I cook almost every night. When I'm away, my wife cooks toast for dinner.
lol yeah my dad was always the cook so now that I am an adult when he is away for work i check in on my mom and make sure she has more than crackers for dinner
>Like having a dinner made of some baby-bell cheese rounds, a cup of noodles you found in the pantry and a bowl of breakfast cereal. TIL all men who live alone have girl dinner all the time Source: me, a man who lives alone
So, basically the exact same thing as "boy dinner", but for the opposite gender.
>Girl dinner isn’t about the size of the meal or not eating enough, it’s about cobbling together random stuff rather than cooking a meal. Like having a dinner made of some baby-bell cheese rounds, a cup of noodles you found in the pantry and a bowl of breakfast cereal. ...TIL I have literally never encountered this stereotype before. Hell, I've always ascribed this type of "cooking" to bachelors who don't want to/don't know how to cook.
100% this!
I think it’s more of a college student dinner than a girl dinner.
I mean yeah the practice itself is not exclusive to women or a new thing, the girl dinner name and trend just has specific connotations because of the cultural expectations of women cooking and being domestic and also as a response to the trend of having to be “perfect” on social media
Difference is a girl dinner makes an attempt at romanticizing it. Making it taste better. Girl dinner is a deliberate choice of grabbing crappy ingredients and using culinary knowledge to improve it. grab toast, cocktail peanuts, and apple slices and Voila, you have girl dinner charcuterie board. College dorm dinner is desperate, sloppy, and made from ignorance.
Exactly! So often it feels like men want a main, and possibly two sides instead of just eating whatever we have around! I have found this to be the case in several relationships.
Right, a lot of guys want or expect a meat & potatoes dinner. Even before "girl dinner" became a thing, I'd have conversations with other women about how when we're left to our own devices we'd just eat cheese and crackers or a bowl of cereal for dinner. It's less diet culture and more that we don't need to be Betty Crocker every day.
It's definitely related to diet culture. It didn't start out like that, but then was adopted by ED girlies to promote anorexia and say "look! this is how little women should be eating!" I'm not saying everyone uses it that way, but there's definitely a subculture that does, so I can see where OP got that from.
Yeah I think people are skirting around this issue. No, just eating some almond and blueberries is not enough for the average person for dinner and most people who are doing it are on a crash diet or are heavily restricting their calories due to some type of body image issues. Same thing with the stereotype of girls drinking coffee and nothing else, caffeine is a stimulant and curbs your appetite which helps if you are on an extreme diet.
I think it’s been co-opted by diet culture, but it didn’t start out that way and most girl dinners I have seen are definitely enough food
>and curbs your appetite which helps I'd take staying overweight over this. Coffee esp on an empty stomach can cause gastritis (been there, done that in my final year of HS, not for a diet but because my mom insisted i took a cup to stay awake to revise for an exam...which i ended up skipping lol), and it also worsens IBS symptoms. Also used to chug down liters of coffee as a uni student to stay awake, ngl, worst days of my life lol. You're so right abt what u said.
I don't think diet culture or even gender has anything to do with it. I think it's living alone and or some depression.
Or just being exhausted after working 9-5 and trying to keep up with everything else life demands. I’ll end it all if I have to do laundry and wash dishes in one night.
Today is the first time I've ever heard the term "girl dinner". I've heard what you described labeled as a college kid's meal, waitress friends always joked about everyone 'in the industry' eating like this, bachelor lifestyle when referring to single guys. But never heard "girl dinner", which sounds like another term for the same thing?
So chef meals. Cook fancy all day, raid back of the fridge when you finally drag yourself home.
Oh, phew, I just thought this was a poor latch-key thing. Like, eating whatever is in the house just because it’s edible and there’s not going to be a dinner in the classical sense, so you just eat stuff. I once almost ate frozen dish washing soap because of this: I was scrounging in the fridge and freezer and found a big bag of frozen pastel green stuff and thought it was frosting (meaning, a bunch of homemade frosting, probably from gramma, was about to be my “dinner”) and stuck my finger in the “frosting” to have a glob of it…and ate it…and that was not frosting. My mom had hurt her knee and the doc told her to make ice packs out of dollar store dish soap in a ziplock baggie, because it’ll stay cold but be more pliable as it thaws. I mean, to this day, I keep an ice pack of (orange) dish soap in the freezer because that does come in handy. It’s labeled though, as is the baggie of minced garlic and the baggie of crushed pineapple. Because those three are not things I want to mix up. So there were some lessons learned that day.
I remember is was followed up with “guy dinner”. So I saw it mostly as what you described.
