10 ms·

How to eat healthily on £1 a day

140 points by xSwag 13y ago

jkat 13y ago
As a bad but persistent cook, I'm convinced eating healthy is generally cheaper. A lot of the healthier food I eat is cheap: legumes, [sweet] potatoes and other root vegetables, broccoli, bananas, oranges, water, eggs, oats, frozen vegetables (spinach!), brown rice, tomatoes (canned if not locally cheap). I think people intentionally mix up expensive with more work...
- Thrall 13y ago
  I agree. Local seasonal veg from a good greengrocer or market is cheap and healthy.
  - solnyshok 13y ago
    depends on the part of the world where you live in. In Latvia where I live, tomatoes grow in July/August. The rest of the year we can have Spanish tomatoes at 3-5$/kg or locally grown in a heated greenhouse, at $10/kg
shubb 13y ago
The problem with this article is that a lot of things that are cheap for one serving go stale before you eat the second. For instance, on day one, he adds some mint which cost ~50p to buy, but he calls 1p because he only eats a little. He does not eat the rest of the mint that week, so it cost him ~50p, i.e. half the days budget. I am poor and eat very cheap. I do that using dry bulk foods and frozen veg. This is important because there are opportunities for free meals (e.g. if customers at work do not eat all the sand witches and biscuits, that can be lunch for 2 days). Friends invite you for dinner too. If you buy food that spoils, opportunities like this come at a price. How about this for a suggestion - mix lentils, buck wheat, brown rice, dried beans, quinoa. These come in 500g bags for about a pound. You need 6 spoons of this mix per meal, so 10 pounds of mix will last you several months. Put in a rice cooker for 40 min (some beans need soaking first), with a chicken stock cube. Cook for 20 mins then add mixed frozen veg. This will cost you about 30p per meal, and is pretty much complete [1]. I eat the above most of the time, and take free food whenever possible. At the end of the week, I treat myself to a ready meal. You can add curry spice or other herbs for variety. After a year of this I feel pretty healthy. As an aside, supermarkets are machines for making you overbuy. Between BOGOF offers and big packs of meat (or small ones at a huge premium), it's very hard to shop there on a budget because they are designed to trick you into making 'bad' choices. Avoiding them by living on a non-spoiling diet saves tons. [1] I think. The key to a healthy diet is variety, but if your basic meal is healthy and cheap, you can make sure to be eating other things from time to time.
- rwmj 13y ago
  If you're on a budget and you're buying fresh mint, then you're doing it wrong. Mint grows like a weed, in a patch of garden, or on a windowsill. Herbs like rosemary, thyme, mint, coriander, basil you should always be growing.
  - voidlogic 13y ago
    This is so true. We grow all those herbs in small pots. We also grow chives, beans, peppers, tomatoes and squash in a few medium sized pots and topsy turveys. No traditional garden needed.
  - hobbescalvin 13y ago
    Mint literally is a weed in the meadow behind my house.
- 3pt14159 13y ago
  My poor friend eats rotting veggies. She only buys food from that rotting stand in the grocer with the 75% off stickers. That plus rice and frozen veggies. Nobody poor buys mint.
- cbhl 13y ago
  The article also excludes the cost of electricity/gas to power the stove/microwave, the cost of water to cook e.g. pasta and clean the pans after, the cost of the pans amortized over your meals, the cost of plates and utensils... If someone else is paying utilities (say, your local university, or your landlord), and you already own kitchen equipment (say, hand-me-downs from your mum) perhaps this is a reasonable assumption. But for those who are actually in poverty, the upfront capital cost of cooking tools and the hidden costs of energy in cooking might be prohibitively expensive. That said, cooking in bulk is indeed cheaper. So if you're trying to conserve, it might help to find two or three good friends and cook your meals together.
  - mtct 13y ago
    Actually, in first world, not even an homeless gain less than 2$ per day. So we can safely leave all the expenses for fuel and cookware out of the math.
elmuchoprez 13y ago
This reminds me of a project I did in November of 2006 when I decided to eat for $1/day for the month. The whole thing is chronicled here: http://www.hungryforamonth.blogspot.com/ http://www.hungryforamonth.blogspot.com/ I wouldn't say what I did was exactly healthy though.
- GigabyteCoin 13y ago
