17 ms·
Eating Healthily for $3 a Day
- puredemo 15y agoPaleo > Legumes.
- orenmazor 15y agoas somebody who exercises a great deal (and consumes over 3000cal a day), I can't recommend egg whites enough. for $4 (canadian) you can get almost a liter at costco. construct your menu right, and you can easily consume a great deal of healthy food for very little. another tip: while YMMV, stay away from most beans other than black or chickpeas. those are the ones that tend to cause the least disturbance in the force.
- Joakal 15y agoEven lentils?
- orenmazor 15y agoin my experience, lentils were by far the worst. green especially. soy beans as well. pinto aren't bad though. kidney are mediocre, as long as you dont eat too many at a time. I've been eating the same diet for 6 months now. I could probably graph what the effects of different beans are on me, at this point (it'd be a gross graph, so don't ask) edit: again, ymmv. I'm sure different people process things differently, and chickpeas could be YOUR kryptonite. plan experiments accordingly.
- icegreentea 15y agoIt's really a matter of how long/how often you're willing to stick with it. If you eat lentils (or any other bean) long enough, consistently enough, the uh... disturbances in the force will subside. Anyhow, this is an interesting setup. Rice and beans is a fairly standard South/Central American diet (for the same reason chosen here... high energy, full protein complex, and cheeaappp). This is totally a workable diet, but the moment you start wanting to eat fish/meat, your food expenses will skyrocket. Even if it's just Tilipia (yuck!). Which sucks =/
- tejaswiy 15y agoCan +1 with my anecdotal evidence too. Indian vegetarian diet is pretty heavy on lentils. They're not that bad :)
- pacaro 15y agoOne thing that the Central/South American and Indian diets add to this baseline set of ingredients is Spices! These add little difference nutritionally, but make the world of difference in whether this diet seems bland or repetitive; with care they don't need to add a huge cost either, stored well they can be bought in bulk and the cost amortized.
- infinite8s 15y agoNot only for taste, but a lot of the spices (such as ginger, garlic, and especially asafeotida - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asafoetida http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asafoetida) used in india cooking are meant to aid in digestion. If you want to buy cheap spices you can't go wrong buying whole dried spices (they keep their flavor much longer) from an indian grocery store. I've always found one near where I've lived (mostly east coast, but I did spend a summer in Albuquerque and I found a few there).
- antidaily 15y agoYeah, Tilipia tastes like dirt.
- allwein 15y ago>but the moment you start wanting to eat fish/meat, your food expenses will skyrocket. Not necessarily, though it depends on what you consider skyrocketing. I find that it only adds $2-$3 a day, depending on what your eating and how you buy it. I buy pork chops in bulk for around $2.49/lb. So that means I can add a half pound chop to my dinner for only $1.25. I also tend to stock up frozen chicken breasts, which I don't remember the cost of since a big back of those lasts me a long time. But I usually end up eating one pork item and one chicken item a day, alternating between lunch and dinner. I'd say in total my daily meals are $4-$6. Obviously if you're eating filet mignon as your meat, your costs are gonna shoot up. :)
- giardini 15y agoLentils? My god, lentils! I once lived in a happy big house with fellow students. We took turns cooking. One of us, an excellent vegetarian cook, whipped up a terrific lentil stew that was so fantastic I had two large bowls. What a tasty meal! What a night! My roommate had to abandon the room, and two individuals in adjoining rooms were driven downstairs to the living room. I slept only fitfully between blasts. No one spoke to me for 3 days. Lentils! Never again!
- astrofinch 15y agoThis sounds like a tall tale.
- redraga 15y agoI'm an Indian, and lentils are one of the main ingredients in vegetarian Indian cooking. Mostly because they are the main source of proteins. I've never had any...problems with the force. But it might be because of conditioning.
- code_duck 15y agoSoaking beans for 6-12 hours while changing the water as frequently as possible makes a big difference.
- orenmazor 15y agoI've heard this too, actually. I haven't tried it yet though. I've actually been terrible at the dry bean angle, opting for canned way too often out of sheer laziness.
- r0s 15y agoCanned beans seems cheap until you buy a pound of dry for about a dollar. Canned food is essentially salt and water with a bit of overcooked vegetable.
- orenmazor 15y agoI don't actually care about cost for this, opting for convenience. I often store ingredients at work so I have no excuse to go out. Anyway, several of our Canadian brands are ultra low sodium, that this is a nonissue.
- pstuart 15y agoThere is the issue of BHA in can linings: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/december-2009/food/bpa/overview/bisphenol-a-ov.htm?loginMethod=auto http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/december...
- noodle 15y agocanned beans are also... calm.
- mhb 15y agoIf you rinse them.
- mshron 15y agoInteresting, I've had exactly the opposite re: black beans and chickpeas. White beans have caused me far less gas. Perhaps we have different intestinal flora?
- rottendevice 15y agoJust curious: why do a lot people recommend only the white of the egg, and not the whole thing?
- icegreentea 15y agoNearly all the fat and cholesterol in an egg is in the yolk. Egg white is pretty much just protein.