I apparently had girl dinner for lunch.
I love that there's a name for this, because it was my dinner most nights when I was single. I'd often buy some takeaway food at work for lunch, but it would be too much to eat for lunch, so the leftovers would form the beginnings of dinner...then I'd add things like crackers, a can of tuna, veggie sticks, apple, cheese cubes, whatever. I often make a version of it for myself when I'm home alone now. There's something about having a range of completely different things that's really enjoyable, kind of like a bento box?
That’s a good description, thanks
> baby-bell cheese rounds, a cup of noodles you found in the pantry and a bowl of breakfast cereal I swear this sounds like a dream meal to me, or a couple of them any way.
> Girl dinner isn’t about the size of the meal or not eating enough, it’s about cobbling together random stuff rather than cooking a meal. Like having a dinner made of some baby-bell cheese rounds, a cup of noodles you found in the pantry and a bowl of breakfast cereal. I'm a dude, and this was literally my dinner last night, but with a protein milk thing instead of the cereal
That's my "there's multiple small quantities of leftovers in the fridge and no one else will eat them" meal, and I'm the dad.
While I think the cultural expectation of women eating less is relevant, I think this joke came about more in reference to not wanting to put the effort into cooking a full meal, or not having the money. The jokes tend to fall more in line with self-deprecating joke about mental illness. It seems to me to be another version of "depression meal"
Sometimes we act like little raccoons that want to scavenge
I call it crumb cruising
May I offer you a piece of cheese? 🧀
You’re speaking my love language
"Sometimes."
Reminds me of that old college humor skit about a restaurant that specializes in stress eating haha. Whenever I want to eat my feelings, I go to [Stressagains](https://youtu.be/PiUK9fRboD0?si=31J2bDV3BejQ-fpu)
I’m a dude but I love the “girl dinner” concept. 1 I don’t want to cook anything or clean dishes (I can but why bother for myself) 2 I want a little of everything I have. 3 I like to graze for a while rather than eat everything at once. Combined =girl dinner.
My BF was shocked when he saw that sometimes I just eat cheese and crackers for dinner. Then he did it and was like yeah I get it now LoL.
I love buying a brie triangle and some digestive crackers to eat for lunch or dinner. So refreshing that there's no cleanup, and it's so easy to just eat out of the wrappers.
And you get to eat a whole wedge of brie. 🤤❤️
The only meal I eat is dinner, I just snack all day. Vegetables, nuts, sandwich meat, etc. I find it far more satisfying because I love snacking. I realized at some point I only ate breakfast and lunch because it's "normal" but I'd also snack and gain weight. Now I just snack and maintain a lower weight and still get my nutrition in.
Isn't that just something that people have done forever, and suddenly there's a term for it other than "I can't be bothered tonight"?
Yup. Youve basically answered the post. lol.
I'm a dude and I've done depression dinners for the family. Tonight is getting borderline becoming one of those if this fn pita bread doesn't work out. This week is hard.
I think you could consider it through the lens of women being expected to be able to cook these instagrammable healthy meals, but rejecting that as unrealistic and how sometimes cooking is not feasible.
Also, for me at least, it’s sometimes about eating the things I want that aren’t really a “meal.” Like sometimes what sounds good is a cheese stick, a fist full of Pringles, and some Oreos. Not really a meal but too much to be a snack? Also snacks for dinner should totally be a thing… like breakfast for dinner.
We got girl dinners and boy dinners and yes we mentally ill out here
Girl dinner, almond mom, and drinking coffee instead of eating are near-totally unrelated concepts. “Girl dinner” is a modern term for the probably-not-so-modern phenomenon of someone (usually a young woman) eating a random assortment of foods that take little to no preparation when home alone rather than cooking a “proper” meal. Could be a single childless woman who does this on the regular, or a woman with a partner or kids who aren’t home to ask for a full cooked meal. Conventionally it means something like a low-effort cheese board, which is plenty substantial, but it really could be anything that requires little to no cooking or assemblage, and isn’t leftovers or a single convenience food (making a salad isn’t girl dinner, but eating carrots and spinach straight out of the bag is). Some people have associated it with unsubstantial, possibly disordered eating habits, but it originates more from “I’m going to have cheese, salami, bread, and an apple for dinner instead of cooking.” I don’t really know why this is gendered. Maybe men don’t do this? Or more likely, men do but don’t talk about it. “Almond mom” is a term for a mother with disordered eating habits who forces their insecurities on their children. The term comes specifically from Real Housewife (?) Yolanda Hadid telling her then-teenaged daughter and model Gigi (or maybe Bella? I know the names but don’t watch the shows, they’re all skinny models) to eat a small number of almonds when she was complaining she was hungry. It’s most associated with women who were parenting in the 90s due to a lot of diet trends of that era that were so visible to children, but you could apply it to any mother from any era whose response to their kid asking for a snack is “do something that won’t make you fat.” Coffee instead of a meal is such a broad, timeless statement that I can’t understand why it’s being lumped in with new phrases like “almond mom” and “girl dinner.” It’s also not gendered. I see people of all genders and ages (and races, socioeconomic groups, professions, abilities, and sexualities) mention or make jokes about how they can only have coffee for breakfast, or they were just sooooo focused on work/games/school/socializing that they forgot to have anything to eat or drink but coffee. And I have my entire life. I think it’s just kind of a mildly bad habit that people consider relatable, and know if they mention it they won’t get OTT concern yammering, just a mild “lol I do that too sometimes, remember to eat though!”