  In the bbc article the woman's diet for day one consisted of: Breakfast: - one piece of toast and margarine (6p - cost of tea) - one cup of tea (6p - cost of toast - cost of margarine) - one "unethical" egg (8.7p) Lunch: - one ham sandwhich, presumably just bread and ham (29p) Snack: - one "value" scone with jam (6p) - one apple (free?) Dinner: (37p combined, I imagine there are some more "free" ingredients in here) - 1/4 zucchini - 1/4 bell pepper - 35g bacon - 100g spaghetti - 50g peas - 10g "value" brie cheese - 1 clove of garlic Apart from some lemon juice and spices she added to her dinner, that's about it. What I consider to be a scone costs about $1 alone where I live here in Canada. I would be a bit worried to eat one that cost over 10x less and the seller was still able to make a profit. I remember paying ~$4 for an apple once when visiting France. Brian got his for free somehow. Perhaps he has a tree in his backyard. Not to mention the massive overhead costs involved here with the fact that he could easily boil water to cook his spaghetti and a nice knife and cutting board which allowed him to make his sandwhiches. Plus a fridge to keep those remaining 29 unethical eggs in. At the very least, it's a good read to get people thinking about efficiency.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Not sure where you bought that apple, but I'm pretty sure that's more expensive than a full kg an a grocery store.
    - GigabyteCoin 13y ago
      It most certainly is. A kilogram of fresh apples costs $2 to $4 here in Canada. $1 if you can get it from an orchard. I was just trying to exemplify that Apples are not free. When I paid $4 for that apple: it was the middle of winter in Paris, France. I was in a grocery store, or Paris' equivalent of one at least.
TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
It all sounds great until you think about how much they actually spent. It's more like "How to eat healthily on £1 worth of food per day, but spending a lot more because you aren't eating the majority of the food you have bought, which cost a lot more than just £7".
dobbsbob 13y ago
A loaf of bread where I live is $4. Blew his daily budget with one purchase. Cant buy single eggs even from a local farmers market here so thats another $4-6. Cheese is probably the most expensive item at $10. If you bought everything this guy ate youre looking at $60 or so and it will last about 5 days, which is 7gbp per day. Must be cheap food in the UK
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  Well, the author bought everything in larger quantities while conveniently not taking into account limited shelf life. He also makes trips to 5 different supermarkets to get the cheapest prices, which takes a lot of time (research & shopping) and gas. One of the best ways to cut costs is to not cook for one, but to cook together with others. Then you can buy in bulk like the author suggested. I live alone and I do cook for one. I probably spend more on food than most. However, I chose to live in a compact city with relatively low rents. This way I don’t need a car. I live in walking distance of supermarkets, health food stores, farmers markets and bakeries. I live 1 minute from a bus stop, 5 minutes from the main train station. What I spend more on groceries, I make up for in low rent and using public transport instead of owning a car.
  - claudius 13y ago
    You can get by basically anywhere in Europe without a car. Sure, you might have to walk 20 or 30 minutes or so (one-way), but the wear on your shoes from that is absolutely negligible.
    - Thrall 13y ago
      You'd have to walk for hours to check all the prices and work out the cheapest from various supermarkets though. Also, the more calories you burn walking across town to find, purchase, and carry home the very cheapest food, the more you need to eat...
      - claudius 13y ago
yesplorer 13y ago
I see some of these posts as more of experimental (just like the motive of the 5000 Brits) than practical. You don't eat solely to sustain yourself or avoid hunger. Enjoying the food and being comfortable with whatever you are eating really counts as well.. "But when it is your way of life, and you haven't got any choice over it, it's not a fun experiment."
gnosis 13y ago