- orenmazor 15y agohonestly, I'm not sure. I've seen studies both saying egg yolks are high in cholestrol, and I've seen studies refuting that claim. considering the levels I ingest, I figured better safe than sorry (and cheaper 12 dozen eggs = 750ml of egg whites. crazy!) and just went with the egg whites.
- kgermino 15y ago>12 dozen eggs = 750ml of egg whites I just want to make sure (12 and dozen right next to each other confuses my tired mind) is this 12 Dozen (as in 1 gross) eggs or 12 (a typo)?
- xriddle 15y agoProtein fail
- rkon 15y agoI'd agree it's low on overall grams of protein (for a male, at least) but he did manage to get the amino acids that non-meat diets usually lack... so it's not a total fail.
- kek 15y agoThe grams of protein are within his dietary needs. Nobody, male or female, needs more protein than 10% of their daily calories. Most vegetarian diets do not lack sufficient amino acids. Protein needs are greatly exaggerated by "pop science". Iron and B12 are of greater concern than protein in non-meat diets.
- orenmazor 15y agowhile this diet is high in beans and is okay, most people avoid beans for some reason. which results in many vegetarian friends of mine being constantly low on iron. tomatoes are a great source of this. just dont go for tomato juice to get it. its basically salt.
- samatman 15y agoMeat is overrated as a source of iron, unless we're talking liver or blood sausage. Most contemporary diets are low in iron because people don't eat their dark leafy greens, which are, far and away, the best source of bioavailable iron. The OP diet, which is heavy on broccoli, neatly avoids this.
- orenmazor 15y ago2 cups of pinto beans probably gives you 20grams of protein. add the milk in there and whatever else he eats, and he can probably get 40-50 grams a day. ish. thats more than enough to survive on, since thats what a $3/day diet is really going for.
- 15y ago
- credo 15y agoThe post doesn't explicitly mention this, but this $3/day diet is also a vegetarian diet (with milk being the only non-vegan item in it).
- bdclimber14 15y agoThis reminds me slightly of Tim Ferris' "The 4 Hour Body". Has anyone had any real experience with his suggested diets? I find eating consistent and similar meals is cheaper and healthier.
- noodle 15y agoyes, what do you want to know? there have been a few discussions on the topic in the past, i'll link them if they're relevant
- mberning 15y agoI have followed Tim's slow carb diet for about 2.5 months and have lost around 50 lbs. It works for me.
- bdclimber14 15y agoCongratulations, I know how hard of a feat this because I did it a few years ago. I went from 230 to 180 over a summer. I didn't have a special diet other than eating "healthy" (which is always subjective) and running 2 miles a night. I'm sure it's the running in combination with a lack of deserts and frappacinos that worked for me.
- illumin8 15y agoI followed the 4HB diet for a month and it definitely does work to lose weight. The problem is that it has no variety, and you will get extremely sick of eating the same meal continuously over and over again. There are many ways to eat slow carb without strictly following the 4HB diet. For example, Tim Ferris says to stay away from anything that is "white, or can be made to be white." He's talking mostly about wheat, flour, and pasta, but also includes brown rice. Brown rice is an excellent slow carb so it shouldn't be excluded. There are a lot of great grains that are slow carbs like buckwheat, quinoa, wild rice, steel cut oats, etc, that won't make you gain weight and are good balanced carbs. My experience is that you can do the 4HB diet for a month or two and lose some weight, but think about it - do you want to eat beans every meal for the rest of your life? It's not a sustainable diet that you can stick with for a long time, and that's what matters. In the end, you need a healthy diet that you can stick with for an extended period of time, or you're just going to gain the weight back. Stick with slow carbs (all the ones I mentioned above), nuts, fruits, vegetables, eggs, and lean meats, and you'll be fine. Stay away from fast carbs, sugars, and foods with a high glycemic index and get some variety in your diet. Eat breakfast every day with protein in it. Another thing that doesn't work with Tim Ferris' diet is the "no fruit" rule. Fruit is not that bad. Most fruit has a low glycemic index, although some like watermelon is not that good for you (high GI). Completely excluding any fruit from your diet is probably not healthy long term.
- code_duck 15y agoThat's about what I eat: home cooked beans, brown rice, random vegetables, some bread, nuts, olive oil, occasional cheese and milk, plus a vitamin.
- charlieflowers 15y agoI'd really like to see someone do an analysis like this, but including meat. I'm a meat lover, but would like to get an idea of just how cheaply I could eat healthily.
- icegreentea 15y agoHaving just come off 4 months doing a student life... I can't give you a fullout breakdown, but the cheapest way to get your meat is to buy all the parts that takes at least an hour to cook. No jest. Brisket, flank, legs, w/e. If you can stomach it, get to know a butcher, and then ask for animal heads. Needless to say, I stopped at the flank/brisket stage. Head is a bit... nuts to deal with.