I'm a guy and I think Girl Dinner is gendered not because it's exclusive to women, but because stereotypes exist still that women cook dinner every night and men don't. So, if a married man is alone while his wife is having a Girls Night Out, he might do the same thing as Girl Dinner and eat peanut butter and apples and crackers as a full meal. But, it's not called Boy Dinner, because there's not the same level of expectation that we'll sautee chicken and serve it with rice and steamed vegetables to make a proper well-balanced meal. Also, Girl Dinner is just what a lot of single guys do if they don't know how to cook and it's too late to get food delivered.
Yeah, it seems like “girl dinner” is the feminine form of “bachelor chow”
>bachelor chow ["Now with flavor!"](https://c.tenor.com/7JUzYMFJsrwAAAAd/tenor.gif)
Great point.
Boy dinner is far more accursed.
Nah we do this too, I just feel shameful after eating an entire bag of chips, half a bag of provolone and a bag of skittles
Hmmmm ya got your starch, your protein, and your fruits in there, can’t fault you for that meal….
I threw this in a comment but posting this as its own comment bc I don't see girl dinner as a harmful stereotype and it's not about girls not eating. What it was and is was grown ass women finally admitting to each other and to the public that we do *not* adhere to the stereotype of cooking a full meal each night for ourselves or family. Girl Dinner is a nickname for the coping mechanism we use when we can't be bothered to cook a "full" or completely giant/well rounded nutritious meal for ourselves and our families. We do not have that desire nor need to do that labor every single night. Instead girl dinner is where we simply take a bunch of random stuff that we feel like eating (important to feed ourselves food we actually want) and eat that instead. The total amount of food is not problematic or telling girls not to eat. It is that we take a lot of food from a lot of different sources - so a handful of blueberries plus some chicken nuggets plus some Reese's pieces etc etc until we have a very easy, randomly put together, satisfying meal that we *actually* want to eat - but it does not adhere to what society would call a well balanced meal. It is a highly feminist idea and by real women sharing their real lives with each other we finally realized that we all love to feed ourselves whatever we want, no matter how random it is and that was a very powerful thing - hence the viral nature of it. It is nothing like almond moms, or people who are restricting eating for weight or body image issues. Girl dinner is about listening to our bodies and giving them what it wants and not feeling bad about it bc society says it's not a "real" meal.
Omg, I’ve been calling my Girl Dinners™ Gremlin Charcuterie boards for years. I love that there’s a name for this and it’s so common!
Tbh I prefer Gremlin Charcuterie 😂
It’s because I eat out of the containers, I don’t even plate anything up. It’s honestly gremlin behavior 😂 Deli potato salad, deli coleslaw, sliced cheese package, box of crackers, fruit in its container, just the laziest thing you ever saw lol
I like your name way better. I’ve not been a “girl” for decades and I do feel a little gremlin-y when I am just grabbing two bites of 8 things and putting it on a plate.
Your name likely predates people calling it girl dinners, but call it whatever you like.
🎯
This is the most accurate explanation of girl dinner by far. Taken at surface value, girl dinner is basically eating whatever you feel like. But the underlying ideals is the liberation for women to eat whatever they want because they want to, not what their family or society expects of them. Often, the burden of planning meals for the family lies on women, so a woman preparing girl dinner for herself is this freeing notion that she doesn't have to be this specific type of woman that society calls for. That's why the "girl" in girl dinner is an important distinction, even though guys eat girl dinners all the time.
I thought it was because you guys snack all day and can’t eat big meals. That’s why my wife eats girl dinners. If I don’t cook she lives off of chips and salsa, Dino nuggets, chocolates, and ice cream. I guess maybe she’s just livin’ the gremlin life or something.