Here[1] is a similar experiment, which initially started with a $1 per day budget for 30 days. "Here are the rules: 1. All food consumed each day must total $1 for each of us. 2. We cannot accept free food or “donated” food unless it is available for everyone in our area. (i.e. foraging, samples in stores, dumpster diving) 3. Any food we plant, we pay for. 4. We will do our best to cook a variety of meals; ramen noodles can only be prepared if there is no other way to stay under one dollar. (We have six packages and will buy no more) 5. Should we decide to have guests over for dinner they must eat from our share; meaning they don’t get to eat their own dollar’s worth of food. "Each day one of us will post an entry here with a photo that details how things are going..." [1] - http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/it-starts-today/ http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/it-star...
- tracker1 13y ago
  When I was 19, I spent about six months pretty much eating ramen, rice, and apples... It sucked a lot.
frou_dh 13y ago
Bread, jam and biscuits is "healthy"? The ridiculous dietary-fat-fearing, obsessed-with-fruit Food Pyramid looms large in this article.
SoftwareMaven 13y ago
The amount of highly processed carbohydrates is frightening and far from "healthy"[1]. It's unfortunate, but to eat healthy costs more, because healthy food spoils. I look at it like this: if a food doesn't spoil[2], it is most likely because bacteria and fungus can get no nutritional value from it. Do I want to eat that? 1. http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367083033&sr=8-1&keywords=good+calories+bad+calories http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Scienc... 2. There are some exceptions, of course, but surprisingly few.
- psidebot 13y ago
  For moist food at room temperature maybe, but a lot of healthy food resists spoiling by being stored dry or cold.
- mikelat 13y ago
  The higher cost of healthy food may have something to do with the shelf life, but I think subsidies have a lot to do with swaying consumer choice. It's deadly especially when coupled with the fact that obesity is a slow and gradual change that can go unnoticed for years.
- Dove 13y ago
  it is most likely because bacteria and fungus can get no nutritional value from it. Here are two other reasons bacteria might not be able to eat something you can eat: 1. They can't stand the chemical environment -- pH, poisons, salinity. You're just eating it, and can compensate for a lot; they have to live in it! Examples: Honey, garlic, onions, hard liquor, vinegar, salted butter. 2. It's too dry; you can drink extra water, but they need it to come from the environment they live in. Examples: Any dry food, really, but stale bread and dried meat are good examples. . . . and cheating a bit, here's one more: 3. The food could spoil, but is in an otherwise inhospitable environment -- too cold, too hot, no oxygen, already sterile/sealed. Examples: Frozen food, food in the slow cooker, canned food. None of those have much to do with nutrition! You're just a more robust organism than bacteria, is all. Even "poisons" in the first one is misleading -- a lot of what the microbial world sees as poison, you and I see as tasty. :)
- 13y ago
wklauss 13y ago
I see a lot of anger in the comments, some of them questioning the practicality of it or the actual approach you'd use if money was an issue in your household. The BBC didn't do this in order to educate people on how to eat cheap. This is just a flashy piece intended to provoke the "oh look how easy is to make something cheap look nice and healthy" reaction. In that sense its similar to the "deconstructed McDonalds meals" by famous chefs or the "how to substitute x by y and make your children eat y" ones. No one who has to leave on £1 a day will look here for practical advice and discussing the practicality of it is, therefore, pointless.
- mpclark 13y ago
  The problem is that it is now being retweeted by wingnuts as proof positive that the benefits system is too generous.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  >No one who has to l[i]ve on £1 a day will look here for practical advice and discussing the practicality of it is, therefore, pointless. // If it was actual advice on that then yes I would have found that useful. The BBC should be doing better than this sort of Broadsheet newspaper piece - they're probably employing poor people, perhaps they should have spoken to some of them about it.
shanev 13y ago
This article should be renamed "How to sustain yourself on £1 a day". It's amazing how the word "healthy" can mean different things based on your knowledge of nutrition. This article is a perfect example of someone whose nutritional knowledge involves skimming some articles in popular media that are laden with grain and sugar industry advertisements. It's more a recipe for getting diabetes, not being healthy. Biscuits and margarine are certainly not healthy. On one hand you have a high glycemic, gluten-laden processed food that turns into sugar as soon as you eat it. Then you have a highly inflammatory industrial vegetable/seed oil with a very poor fat profile. Better options are to shop at farmers markets, grow your own garden, get bulk stuff from Costco, buy cheaper cuts of meat and braise them, ferment your own veges, and make bone broth. Good health rarely comes from a package in a supermarket. The only packaged items I buy are ghee, coconut oil, butter, and canned wild sardines.