- nickthedart 15y agoThat's interesting. Completely agree about the cuts that take a long time being cheaper. I tried cooking brisket for the first time a couple of days ago. It only took 30 mins in the pressure cooker. BTW a pressure cooker saves time and money and energy and lets you eat cheaply and healthily. All students and entrepreneurs should have one IMHO. The entire population of India can't be too far wrong on the merits of pressure cookers. As for the brisket, well it was good, but didn't seem cheaper or better than lean(ish) minced beef, and didn't go as far as we hoped. So maybe we'll stick to making spaghetti bolognaise...
- photophotoplasm 15y agoI live on ~9AUD per day, AUD being roughly equivalent to the USD. $3 of that goes towards a coffee, $3 goes towards meat, and the other $3 goes towards vegetables and other foodstuff (rough estimates). The only issue I have is that most of the meat I buy is cheap - frozen chicken pieces, ground beef/pork, sausages, chuck steak, etc. - and cheap meat can be pretty horrible until you know how to cook it properly. You'll find yourself doing a lot of pot roasts, goulashes, ragùs, etc.
- adrianN 15y agoYou spend 33% of your food budget just for coffee? Have you thought about doing something about your caffeine addiction?
- colanderman 15y agoAs a vegan on a limited budget, this approximates many of my meals (though I could stand to eat more nuts and seeds and fewer grains), and I can attest that any day I eat roughly this mix of foods is a day I feel superbly healthy. I would suggest replacing the low-fat dairy milk with a non-dairy alternative such as soy or almond milk. Although this would up the cost to $3.50ish/day, non-dairy milks are usually fortified with more calcium than dairy milk contains naturally, and are often fortified with B12 as well.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- staunch 15y agoEven less constructive is whining about it.
- colanderman 15y agoAgreed. Comment deleted.
- phlux 15y agoNo, it is not. Pointing out the idiocy of killing a thought out comment without an intelligent rebuttal is retarded -- supporting that retardation is worse.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- samatman 15y agoIf one can afford to invest in a soy milk maker, or persuade family to buy it as a present, making soy milk is extremely cheap. Also, what comes out of a soy milk maker is massively better than what you can get in a box. I use a combination of soaked soy beans and ground coconut, for a grand total of about 15 cents a quart, including a bit of salt, vanilla, and a tablespoon of sugar (optional). It's a major dietary staple for me. I use the Joyoung CTS1048, reviewed here: http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/004154.php http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/004154.php Such a device pays for itself in a month or two, if one is a regular soy/nut milk aficionado.
- mmaunder 15y agoMy wife and I tried to do this recently on $1.70 per person per day. We didn't last our intended 28 days. A few observations we found: Meat and organic food was too expensive. Fruit is crazy expensive so we bought OJ from concentrate with no additives as a cheap source of Vitamin C. Eggs were are very expensive, but we needed the protein and nutrients, so rationed ourselves to 3 each per week. We had to remove all sugar to save on cost and sugar crashed badly. We decided that Costco was cheating due to the $70 membership fee and so we alternated between Safeway and Walmart. You quickly learn the difference between broccoli florets and stems. [Stems are cheaper] Baking your own bread is incredibly cheap and if you're using a sourdough starter you just need flour, salt and water. It's a great staple and adds taste to the meal. I scraped the unused flour off the work bench and dumped it back in the sourdough starter to save on cost. Lentils are the most complete non-meat protein source. Combining beans and rice give you a complete protein. Cheese is too expensive and you can't make cheese from regular organic off-the-shelf homogenized ultra-pasteurized milk. It just doesn't set when you add the rennet. You can buy coffee for $1 for a months worth of ground coffee at walmart. It's called Master Chef and it tastes like a used catbox. Before we did our experiment we found a few "living on a dollar a day" blogs, but every single one bought in bulk and then calculated the cost of each scoop they took out of the bin. They also didn't care about nutritional completeness and basically starved themselves for the period. After trying to do this on $1.70 and failing, I think Mike's budget of $3 is probably a realistic per person budget if you're going to stay healthy.
- jacobolus 15y ago> we alternated between Safeway and Walmart Well there’s one problem. Safeway is crazy expensive compared to many supermarkets, like 30–50% more.
- ImprovedSilence 15y agoThat depends on where you live. In some more urban areas, huge Walmarts and Wegmans are nowhere to be found. I find Safeway and Giant to be the bargin places when comparing to Harris Teeter or Whole Foods in my area. (Arlington, VA)
- 15y ago
- jhuni 15y agoThe real problem with this diet is it doesn't contain any fruits (Avocados, Cucumbers, Olives, Bananas, Grapes, Berries, etc). Our ancestors lived primarily on raw fruits so they are definitely the healthiest natural/uncooked foods for humans.
- jrockway 15y agoFruits cost more than $3. I think the real problem, though, is that the whole "sugar is poison" has gone to everyone's head, and it's now socially unacceptable to recommend anything containing sugar. The problem is that fruits have a lot of fiber wrapped around that sugar, while soda does not. Have a cup of blueberries with breakfast, an avacado and some tomatoes at lunch, and strawberries for desert. A few servings a day of healthy sugars is not going to make you fat.