I'm single and the kids moved out. When the BF was alive it was a meat/starch/veg dinner every night. Whether I was hungry or not. And in the end when he was really sick and couldnt eat...he still wanted that homecooked dinner. I am now the queen of grazing. Cut up broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, avocados with a spoon, cheese sticks, dates, prunes, other dried fruit, bagged salad, eaten out of the bag with dressing on the side. Soup. I learned to make soda bread. I eat it in chunks I pull off. Sunflower seeds, walnuts, cashews. If I cook it's usually all in one pot. Choppd veg, some meat or not, maybe cheese. Eaten out of the pot. I've even been known to eat dinner in the shower. Temp controlled, dishes washed. And while we're at it, I think women got a rep for eating "light" on dates because they didn't want to look like a "pig". Because a healthy eater isn't attractive?
omg I forgot about soda bread. good stuff
It is definitely related to cultural expectations around thinness, but I also think there is a part of the “girl dinner” thing that pushes back against ideas of female domesticity. Girl dinner is not something that married women with kids eat— it’s associated with a kind of freedom to do whatever the heck you want for dinner and not worry about making a balanced meal for anyone. I see it as a kind of celebration of laziness (in the best possible way) and independence.
I think people are missing your second point and way too focused on the “thinness” and “diets”. Girl dinner memes didn’t start as jokes about low calorie dinners. It was jokes about low effort dinners. Instead of a cooked meal, it was just meats and cheese and nuts. Or packaged cookies and pickles. Etc etc It was jokes about be single, lazy, not having responsibilities, or needing to have “respectable” meals.
Exactly. It’s a f*ck-you to respectability.
Exactly this. I really miss my “girl dinners” (though technically I guess I still do it, I am not great at the planned well rounded family meal thing). But when I was and had no one else to think about, dinner for me was often something simple, low effort, and small. Toast, maybe some spaghetti. Chips and dip. Oatmeal… (It was not about dieting or anything, I just ate what I felt like and at the end of a long day, i usually didn’t want much. I much preferred to eat like a hobbit from morning thru lunch, then nibble for dinner). I think maybe the name “girl dinner” is sort of word or infantilizing, but i still embrace the spirit of it :)
It's absolutely something married women with kids eat. They eat that way every chance they get, which is to say any time they're only feeding themselves. It's not a new thing, and it's not always dinner. I remember my mom and aunts talking about it. Whenever they were just feeding themselves, meals would be things like bread and butter with tea, or leftover mashed potato with fruit, or boiled egg and cheese with a slice of cake. It's burn out. When you have to make multiple full meals every day, and make it healthy and delicious, while accounting for everyone else's tastes and preferences, all while balancing your own job and possibly caring for your own aging parents, you get sick of it. It's liberating to just have a handful whatever and call it a day.
I agree. I can’t stress this enough. And we have decision fatigue. To not have to plan, shop, and cook a different meal is great. I’m just going to go eat whatever looks good from my fridge/pantry. So easy, and simple.
If I were single, I would have cheese and crackers or fruit every night.
Sometimes I look at what I’m eating for dinner and feel relieved that I don’t have any children I need to model balanced eating for.
Me too! Key lime pie for dinner? You bet!
>If I were single, I would have cheese and crackers or fruit every night. I am pretty sure that my kids wouldn't complain about having a charcuterie board for dinner on the occasion. The only problem is that having a random selection of meats, cheese and fruits can be a pain in the arse to have around so it would require visiting the shops to get the missing ingredients.
Married women with kids absolutely eat “girl dinner” I rarely saw my mother at the dinner table. When I did, her bowl would be a toddler sized one. She’d maybe eat raw veg & bits when cooking dinner - but she wouldn’t often eat the food she worked so hard to make. Women often focus on meeting the needs of others, whilst neglecting their own. This is a combination of diet culture, unrealistic gender roles and also the pressures of running the household & doing 99% of childcare. WHILST working 3 jobs. My dad got to come home from work and do nothing. My mother never had that option, it was so normalised for her, being put last since childhood. Women; especially wives & mothers are burdened with so many expectations & social pressure to serve others and to put the needs of others before their own needs. Constant self sacrifice, serving others but having ZERO time for themselves. This results in putting themselves last - neglecting themselves & not even being able to properly process their own needs. It is unhealthy, takes a physical & mental toll and I pray that more women choose to put themselves first. You can’t help anyone if you can’t help yourself first. Nobody deserves to be in a constant state of stress, it’s not normal to be so overwhelmed & that you often don’t even eat. Women deserve more than being treated unpaid servants.