drakaal 13y ago
The way to eat cheap is to have 49 friends. Costs are much lower if you buy a lot of something. Soup kitchens as they are called in the US (and elsewhere?) do this. There are self sustaing ones in the US that charge $1 for a meal which is prepared by those who eat there. As a community center $1 for a meal is doable. And with the pound being worth more than the dollar, one should be able to do that on a 1GBP as well.
peripetylabs 13y ago
I've always disliked the perception that poor people necessarily eat poorly. Rice, wheat, barley, oats, beans, and root vegetables are grown in abundance in developed countries and so are inexpensive; they do not spoil quickly; and are very healthy. Most vegetables will keep for weeks in a refrigerator and months in a freezer. Sardines (fresh) and eggs provide much better protein than meat. I think the cost of "healthy food" is mostly rooted in ignorance and a taste for simple sugars: "For a Brit, there can be no greater comfort food than a custard cream." There's your problem.
yoster 13y ago
The easiest way for everyone to save money is to cut fastfood out of the picture. Another way is to invite friends over for Friday night instead of drinking at the bar. Personally, I went through a period where I got lazy and worked sporadically for a year, and only worked to pay bills and survive. Life was honestly pretty crappy that year looking back on it.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  >The easiest way for everyone to save money is to cut fastfood out of the picture. // That's not going to work for _everyone_.
yoster 13y ago
In the state I live in, there are a plethora of $1 stores that sell all types of fruits, vegetables, cheap meats, and pre-packaged food for $1. They even sell Breyers half gallon vanilla icecream for $1. The local big grocery store sells mass quantities of bananas(20) for 99cents. I have seen 3lb potatoes going for $1 as well. You could easily live off a dollar a day. It might not be the healthiest thing to do, but it's completely doable.
bshastry 13y ago
Here's a more realistic experiment about being poor (in India): http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Harsh_Mander/barefoot-the-other-side-of-life/article2882340.ece http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Harsh_Mander/barefoo... Appendix: Rs. = Indian rupee; 1 USD ~ 55 Indian rupees
moneyrich 13y ago
I did this for a while, surviving on about $4 a day. I was living in mexico, I am a web developer from the states, and there is no jobs down there. What I did for 6 months as a 175lb fit man (used to fight mma and when I was exercising was eating probably 3-5k calories a day): breakfast choices: mangos - free and abundant about half the year tortillas 11 pesos (99 cents) + apple slices 5 pesos (45 cents) fish tacos - 11 pesos (99 cents) lunch and dinner: fishing supplies: 4 hooks and 4 sinkers 24 pesos ($2) go catch 3-4 fish and hopefully not lose all my equipment. come home and buy 8 tortillas for 11 pesos ($1), season them (45 cents every 2-3 weeks), and put some fresh mango (free) or occosional tomate and onion salsa ($1) sometimes just eating mangos when I had no money. sometimes dinner at a restaurant where locals eat: 8 pesos a taco (72 cents) 14 cigarettes: 20 pesos ($1.8) beer for dinner: 10 pesos (90 cents) i probably got almost 2000 calories a day, but lots of good fat and protein for me and my dog from eating fish 3x a day. another cool fact: i bought my dog for 50 pesos, a rott/pitbull mix from a guy in the street.
ctdonath 13y ago
It's a fun exercise. I do the "A Buck A Plate" blog http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com
agilebyte 13y ago
Red peppers, bacon, brie, Greek yoghurt? This woman is living! Where are the old days of baked beans on toast and either oatmeal with salt or sugar?
captainbenises 13y ago
Why is this on hacker news, I don't get it - most readers here would earn a decent wage - what's the interest in super cheap eating. Is it because people want to self-fund their projects and live as cheaply as possible while doing so?
cncool 13y ago
I did the math before to see how cheap I could live on a slight deficit and I got $2.00 CAD for 2000 calories (about 75 grams of fat, 200 carbs and 125 grams of protein)