- Lost_BiomedE 15y agoIt is not only the fiber, but many fruits either have anthocyanins or citrus bioflavanoids that reduce the rate at which the sugars hit the blood stream by inhibiting digestive enzymes or other mechanisms. If you add in supplements, such as the liquid berry stuff at brownwoodacres or something like green tea, it can add to the health of the diet at a very cheap cost.
- shareme 15y agoIt only works if thin, if slightly overweight or overweight one has to reduce all sugar intake and carbohydrates to re-adjust the body's insulin trigger levels. Simple test ..consume some carbohydrates..if one-half to one hour later you get sleepy to the point of napping you should have your health checked..
- jrockway 15y agoReduce, yes. That doesn't mean "don't have blueberries on your cereal". It means "don't have a slice of cake and wash it down with a coke".
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- wheels 15y agoI've thought about putting together a brief founders' cookbook with a dozen or so of the recipes for things that I survived on in the lean days that you can make for about a buck or two and in about 20 minutes. The real trick is not buying prepared foods at all. Things like flour, rice, eggs, beans, pasta, potatoes, fresh fruit and vegetables, milk, yogurt, cheese, ground beef, fish filets and chicken breasts are all reasonably cheap and you can have a lot of variety with a relatively small set of ingredients on hand. With some practice you get to where you know how to parallelize the cooking steps so that you can get everything done and even cleaned up faster than you could run out for fast-food. Secretly I want our next office to have a full kitchen since one of the things I miss when I'm at our office is being able to cook in the middle of the day.
- kgermino 15y agoPlease do. I'll gladly pay for it.
- minikomi 15y agoOr an app.. This is your ingredients for this week. This is todays recipe.
- patrickk 15y agoTo use the cliche - there's an app for that. It's called Epicurious and it's great. Not daily/weekly breakdowns but you can type in what you have in your fridge and it'll tell you what you can make with it. Of course if you have a smartphone or a tablet you also have google. Got a mind-blowing recipe for marinaded steak online that everyone loved :)
- shadowsun7 15y agoHave you tried the stonesoup cookbook? Premise: 5 ingredients, 10 minutes cooking time per dish. I've tried a couple, and they seem brilliant so far. http://thestonesoup.com/blog/2010/06/a-free-e-cookbook/ http://thestonesoup.com/blog/2010/06/a-free-e-cookbook/
- 15y ago
- martinshen 15y agoAnyone recommend a site that can build a week's menu/grocery list based on approx budget etc.? I'd definitely use that product.
- robflynn 15y agoI have been wanting the same thing but have too many projects going on right now to try to do it myself.
- Klinky 15y agoWhere would one start on something like that? Getting local updated pricing information would seem to be a big missing link. Perhaps crowd sourcing? That would need a critical mass to make it useful. Maybe trying to focus on specific cities first might make it easier.
- martinshen 15y agoI think general approximation could work. I'm not looking for something that can get me to $3 exactly... Really if someone could make an application that gave me a list of menus (that I could swap out) for the week and the corresponding grocery list, I'd use that all the time.
- martinshen 15y agoI've decided that on my next available weekend I will build this. (aka probs not until the fall).
- robflynn 15y agoGeneral approximation is what I was going to use. I don't care if it's exactly some set price. Reasonably close is good enough for me. A bit of magic in the system would be nice, as well. For example: I'm picking the menu(s) the items that I would like to eat next week. While "chicken burrito" may not normally cost me too much, it just so happens that none of the ingredients for the chicken burrito are shared amongst the ingredients for the other 5 or 6 days. This may push my week's allowance too high. Finding things with like/shared-staple ingredients would be nice. Obviously, we wouldn't want a Taco Bell scenario where everything uses the same five or six ingredients, but watching your overall supply/intake could help. I suppose, additionally, being able to specify some things that you have on hand could help with the process. I've thought about this off and on enough that I fear I may be over complicating it at this point. Anyway, if you get around to working on this sometime this fall then feel free to hit me up as I hope to have some free time by then.
- vipivip 15y agoMost Adventists live on this kind of diet, they are the healthiest individuals around the nation and they live the longest, just google Seventh Day Diet.
- photophotoplasm 15y ago> 6. Keeps saturated fat to a minimum In case anyone's interested, this recommendation is long outdated. You should be keeping trans fats to a minimum and trying to increase your polyunsaturated fats, but saturated fat is neither here nor there.
- brady747 15y agoBingo. We all must point out this saturated fat fallacy when it shows up in society since it is so dominant and the belief in it leads to so many bad choices and outcomes.
- photophotoplasm 15y agoIt's not true, but I don't think it's disastrous or anything like that. Saturated fat is practically impossible to cut out completely, and our body can produce it anyway. The more dangerous belief IMO is that fat in general is bad.
- feint 15y agomore people should write posts like this so the myth of "eating healthy is more expensive". And it doesn't need to be boring food like in this post. Italian peasants have been spending much less than $3 a meal for centuries and have one of the healthiest diets around.
