4 ms·

Potatoes are cheap af what do you mean?

cassianoleal 4y ago
Quick back of the envelope numbers. At Tesco's you can get potatoes for £0.36/kg. 1kg = ~2.2lb, so ~£0.165/lb. Even at the higher daily consumption in this thread, 10lb/day, that's £1.65 daily cost of food. I imagine the only way to go cheaper is by dumpster diving.
- magnetic-recoil 4y ago
  A loaf of bread is pretty conveniently 2000 calories, and costs £0.40 if you buy a cheap one. Less nutritious than a potato though!
  - OJFord 4y ago
    A 40p loaf of bread is punishment, not nourishment.
- mrob 4y ago
  Potatoes[0]: £0.36/770kcal[1] Rice[2]: £0.45/3650kcal[3] Pasta[4]: £0.46/3710kcal[5] Normalized to rice: Potatoes: 3.79 rice_cost_units/kcal Rice: 1.00 rice_cost_units/kcal Pasta: 1.01 rice_cost_units/kcal Tesco does not list calories for potatoes, and for the dry foods only provides calories for the cooked result, so I used values from the USDA nutrient database. The value for potatoes is optimistic, because the cheap potatoes are "imperfect", which suggests there will be significant loss from trimming inedible parts. Assuming efficient technique (pre-soaking dry foods, chopping potatoes small, reducing heat input to minimum once at temperature, covering cooking pots, using insulated pots if possible), cooking cost will probably be similar for all three, although pasta can be eaten "al dente" (undercooked), which might let it beat rice for total cost. [0] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/292332517 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/292332517 [1] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/170026/nutrients https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/170026/n... [2] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/300843799 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/300843799 [3] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/169756/nutrients https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/169756/n... [4] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/297844134 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/297844134 [5] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/168927/nutrients https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/168927/n...
  - s-lambert 4y ago
    Rice has a satiety index of 138 while potatoes have a satiety index of 323, almost 3 times as much. So you need to eat way less potatoes compared to rice, I don't know if it's a linear scale though but still probably brings potatoes pretty close to rice.
    - mrob 4y ago
      Satiety index affects how much you want to eat, not how much you need to eat.
      - s-lambert 4y ago
        But the point of this diet is that potatoes have a very high satiety so that even if you eat as much you possibly want to you won't eat enough to put on weight. Rice, with its lower satiety, is much easier to overeat (or eat enough to maintain a higher weight).
implements 4y ago
mrob explains it well - potatoes aren’t the cheapest carb, but there’s also the cost of milk and butter in the quantities needed. I worked it out at over £4 a day, and you can eat the regular and varied protein, carbs and veg diet on that.

Quick back of the envelope numbers. At Tesco's you can get potatoes for £0.36/kg. 1kg = ~2.2lb, so ~£0.165/lb. Even at the higher daily consumption in this thread, 10lb/day, that's £1.65 daily cost of food. I imagine the only way to go cheaper is by dumpster diving.

magnetic-recoil 4y ago
A loaf of bread is pretty conveniently 2000 calories, and costs £0.40 if you buy a cheap one. Less nutritious than a potato though!
- OJFord 4y ago
  A 40p loaf of bread is punishment, not nourishment.
mrob 4y ago
Potatoes[0]: £0.36/770kcal[1] Rice[2]: £0.45/3650kcal[3] Pasta[4]: £0.46/3710kcal[5] Normalized to rice: Potatoes: 3.79 rice_cost_units/kcal Rice: 1.00 rice_cost_units/kcal Pasta: 1.01 rice_cost_units/kcal Tesco does not list calories for potatoes, and for the dry foods only provides calories for the cooked result, so I used values from the USDA nutrient database. The value for potatoes is optimistic, because the cheap potatoes are "imperfect", which suggests there will be significant loss from trimming inedible parts. Assuming efficient technique (pre-soaking dry foods, chopping potatoes small, reducing heat input to minimum once at temperature, covering cooking pots, using insulated pots if possible), cooking cost will probably be similar for all three, although pasta can be eaten "al dente" (undercooked), which might let it beat rice for total cost. [0] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/292332517 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/292332517 [1] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/170026/nutrients https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/170026/n... [2] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/300843799 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/300843799 [3] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/169756/nutrients https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/169756/n... [4] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/297844134 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/297844134 [5] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/168927/nutrients https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/168927/n...
- s-lambert 4y ago
  Rice has a satiety index of 138 while potatoes have a satiety index of 323, almost 3 times as much. So you need to eat way less potatoes compared to rice, I don't know if it's a linear scale though but still probably brings potatoes pretty close to rice.
  - mrob 4y ago
    Satiety index affects how much you want to eat, not how much you need to eat.
    - s-lambert 4y ago
      But the point of this diet is that potatoes have a very high satiety so that even if you eat as much you possibly want to you won't eat enough to put on weight. Rice, with its lower satiety, is much easier to overeat (or eat enough to maintain a higher weight).

implements 4y ago

mrob explains it well - potatoes aren’t the cheapest carb, but there’s also the cost of milk and butter in the quantities needed. I worked it out at over £4 a day, and you can eat the regular and varied protein, carbs and veg diet on that.