140 points by xSwag 13y ago

jkat 13y ago

As a bad but persistent cook, I'm convinced eating healthy is generally cheaper. A lot of the healthier food I eat is cheap: legumes, [sweet] potatoes and other root vegetables, broccoli, bananas, oranges, water, eggs, oats, frozen vegetables (spinach!), brown rice, tomatoes (canned if not locally cheap). I think people intentionally mix up expensive with more work...

Thrall 13y ago
I agree. Local seasonal veg from a good greengrocer or market is cheap and healthy.
- solnyshok 13y ago
  depends on the part of the world where you live in. In Latvia where I live, tomatoes grow in July/August. The rest of the year we can have Spanish tomatoes at 3-5$/kg or locally grown in a heated greenhouse, at $10/kg

shubb 13y ago

The problem with this article is that a lot of things that are cheap for one serving go stale before you eat the second. For instance, on day one, he adds some mint which cost ~50p to buy, but he calls 1p because he only eats a little. He does not eat the rest of the mint that week, so it cost him ~50p, i.e. half the days budget. I am poor and eat very cheap. I do that using dry bulk foods and frozen veg. This is important because there are opportunities for free meals (e.g. if customers at work do not eat all the sand witches and biscuits, that can be lunch for 2 days). Friends invite you for dinner too. If you buy food that spoils, opportunities like this come at a price. How about this for a suggestion - mix lentils, buck wheat, brown rice, dried beans, quinoa. These come in 500g bags for about a pound. You need 6 spoons of this mix per meal, so 10 pounds of mix will last you several months. Put in a rice cooker for 40 min (some beans need soaking first), with a chicken stock cube. Cook for 20 mins then add mixed frozen veg. This will cost you about 30p per meal, and is pretty much complete [1]. I eat the above most of the time, and take free food whenever possible. At the end of the week, I treat myself to a ready meal. You can add curry spice or other herbs for variety. After a year of this I feel pretty healthy. As an aside, supermarkets are machines for making you overbuy. Between BOGOF offers and big packs of meat (or small ones at a huge premium), it's very hard to shop there on a budget because they are designed to trick you into making 'bad' choices. Avoiding them by living on a non-spoiling diet saves tons. [1] I think. The key to a healthy diet is variety, but if your basic meal is healthy and cheap, you can make sure to be eating other things from time to time.

rwmj 13y ago
If you're on a budget and you're buying fresh mint, then you're doing it wrong. Mint grows like a weed, in a patch of garden, or on a windowsill. Herbs like rosemary, thyme, mint, coriander, basil you should always be growing.
- voidlogic 13y ago
  This is so true. We grow all those herbs in small pots. We also grow chives, beans, peppers, tomatoes and squash in a few medium sized pots and topsy turveys. No traditional garden needed.
- hobbescalvin 13y ago
  Mint literally is a weed in the meadow behind my house.
3pt14159 13y ago
My poor friend eats rotting veggies. She only buys food from that rotting stand in the grocer with the 75% off stickers. That plus rice and frozen veggies. Nobody poor buys mint.
cbhl 13y ago
The article also excludes the cost of electricity/gas to power the stove/microwave, the cost of water to cook e.g. pasta and clean the pans after, the cost of the pans amortized over your meals, the cost of plates and utensils... If someone else is paying utilities (say, your local university, or your landlord), and you already own kitchen equipment (say, hand-me-downs from your mum) perhaps this is a reasonable assumption. But for those who are actually in poverty, the upfront capital cost of cooking tools and the hidden costs of energy in cooking might be prohibitively expensive. That said, cooking in bulk is indeed cheaper. So if you're trying to conserve, it might help to find two or three good friends and cook your meals together.
- mtct 13y ago
  Actually, in first world, not even an homeless gain less than 2$ per day. So we can safely leave all the expenses for fuel and cookware out of the math.

elmuchoprez 13y ago

This reminds me of a project I did in November of 2006 when I decided to eat for $1/day for the month. The whole thing is chronicled here: http://www.hungryforamonth.blogspot.com/ http://www.hungryforamonth.blogspot.com/ I wouldn't say what I did was exactly healthy though.