- Klinky 15y agoNo, because it's not a myth. Eating healthy actually does requires a lot of energy & in many cases does cost more. If it doesn't cost more it's because you're going to be taking a lot out of the flavor department & you're going to be investing a lot of time shopping, preparing, storing & tracking costs. There is savings to be had in volume, but volume is hard to achieve when you're cooking for just 1 or 2 people. Stating that "Italian peasants have been spending much less than $3 a meal for centuries" is silly on many counts. First this article is about $3 a day, not per meal($3/meal x 3 x 30 = $270 per person per month which seems more realistic). Second, you ignore currency inflation & the negatives of being a peasant. It's similar to saying it must be great to be a Chinese peasant because they can get rice for really cheap. Third, Italy is a small country that has a long history of quality food production, there is less focus on quality in the US & more on quantity. The US is a big country and the environment varies greatly from place to place. You might have a great farming community & your city might support farmers markets, but that doesn't mean that everyone has those facilities or even if they do that the products produced are actually cheap. Part of the problem is that quality food has been relegated into a "gourmet" category which demands a higher price & profit margins than industrialized foods & even those industrialized foods aren't cheap in low volume. You will often see higher quality tomatoes on a Burger King burger than what's at your local supermarket going for $2.99/lb. This is just a blog article, with one bland meal. I don't know how it even makes a scuff as far as destroying this "myth".
- pitdesi 15y agoRandom tangential thought: There are many areas in the world where you can eat a lot more than this for $3 a day. I lived on $2/day in India for a year (was working in microfinance and wanted to live like my borrowers). I got full vegetarian meals made for me in a major city (Ahmedabad) at that price. Something to consider.
- photophotoplasm 15y agoYes, but farmers in America generally aren't content with living on the same income as a farmer in India, so we need to pay more.
- Johngibb 15y agoThis metric isn't really useful unless you can account for the different buying power of the dollar in a country like India vs. US.
- Johngibb 15y agoIt looks like the average software developer makes about 7400 USD a year in India [1]. Assuming a reasonable average is 60k in USA, that's about an 8x salary difference, meaning spending $2/day on food in India is something like $16/day in USA. 1: http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Country=India/Salary http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Country=India/Salary, 328,379 rupees is approx = 7400 USD
- pitdesi 15y agoIt is useful because in our global world you can often live anywhere for certain jobs (at FeeFighters, our designer is in Bulgaria, for example)... There are many opportunities to earn in USD while living abroad.
- davidmathers 15y agoGolden Produce, a local shop A few doors down from Golden Produce is El Castillito, the source of my staple food: the super carne asada burrito. At just over $8 it sounds more expensive, but OP doesn't mention how long his staple meal takes to prepare. Preparation time is definitely a cost if you'd rather be doing something else. Like taking a walk to buy a burrito. So I don't think the $3 figure is entirely accurate. This does make me curious about how my meal stacks up in terms of carbs/fat/protien/calories.
- miketuritzin 15y agoFunny - I (the OP) go to El Castillito a lot, actually, because my co-founder and I work a couple minutes walk away from there. You are right about preparation time, though you can cut down on prep time a lot if you cook a bunch of food at once and then reheat it when hungry over the next few days. That can actually be even faster than walking to get a burrito on the days you reheat.
- Klinky 15y agoIt can be quicker, but does it taste better & is the total time invested lower in the long run? You do have to spend a good portion of time planning out what meal you're going to make, go shopping for the ingredients then prepare & package the meal properly so it's ready to reheat later. Also things like diced fresh veggies do not hold up well in the fridge, freezer or microwave.
- miketuritzin 15y agoTrue. I think it's all about how important saving money is to you. Everyone has a price-effort curve that depends on their financial situation and how frugal they are.
- infinite8s 15y agoSome things taste much better the next day (like soups and stews which have had time to meld their flavors).
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- malkia 15y agoBack in Bulgaria we used to have a farm (almost anyone had) at the "village" - e.g. the house that most city people would had at certain near rural place. Mushrooms, chickens, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. Now can't be certain how much it cost supporting, and also water, transport, etc. - but salaries were (and still are) very little compared to US. Granted some things are ten times cheaper, but then others reach the price of US (absolute prices, not average salary relative). Homebrew alcohol (wine, liquior), preserved tomatoes, salads, fruits, etc. Homemade ketchup kind of like stuff was (and I guess still is) very popular. Some people even made cheese from milk (for feta you need bulgaricus bacilicus, for cheese I think not). And off course milk from the cow.
- Dramatize 15y agoMy wife and I lived off $2.80AUD a day while she was finishing her last year of Uni. It was really rough and Lucy end up developing iron deficiencies.
- TeHCrAzY 15y agoWhere where you living at the time? I am from Sydney, and I have been told by friends from other states that the food prices here are much higher than anywhere else: even Melbourne (for non-aussies: a similarly sized city - 4 mil inhabitants vs 4.5 mil in Sydney).
- jms 15y agoI don't know about other states, but food is crazily expensive here (Sydney) compared to the UK. For some reason, eating out or takeaways is relatively cheap though.
- photophotoplasm 15y agoFood and Agriculture in Australia and New Zealand isn't as heavily subsidised as it is in Europe and America. That's one possible reason.
