4 ms·

>You can feed yourself for about $1 a day per person with careful budgeting, or $30/month. How?

by chipperyman573 8y ago

Kluny 8y ago
$30 worth of lentils. Mmm, tasty.
- uptownfunk 8y ago
  Frankly lentils/beans/rice (cooked nicely with oil and seasoning of course) is way better than a lot of the garbage people eat for much more money.
  - ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
    Seasoning is something people seem to miss a lot. Just garlic powder, paprika, chili powder, and of course salt and pepper can bring a dish up to something you could see eating at a restaurant.
    - uptownfunk 8y ago
      Right? It's not even that hard. In Indian cooking the 'tadka' method is used for lentils and beans (also called chonk, chaunce, vaghar, etc.). It is basically heated oil with some spices thrown in and gently fried (not burnt), this tempering is then mixed in with the rest of food. Here is a good example: https://youtu.be/xEeoZYpa5wY?t=95 https://youtu.be/xEeoZYpa5wY?t=95 (it's in Hindi, but you don't really need to understand necessarily, looks authentic).
- hombre_fatal 8y ago
  If you can't prepare lentils in a way that you'd describe as tasty, then you owe it to yourself to look up any of the thousands of youtube videos or recipes that prepare it a thousand different ways.
- belltaco 8y ago
  You can make some extremely delicious meals with lentils, especially yellow and red split lentils, given the right spices, which are also pretty cheap.
joefourier 8y ago
Going by UK prices as that was the subject of the article and what I'm familiar with, you can get 1 kg of long grain rice for £0.45 (~$0.60), which contains 3,650 calories. 1kg of lentils is £1.40 ($1.83) and contains 3,530 calories and a healthy amount of proteins, minerals and vitamins. A female needs 2000 calories per day, so for £0.67p ($0.88) you can get 1000 calories from rice and 1000 calories from lentils and meet your minimum requirements, and have some money left over to buy salt, spices and veg. Other staples such as oats, beans, pasta are at similar prices (1kg of oats can be found as low as £0.75 and contains 3650 calories) and can provide additional nutritional diversity, but there is no question that you can meet your minimum calorie requirements with $1/day, at least in the UK. This may not be the most appealing diet to some (although spices go a long way into making cheap palatable dishes), but if the alternative is going so hungry you are unable to move without grabbing on to furniture, you cannot afford to complain about the taste of a bland bowl of a rice.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  So, how do you fight off scurvy? What does 12 cents worth of veg look like? That's, what, an 1/8th of an orange a day?
  - joefourier 8y ago
    You buy off whatever veg is on-sale (e.g. the Aldi Super 6) - citrus can be less than a pound per kg, so 12 cents can actually get you a whole medium-sized orange (you buy a pack for 50p and eat it over the next few days). Cabbage, broccoli and misc frozen veg are generally more cost-effective, however.
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      Based upon that diet you'd get 0% of your Vitamin D, 5 % of your vitamin A, and 15% of your calcium. You'd get 4 grams of fat, no sodium, and barely any potassium. You'd be getting 180% of your recommended carbs for the day. I doubt that would be sustainable over the long term.
ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
You can do $2 a day pretty easily in my opinion. Basically you want rice (or pasta) and beans to be the bulk of your calories, and anything else just adds flavor. Helps that in America you generally have access to $2/lb boneless chicken breast (and I've gotten drum sticks for 69c a pound before, but those are more of a pain) at one of your grocery stores, and rice and beans are almost free (25c-50c a day), even in smaller bulk sizes such as 5lb bags. Potatoes, carrots, bananas, and apples are examples of fruits and vegetables that are generally incredibly cheap. Once you get up to $5 a day per person it really feels like you can eat any thing, once you start following a budget. I've met people with budgets around $400 a month for one person, though that usually includes a lot of eating out. US currency, by the way.

>You can feed yourself for about $1 a day per person with careful budgeting, or $30/month. How?

Kluny 8y ago

$30 worth of lentils. Mmm, tasty.

uptownfunk 8y ago
Frankly lentils/beans/rice (cooked nicely with oil and seasoning of course) is way better than a lot of the garbage people eat for much more money.
- ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
  Seasoning is something people seem to miss a lot. Just garlic powder, paprika, chili powder, and of course salt and pepper can bring a dish up to something you could see eating at a restaurant.
  - uptownfunk 8y ago
    Right? It's not even that hard. In Indian cooking the 'tadka' method is used for lentils and beans (also called chonk, chaunce, vaghar, etc.). It is basically heated oil with some spices thrown in and gently fried (not burnt), this tempering is then mixed in with the rest of food. Here is a good example: https://youtu.be/xEeoZYpa5wY?t=95 https://youtu.be/xEeoZYpa5wY?t=95 (it's in Hindi, but you don't really need to understand necessarily, looks authentic).
hombre_fatal 8y ago
If you can't prepare lentils in a way that you'd describe as tasty, then you owe it to yourself to look up any of the thousands of youtube videos or recipes that prepare it a thousand different ways.
belltaco 8y ago
You can make some extremely delicious meals with lentils, especially yellow and red split lentils, given the right spices, which are also pretty cheap.

joefourier 8y ago

Going by UK prices as that was the subject of the article and what I'm familiar with, you can get 1 kg of long grain rice for £0.45 (~$0.60), which contains 3,650 calories. 1kg of lentils is £1.40 ($1.83) and contains 3,530 calories and a healthy amount of proteins, minerals and vitamins. A female needs 2000 calories per day, so for £0.67p ($0.88) you can get 1000 calories from rice and 1000 calories from lentils and meet your minimum requirements, and have some money left over to buy salt, spices and veg. Other staples such as oats, beans, pasta are at similar prices (1kg of oats can be found as low as £0.75 and contains 3650 calories) and can provide additional nutritional diversity, but there is no question that you can meet your minimum calorie requirements with $1/day, at least in the UK. This may not be the most appealing diet to some (although spices go a long way into making cheap palatable dishes), but if the alternative is going so hungry you are unable to move without grabbing on to furniture, you cannot afford to complain about the taste of a bland bowl of a rice.

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
So, how do you fight off scurvy? What does 12 cents worth of veg look like? That's, what, an 1/8th of an orange a day?
- joefourier 8y ago
  You buy off whatever veg is on-sale (e.g. the Aldi Super 6) - citrus can be less than a pound per kg, so 12 cents can actually get you a whole medium-sized orange (you buy a pack for 50p and eat it over the next few days). Cabbage, broccoli and misc frozen veg are generally more cost-effective, however.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    Based upon that diet you'd get 0% of your Vitamin D, 5 % of your vitamin A, and 15% of your calcium. You'd get 4 grams of fat, no sodium, and barely any potassium. You'd be getting 180% of your recommended carbs for the day. I doubt that would be sustainable over the long term.

ApolloFortyNine 8y ago

You can do $2 a day pretty easily in my opinion. Basically you want rice (or pasta) and beans to be the bulk of your calories, and anything else just adds flavor. Helps that in America you generally have access to $2/lb boneless chicken breast (and I've gotten drum sticks for 69c a pound before, but those are more of a pain) at one of your grocery stores, and rice and beans are almost free (25c-50c a day), even in smaller bulk sizes such as 5lb bags. Potatoes, carrots, bananas, and apples are examples of fruits and vegetables that are generally incredibly cheap. Once you get up to $5 a day per person it really feels like you can eat any thing, once you start following a budget. I've met people with budgets around $400 a month for one person, though that usually includes a lot of eating out. US currency, by the way.