GigabyteCoin 13y ago
In the bbc article the woman's diet for day one consisted of: Breakfast: - one piece of toast and margarine (6p - cost of tea) - one cup of tea (6p - cost of toast - cost of margarine) - one "unethical" egg (8.7p) Lunch: - one ham sandwhich, presumably just bread and ham (29p) Snack: - one "value" scone with jam (6p) - one apple (free?) Dinner: (37p combined, I imagine there are some more "free" ingredients in here) - 1/4 zucchini - 1/4 bell pepper - 35g bacon - 100g spaghetti - 50g peas - 10g "value" brie cheese - 1 clove of garlic Apart from some lemon juice and spices she added to her dinner, that's about it. What I consider to be a scone costs about $1 alone where I live here in Canada. I would be a bit worried to eat one that cost over 10x less and the seller was still able to make a profit. I remember paying ~$4 for an apple once when visiting France. Brian got his for free somehow. Perhaps he has a tree in his backyard. Not to mention the massive overhead costs involved here with the fact that he could easily boil water to cook his spaghetti and a nice knife and cutting board which allowed him to make his sandwhiches. Plus a fridge to keep those remaining 29 unethical eggs in. At the very least, it's a good read to get people thinking about efficiency.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Not sure where you bought that apple, but I'm pretty sure that's more expensive than a full kg an a grocery store.
  - GigabyteCoin 13y ago
    It most certainly is. A kilogram of fresh apples costs $2 to $4 here in Canada. $1 if you can get it from an orchard. I was just trying to exemplify that Apples are not free. When I paid $4 for that apple: it was the middle of winter in Paris, France. I was in a grocery store, or Paris' equivalent of one at least.

TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago

It all sounds great until you think about how much they actually spent. It's more like "How to eat healthily on £1 worth of food per day, but spending a lot more because you aren't eating the majority of the food you have bought, which cost a lot more than just £7".

dobbsbob 13y ago

A loaf of bread where I live is $4. Blew his daily budget with one purchase. Cant buy single eggs even from a local farmers market here so thats another $4-6. Cheese is probably the most expensive item at $10. If you bought everything this guy ate youre looking at $60 or so and it will last about 5 days, which is 7gbp per day. Must be cheap food in the UK

Samuel_Michon 13y ago
Well, the author bought everything in larger quantities while conveniently not taking into account limited shelf life. He also makes trips to 5 different supermarkets to get the cheapest prices, which takes a lot of time (research & shopping) and gas. One of the best ways to cut costs is to not cook for one, but to cook together with others. Then you can buy in bulk like the author suggested. I live alone and I do cook for one. I probably spend more on food than most. However, I chose to live in a compact city with relatively low rents. This way I don’t need a car. I live in walking distance of supermarkets, health food stores, farmers markets and bakeries. I live 1 minute from a bus stop, 5 minutes from the main train station. What I spend more on groceries, I make up for in low rent and using public transport instead of owning a car.
- claudius 13y ago
  You can get by basically anywhere in Europe without a car. Sure, you might have to walk 20 or 30 minutes or so (one-way), but the wear on your shoes from that is absolutely negligible.
  - Thrall 13y ago
    You'd have to walk for hours to check all the prices and work out the cheapest from various supermarkets though. Also, the more calories you burn walking across town to find, purchase, and carry home the very cheapest food, the more you need to eat...
    - claudius 13y ago

yesplorer 13y ago

I see some of these posts as more of experimental (just like the motive of the 5000 Brits) than practical. You don't eat solely to sustain yourself or avoid hunger. Enjoying the food and being comfortable with whatever you are eating really counts as well.. "But when it is your way of life, and you haven't got any choice over it, it's not a fun experiment."

gnosis 13y ago

Here[1] is a similar experiment, which initially started with a $1 per day budget for 30 days. "Here are the rules: 1. All food consumed each day must total $1 for each of us. 2. We cannot accept free food or “donated” food unless it is available for everyone in our area. (i.e. foraging, samples in stores, dumpster diving) 3. Any food we plant, we pay for. 4. We will do our best to cook a variety of meals; ramen noodles can only be prepared if there is no other way to stay under one dollar. (We have six packages and will buy no more) 5. Should we decide to have guests over for dinner they must eat from our share; meaning they don’t get to eat their own dollar’s worth of food. "Each day one of us will post an entry here with a photo that details how things are going..." [1] - http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/it-starts-today/ http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/it-star...