- jms 15y agoIt does interest me as to why this is. I think it's this and maybe the geography/population making the mega supermarkets less viable. I sometimes play with the idea of a food co-op to bring prices down, but haven't got far.
- photophotoplasm 15y agoI think there is also some concern that the Coles/Woolworths duopoly is driving prices up. I usually avoid big supermarkets, but I haven't noticed any significant difference in price when I have visited them.
- 15y ago
- latch 15y agoI've mentioned it before, but anyone serious about this type of thing should get familiar with quinoa. It might be more expensive than rice, but it also contains a balanced set of essential amino acids - which is pretty rare for a plant. Most meals that call for rice can generally use quinoa instead, and you'll be much better off.
- r00fus 15y agoQuinoa is a very nice substitution for rice, and it has a unique texture and flavor. We simply sub it one for one with long-grain jasmine rice in our cooker (usually 2:1 cups water-rice... quinoa is the same ratio). Only thing is that it's definitely more expensive than rice. Anyone know of a good way to get quinoa on the cheap?
- westicle 15y agoI tried quinoa for the exact reasons you mentioned, but didn't find it nearly as palatable as more "traditional" staples. Compared to rice I found it didn't gel together when cooked, had a stronger (slightly unpleasant) flavour and a gritty texture. In the end I couldn't justify the cost to eat something I just didn't enjoy. More power to those who enjoy it.
- geden 15y agoQuinoa need rinsing really well before cooking or it can taste gritty. Pre-soaking it overnight helps too.
- jswanson 15y agoIf you still want to give it a shot, it's great in soups. An easy Chicken Quinoa soup with carrots and celery, and a healthy dose of lime and pepper, is healthy, flavorful and fairly easy to make.
- khandelwal 15y agoIf you don't like the mostly dry quinoa that's so popular in the US, try it in a soup. That's how the Peruvians make it, and it's a world of difference!
- edtechre 15y agoI am surprised the author did not mention eggs. A good source of protein, cheap, and they have a pretty good shelf life.
- eyeareque 15y agoIf you live in Mountain View (or the bay area for that matter) go to 99 Ranch. It's an asian supermarket that smells like fish due to their huge live seafood section. If you can get past the smell you will be able to buy fruits and vegetables for extremely low prices. I can't believe how low their prices are some times. It is by far cheaper than Costco, Farmers markets, Safeway, and Nob Hill (from my experience).
- silencio 15y agoA lot of asian markets have great deals and are worth going out of your way for deals if there is one near you. Everyone else is talking about fruit being expensive, but I go to Korean markets in LA that currently sell 5-10lbs of oranges for 99 cents and pineapples for $2 on weekends, just to start things off. $2/lb sliced ribeye, 20 cents for a small bunch of scallions, $4.99 box of mango...you get the idea. It's entirely feasible to eat tons of fresh fruit and even meats and pricier veggies on a tight budget if you know where to shop.
- beagle3 15y agoHe follows (old) USDA dietary recommendations, which stipulate no saturated fat, and 60% carbs. That is really, really bad. The ultimate reference is "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes - it is meticulously researched and referenced, and is likely 40 years more up-to-date than your nutrition or medical professional.
- TheEzEzz 15y agoI'm a paleo guy and I agree with what you wrote, but I'm uncomfortable with stating it with such certainty. Personally, when I'm evaluating a fringe idea one thing I look for is modesty in the people proposing it. When a proponent speaks with too much certainty it smells of quackery.
- ajslater 15y agoThe sad thing is that while Taubes is a quack and his book title is quackery, he probably is 40 years more up to date than many nutrition or medical professionals. USDA sucks pretty bad.
- beagle3 15y agoIt may well be wrong, but it is based on more research and science than the list 60 years of mainstream nutrition advice (I dare not use the word "science", and neither would any scientist who actually read publication in the field) As for modesty - that would not help his cause, whether that cause is educating others or making more money. What are you more likely to read, something titled "Most of what you know about nutrition is wrong", or "A humble suggestion to ignore nutritionists"?
- xiaoma 15y agoGary Taubes is a journalist, not an expert in nutrition. He also has a track record of questionable academic honesty. He's an excellent writer who has cashed in fabulously on fad diets, particularly the Atkins craze 10 years ago. Follow his advice at your own risk. http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake
- dirtae 15y agoBroccoli crowns are on sale this week at Lucky (in the Bay Area) for $0.57 / lb. This should allow the OP to shave at least $0.50 per day from his food budget. :-) http://www.anyleaf.com/product/broccoli-crowns http://www.anyleaf.com/product/broccoli-crowns As the co-founder of AnyLeaf, I talk to lots of people about saving on food and groceries. Some people "trade down" to save money, e.g., by replacing meat with beans. My personal strategy is to determine the diet I'd like to eat and that I consider healthy (the Paleo Diet, in my case) and then plan my shopping around the weekly sales offered by grocery stores. The variation in the price of a given item at a given store throughout the year is huge. Almost everything goes on sale for at least 50% off at one time or another. Also, every week there's almost always a good sale being offered on some product in every category (meat, seafood, fruit, vegetables, etc). A typical meal for me is meat or seafood with some vegetable and some fruit for dessert. If there's a great sale on chicken breast, I'll have chicken breast. If the sale is on ground turkey, I'll have ground turkey. Likewise with fruit and vegetable choices. Shopping this way is a low-effort (if you use AnyLeaf) way to save substantially without trading down and compromising your nutritional goals.