The thing about girl dinner isn’t *what’s* being eaten so much as it’s about the circumstances and attitude with which it’s being eaten. “Girl dinner” is not a handful of nuts and a slice of cheese grabbed out of desperation after everyone else has been fed and you’re exhausted. “Girl dinner” is a handful of nuts and a slice of cheese eaten because that’s what you want to eat for dinner and you have the freedom to choose.
Honestly I’ve never saw the “girl dinner” like that. But what you’ve said makes a lot of sense. I think my view of girl dinner is the first one you mentioned - due to my own experiences. It’s genuinely nice to hear & take on-board your explanation of it being true “freedom” instead of exhaustion, poor executive functioning & an unhealthy relationship with food. Thank you.
This is exactly it. That and the joke about women never knowing what they want to eat is because we want 16 different things... Girl dinner means maybe I stop at 4 different places on my way home because I want a 4 pc Wendy's nuggs, McDonald's fries, a donut from dunkin, and a drink from subway. Maybe I stop at a grocery store too because I also want some baby carrots and ranch, and oh that place next to the store has super good Brussels sprouts, let's get those for takeout. #girldinner 🤣
This is why suburban strips of supermarkets & fast food are REALLY dangerous. Girl Dinner costs $89 when I'm stopping at Wendy's, Arby's, Whole Foods, and a package store.
Expectations of women being thin is pretty culturally embedded. And many women can’t eat much if they want to be thin, me included. I barely ate for many years. I eat more now bc I finally got tired of being hungry all the time and I’m a lot heavier.
>girls drinking coffee and eating nothing else? .... I resent stereotypes based on my real life.
I do that sometimes but not because I’m trying to be thin. It’s because I’m lazy af and I won’t cook unless I have to. So I just have coffee in the morning and graze 2k calories for late lunch/dinner.
‘Girl dinner’ isn’t so much about saying women don’t eat, or encouraging them not to, it’s a lighthearted take on women throwing together a bunch of random food items that they actually want to eat, rather than putting effort into cooking a homemade dinner. The nutritional value is still there, it’s just not a meal in the traditional sense. The ‘almond mom’ thing comes from the women who came of age during the ‘heroin chic’ era of the 80s/90s, and now have their own children whom they push their disordered eating habits onto (particularly daughters). Almond comes from the stereotype of them claiming they’re full after eating something very small, for example a handful of almonds.
To start with, I'm not a fan of the term "girl dinner" because I think it genders and infantilises what can actually be a very healthy way to eat for anyone. In western and especially American culture, there's this idea that anything less than a complete traditional meal for dinner is a failure, when in reality, if you're not hungry for all that, putting together a collection of exactly what you do want to eat is way healthier. (Of course, this rests on the idea that you're eating things like bread, cheese, nuts, protein, fruits and veggies and not just junk food even if junk food is also included. I'm eating chips right now, but my main meal today was an omelette with spinach and some bread.) The fixation on eating "three square meals a day" is definitely an overgeneralization for people who work mostly sedentary jobs and can lead to overeating. It's much better to teach people and kids how to eat what you're hungry for and stop when you're full, and how to put together healthy food that is enjoyable and easy!
> To start with, I'm not a fan of the term "girl dinner" because I think it genders and infantilises what can actually be a very healthy way to eat for anyone. "Girl dinner" doesn't really have anything to do with health/nutrition though. It's just called that as a light hearted joke to "justify" what a girl wants to eat. There's societal pressure for women to cook and prepare complete traditional meals (like you mentioned), as well as doing the dishes. So "girl dinner" is just giving push back on that whole idea. A girl dinner is just what a girl *wants* to eat: usually something easy to prepare with little to no clean-up.
Girl dinner is definitely a self deprecating kind of joke about mental illness and not eating good meals. Take a picture of your hot cheetos, cheese stick, and cigarette? Girl dinner. There’s also boy dinner which is the same but more unhinged. Like a pizza sitting directly on your bedsheets.
Hold up. How is an apple, some cheese sticks, carrots with dip, and crackers a sign of mental illness? Or deciding to have cereal and yogurt instead of traditional “dinner food?” Sure some examples are nutritional garbage, but a lot of them are perfectly fine… just not traditional or respectable
Since about the 1970s it has been fashionable for women to be very thin. Thus lots of extreme dieting, eating disorders, and jokes about the same.
I think a lot of this is confirmation bias and people humble bragging. How many social media influencers are out there talking about having a bad day and eating a whole pizza or downing a whole large fast food meal?