tracker1 13y ago
When I was 19, I spent about six months pretty much eating ramen, rice, and apples... It sucked a lot.

frou_dh 13y ago

Bread, jam and biscuits is "healthy"? The ridiculous dietary-fat-fearing, obsessed-with-fruit Food Pyramid looms large in this article.

SoftwareMaven 13y ago

The amount of highly processed carbohydrates is frightening and far from "healthy"[1]. It's unfortunate, but to eat healthy costs more, because healthy food spoils. I look at it like this: if a food doesn't spoil[2], it is most likely because bacteria and fungus can get no nutritional value from it. Do I want to eat that? 1. http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367083033&sr=8-1&keywords=good+calories+bad+calories http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Scienc... 2. There are some exceptions, of course, but surprisingly few.

psidebot 13y ago
For moist food at room temperature maybe, but a lot of healthy food resists spoiling by being stored dry or cold.
mikelat 13y ago
The higher cost of healthy food may have something to do with the shelf life, but I think subsidies have a lot to do with swaying consumer choice. It's deadly especially when coupled with the fact that obesity is a slow and gradual change that can go unnoticed for years.
Dove 13y ago
it is most likely because bacteria and fungus can get no nutritional value from it. Here are two other reasons bacteria might not be able to eat something you can eat: 1. They can't stand the chemical environment -- pH, poisons, salinity. You're just eating it, and can compensate for a lot; they have to live in it! Examples: Honey, garlic, onions, hard liquor, vinegar, salted butter. 2. It's too dry; you can drink extra water, but they need it to come from the environment they live in. Examples: Any dry food, really, but stale bread and dried meat are good examples. . . . and cheating a bit, here's one more: 3. The food could spoil, but is in an otherwise inhospitable environment -- too cold, too hot, no oxygen, already sterile/sealed. Examples: Frozen food, food in the slow cooker, canned food. None of those have much to do with nutrition! You're just a more robust organism than bacteria, is all. Even "poisons" in the first one is misleading -- a lot of what the microbial world sees as poison, you and I see as tasty. :)
13y ago

wklauss 13y ago

I see a lot of anger in the comments, some of them questioning the practicality of it or the actual approach you'd use if money was an issue in your household. The BBC didn't do this in order to educate people on how to eat cheap. This is just a flashy piece intended to provoke the "oh look how easy is to make something cheap look nice and healthy" reaction. In that sense its similar to the "deconstructed McDonalds meals" by famous chefs or the "how to substitute x by y and make your children eat y" ones. No one who has to leave on £1 a day will look here for practical advice and discussing the practicality of it is, therefore, pointless.

mpclark 13y ago
The problem is that it is now being retweeted by wingnuts as proof positive that the benefits system is too generous.
pbhjpbhj 13y ago
>No one who has to l[i]ve on £1 a day will look here for practical advice and discussing the practicality of it is, therefore, pointless. // If it was actual advice on that then yes I would have found that useful. The BBC should be doing better than this sort of Broadsheet newspaper piece - they're probably employing poor people, perhaps they should have spoken to some of them about it.

shanev 13y ago

This article should be renamed "How to sustain yourself on £1 a day". It's amazing how the word "healthy" can mean different things based on your knowledge of nutrition. This article is a perfect example of someone whose nutritional knowledge involves skimming some articles in popular media that are laden with grain and sugar industry advertisements. It's more a recipe for getting diabetes, not being healthy. Biscuits and margarine are certainly not healthy. On one hand you have a high glycemic, gluten-laden processed food that turns into sugar as soon as you eat it. Then you have a highly inflammatory industrial vegetable/seed oil with a very poor fat profile. Better options are to shop at farmers markets, grow your own garden, get bulk stuff from Costco, buy cheaper cuts of meat and braise them, ferment your own veges, and make bone broth. Good health rarely comes from a package in a supermarket. The only packaged items I buy are ghee, coconut oil, butter, and canned wild sardines.