- D_Alex 15y agoCan I ask: What is the motivation of trying to limit the cost of your food to such a low (for first-world) amount? I am really weirded out by the number of me-too responses, the philosophy of such extreme saving on food is alien to me. For me, delicious food is near the top of my priority list. I really do not stint at all, my grocery bill is abt $40/day for 2 people... that is $15k/yr, such a bargain considering: rent+utilities on my modest apt is $35k/yr, 2 cars (Subaru+Toyota... not fancy) abt $20k/yr all up (I live in Australia). Good food is such a bargain.
- reinhardt 15y agoAgreed, I don't get the stinginess on food either. Among price, healthiness, taste and ease of preparation, price is my last priority. I'd love to read a blog post or article that optimizes on the other three criteria instead.
- geden 15y agohttp://thefoodeverywhere.com http://thefoodeverywhere.com
- photophotoplasm 15y ago$20 per person per day? That's massive, even for Australia. What are you eating?
- jswanson 15y agoI easily top that, living in central Tokyo. This is including eating out for lunch on weekdays though, which costs at least 10 dollars a day. Fruit and vegetables are more expensive. A decent apple will cost about 1.50 each. 1 metric litre of milk costs about 2 dollars, and 10 eggs wil probably run you around 3 dollars. Meat, depending on the origin and cut, can cost you about 6 dollars for about 150 grams (or a much, much more). You can get frozen manufactured food for fairly reasonable prices, but I'm kind of a snob and pretty much will not eat anything that has ingredients I don't understand in it.
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- kentosi 15y agoThis is extremely awesome. For those who feel hesitant about this (ie - not getting enough taste), I would recommend trying this for, say, breakfast and gradually increasing the frequency.
- henryw 15y agoWow, the amount of protein in this diet is really low. And all those carbs may not be for everyone. This diet may be cheap, but not healthy. If you are the type of person who puts on weight easily (like me), than I would suggest doing 50% to 60%+ of your calories from protein and 20% or less from carbs. The easiest source of protein are white eggs (in a carton), chicken (pre-cooked), beans (get low sodium), and protein shakes (whey during the day and casein at night). All these foods can be prepared with just the microwave. Eating carbs is the easiest way to gain extra pounds. Removing carbs also removes any food coma you may experience after eating a meal, allowing you to be more productive. I lost like 30 lbs without trying that hard by eliminating carbs and focusing on protein. The degree to which I'm in shape one day is correlated to how much carbs I have avoided in the previous few days. And of course, take vitamin supplements. Throwing in some veggies for the fiber, or take fiber supplements.
- dougvk 15y agoyou are me.
- pyre 15y agoHe's also eating brown rice though. Brown rice is a lot more filling than white rice is, which means that you need to eat less to feel full.
- dkarl 15y agoHe priced a 50lb bag of brown rice. I wonder, could you eat that much brown rice before it started to go bad? (Brown rice keeps less than a year; a quick web search says about six months.) You'd have to eat over a quarter pound (uncooked dry weight) per day every day to finish a bag in six months.
- pyre 15y agoMaybe he didn't take that into account. I doubt that he's eating that much rice every day. On the other hand, if you are cooking for more than one person you might be able to go through the bag in less that six months.
- papa_bear 15y agoI feel like this might be a good time to plug my project: http://swole.me/ http://swole.me/ It's a diet generator I made over the past few weeks that promotes adhering to certain proportions of macronutrients. I'll probably make a full post about it when I add some more features/food choices, but so far it's been a great way to learn to program. If you use it, let me know if you have any feedback!
- mikle 15y agoI bookmarked it. This seems like a great resource, when it will get more foods (even though the list now looked good, and gave me a good overview of what I should expect of my upcoming workout / diet phase.). One thing I noticed is that the checkboxes overflow the text in "Customize food choices" (Tofu is on the text below it, mangling everything). I'm using firefox 3.6.
- papa_bear 15y agoI'm glad that you think it's useful! I'm going to try to rework the foods box in the next few days to have a bunch more foods. I thought I fixed the spillover, but hopefully changing the whole thing will take care of it.
- StavrosK 15y agoThat's a fantastic app, but it seems to report that we need to eat about 1000 calories/day (both for me and my family members) more than other calculators... Any idea why?
- papa_bear 15y agoI found it a little high too, so I may switch the equation for another one but I'm not sure yet. I originally made the site specific to gaining weight for lifters (hence the name), and the high weight gain calorie values seem to make sense for the most part, but I do think the weight loss and maintenance values are still a little high for most people.
- nickpp 15y agoNo omega-3 oils. No greens. No fruit. That can't be healthy...