drakaal 13y ago

The way to eat cheap is to have 49 friends. Costs are much lower if you buy a lot of something. Soup kitchens as they are called in the US (and elsewhere?) do this. There are self sustaing ones in the US that charge $1 for a meal which is prepared by those who eat there. As a community center $1 for a meal is doable. And with the pound being worth more than the dollar, one should be able to do that on a 1GBP as well.

peripetylabs 13y ago

I've always disliked the perception that poor people necessarily eat poorly. Rice, wheat, barley, oats, beans, and root vegetables are grown in abundance in developed countries and so are inexpensive; they do not spoil quickly; and are very healthy. Most vegetables will keep for weeks in a refrigerator and months in a freezer. Sardines (fresh) and eggs provide much better protein than meat. I think the cost of "healthy food" is mostly rooted in ignorance and a taste for simple sugars: "For a Brit, there can be no greater comfort food than a custard cream." There's your problem.

yoster 13y ago

The easiest way for everyone to save money is to cut fastfood out of the picture. Another way is to invite friends over for Friday night instead of drinking at the bar. Personally, I went through a period where I got lazy and worked sporadically for a year, and only worked to pay bills and survive. Life was honestly pretty crappy that year looking back on it.

pbhjpbhj 13y ago
>The easiest way for everyone to save money is to cut fastfood out of the picture. // That's not going to work for _everyone_.

yoster 13y ago

In the state I live in, there are a plethora of $1 stores that sell all types of fruits, vegetables, cheap meats, and pre-packaged food for $1. They even sell Breyers half gallon vanilla icecream for $1. The local big grocery store sells mass quantities of bananas(20) for 99cents. I have seen 3lb potatoes going for $1 as well. You could easily live off a dollar a day. It might not be the healthiest thing to do, but it's completely doable.

bshastry 13y ago

Here's a more realistic experiment about being poor (in India): http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Harsh_Mander/barefoot-the-other-side-of-life/article2882340.ece http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Harsh_Mander/barefoo... Appendix: Rs. = Indian rupee; 1 USD ~ 55 Indian rupees

moneyrich 13y ago

I did this for a while, surviving on about $4 a day. I was living in mexico, I am a web developer from the states, and there is no jobs down there. What I did for 6 months as a 175lb fit man (used to fight mma and when I was exercising was eating probably 3-5k calories a day): breakfast choices: mangos - free and abundant about half the year tortillas 11 pesos (99 cents) + apple slices 5 pesos (45 cents) fish tacos - 11 pesos (99 cents) lunch and dinner: fishing supplies: 4 hooks and 4 sinkers 24 pesos ($2) go catch 3-4 fish and hopefully not lose all my equipment. come home and buy 8 tortillas for 11 pesos ($1), season them (45 cents every 2-3 weeks), and put some fresh mango (free) or occosional tomate and onion salsa ($1) sometimes just eating mangos when I had no money. sometimes dinner at a restaurant where locals eat: 8 pesos a taco (72 cents) 14 cigarettes: 20 pesos ($1.8) beer for dinner: 10 pesos (90 cents) i probably got almost 2000 calories a day, but lots of good fat and protein for me and my dog from eating fish 3x a day. another cool fact: i bought my dog for 50 pesos, a rott/pitbull mix from a guy in the street.

ctdonath 13y ago

It's a fun exercise. I do the "A Buck A Plate" blog http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com

agilebyte 13y ago

Red peppers, bacon, brie, Greek yoghurt? This woman is living! Where are the old days of baked beans on toast and either oatmeal with salt or sugar?

captainbenises 13y ago

Why is this on hacker news, I don't get it - most readers here would earn a decent wage - what's the interest in super cheap eating. Is it because people want to self-fund their projects and live as cheaply as possible while doing so?

cncool 13y ago

I did the math before to see how cheap I could live on a slight deficit and I got $2.00 CAD for 2000 calories (about 75 grams of fat, 200 carbs and 125 grams of protein)