- shareme 15y agoover loading on fructose, sucrose, etc in combination with high fat high carbohydrates diets are not healthy.\ The beans have a low glysemic index(spelling) compared to other carbohydrates. As far as greens, maybe romaine lettuce as lettuce wrap dishes..such as mix beans, tofu, low amount of lean meat, and herbs to taste..
- nickpp 15y agoGreens like spinach, salads, kale, cabbage. Leafy greens. Have low carbs but lots of nutrients and fiber. You think they can be absent in a healthy diet? Fruit - who said overloading? Maybe a few every few days. Our ancestors did eat then when they could find them. Omega3s - I never heard anything bad about them.
- b3b0p 15y agoI'm sorry, but I really disagree with any sort of dieting advice articles appearing on Hacker News for multiple reasons. Reading this thread only backs up my own thoughts and reasons why I dislike these articles. First of all, everyone has their own idea of healthy. Second, there are so many different diets, fads, foods, etc to eat or follow that's it ridiculous to even argue one way or another. Some eat lots of protein, some eat lots of fat, some eat low fat and high carbohydrates and everyone believes their method or means of eating is healthy. I'm sure no matter which way anyone argues there is a book, article, pubmed article to back up your ways. Making statements such as that can't be healthy, or you need to eat vegetables, fats, a certain amount of calories, and other similar statements is only someone else's opinion or belief and everyone is different. Go with what makes you feel good. The best diet is the one you can follow. Listen to your body. I would down vote this, but I can't down vote yet. I'll probably get down voted for all this text, but I feel that strongly about this. Frankly, what else bothers me is that almost any time someone expresses disagreement, they get down voted. Thus, people who disagree often times probably end up never posting.
- b3b0p 15y agoI probably should have prefaced my post stating that any post that talks about diet and/or nutrition on Hacker News ends up turning into geeks arguing about proper diet and nutrition and telling others what is and is not healthy. Which by reading this submission seems to stay true to past submissions.
- PagingCraig 15y agoDiet and nutrition is one of those subjects everyone feels they know very well when they don't. Kind of like how everyone feels they are an expert at driving.
- allwein 15y ago>Second, there are so many different diets, fads, foods, etc to eat or follow that's it ridiculous to even argue one way or another. I hate to invoke the name of Tim Ferriss for fear of the downvotes, but that's exactly one of the things he puts forward in The Four Hour Body. To paraphrase, "Here's what works for me. It might not work for you. The only way to know if something works for you is to try it, and measure your results."
- ZoFreX 15y agoAs someone who has suffered from pernicious anaemia, I heavily recommend against this diet. Vitamin B12 is extremely important and is not necessarily well absorbed through supplements (if you went to a doctor for B12 deficiency, you would be given either supplements or injections well beyond the 100% RDA amount). Eat food with it in instead, or even better, consult with a doctor or other relevant medical person before taking such risks with your health.
- chollida1 15y ago> Maintains the standard caloric ratios: 20-30% of calories from fat, about 10% from protein, and the rest from carbohydrates This is the weirdest breakdown I've ever seen. If you are at all concerned about lean muscle mass, and you should be if you want to be even the slighest bit athletic, then the minimum amount of protien you'd want is a half gram per pound of body weight. Most people who work out or play sports try for closer to a 1 to 1 ratio. This diet is severly messed up.
- Shorel 15y agoYes, but the blogger is right: that's the accepted medical and dietarian wisdom, and it is backed by government programs like the one from Michelle Obama. No wonder why so many people has weight issues.
- chollida1 15y ago> Yes, but the blogger is right: that's the accepted medical and dietarian wisdom I'd disagree with this statement. you can go look and find pretty much any percentage from an accepted medical expert. Saying there is one accepted answer is just plain wrong:)
- nanoanderson 15y agoThis quote struck me as funny and sad: "I’d rather buy the cheapest grains and vegetables than buy the cheapest meat. Bargain basement meat is likely produced in atrocious factory farming conditions and pumped up with hormones." What gave him the idea that bargain basement vegetables are produced in any better conditions… or that they produce any better product (nutritionally speaking)?
- thenduks 15y agoVery interesting, almost makes me want to try it. But I'd like to see a version that isn't focused on price, but just on the 'healthiness' part. When it comes to eating right, money is no object.
- dkarl 15y agoDoenjang and cheonggukjang (Korean fermented soybean products) are reputed to contain B12 and other B vitamins. They might be price-competitive with eggs, and they'd certainly add some welcome taste and variety. Unfortunately, I can't find any source for nutrition information. One would think they would be similar to natto, which has very impressive stats: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/legumes-and-legume-products/4380/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/legumes-and-legume-produ... However, natto apparently doesn't contain much B12. Natto would be harder to find anyway (and harder to find cheap) since most large cities have Korean grocery stores that cater to budget-conscious customers. If you're looking for cheap, nutritious food, a trip to your local Korean store would be worthwhile for the chance to buy cheap rice and check out the nutrition information on the plastic tubs of doenjang. The cheonggukjang I've bought has not had nutrition information on the label, but it ought to be similar to doenjang or maybe natto.