Something that always amazes me is how people are willing to sacrifice quite a bit when it comes to monthly food costs, when in reality these costs are incredibly low compared to the benefits you get (nutrition and health). Why don't people reconsider getting trashed on Friday and Saturday nights, where bar bills can run up to $20/night or find less convenient housing and save themselves $50/month. Or how about getting rid of the non-essentials like cable, internet, or a car. IMHO food is the one monthly cost that you should not cut corners, because the long term effects have actual measurable detriments to your personal well-being.
I live in Gainesville, Fl which is pretty much the cheapest place to live and drink, and $20 is still the norm. $4 cover + 3 beers x $4.00 a piece + $4 tip = $20. Now, recently I found a good bar without a cover charge and if I drink straight Old Milwaukee then I can do 4 x $2.00 + $4.00 tip = $12.00. Even so, doing this once a week is about $48.00/month which is more than the OP paid in food costs per a month.
Hey, I'm your stereotypical thin and tall, nerdy hacker. However, when my bi-monthly stipend allows me, I will indulge a whiskey on the rocks and build my tolerance :)
No. Actually, it varies by state. I have worked as a pizza delivery "expert" in three different states and as a restaurant slave in five; basically, employers get away with paying people as little as possible, regardless of their "tips". Most servers don't claim their tips (for tax purposes) thinking that doing so will "help" them. But in actuality it actually harms them.
No matter how "noble" a diner might feel in tipping his or her server, it basically amounts to nothing, especially when she splits her tip with the rest of her co-workers.
The unfortunate fact of this circumstance is that most "tipped" workers earn sub-minimum wages. There would not be an illegal immigration problem regarding restaurant workers if it were any other case. But most Americans are fat, lazy, oblivious and don't care.
So. The next time you go out to eat, especially if it's a large nationalized chain (like Denny's or McD's) take a look around at how many of your fellow diners speak Spanish. Look at your hostess/cashier who is making federal minimum wage without tips . . . then look at the restaurant and kitchen workers who are serving you, and decide just how "valuable" it is to go out to eat. Don't pat yourself too much on the back for being a fan of capitalism.
I wholeheartedly agree with you now, but at the time it just seemed like the thing to do (during a 25 credit term at college). I didn't have a ton of time to think about it, was just trying to get by.
Flip to now where I eat 5-6x a day and have a nutritionist. Time and a place.
It's easy. You don't need to break a contract or lease to start it. You can learn how to cook which is a really valuable skill. And if you're not already cooking at home you will almost be assured to be eating better food (well once you get comfortable!).
I usually buy what protein is on sale and plan meals around that. It has a nice side effect of varying my diet.
I agree with you on the other ways people could cut back. However, I think people are used to not thinking about their food, and it's become a major problem, especially in America. People generally don't think of food as a necessity for survival if they're not focusing on a tight budget - and as such, they begin forgetting about things like vitamins, healthy serving sizes, protein, etc... The menu he described sounds very healthy to me. Nothing too fatty or processed. It's mostly natural, simple meals.
I agree with what you're saying. It's amazing me to how people won't support art or politicians that they agree with or any other important thing because they are broke but will have plenty of money for beer.
I have to laugh at one thing:
"where bar bills can run up to $20/night"
Man, you should hang out with my friends for a night. :)
With the audience on here, I doubt that internet is considered "non-essential". It sounds to me that he ate a pretty balanced diet. Not gourmet by any stretch of the imagination, but plain, and for the most part, healthy food.
I agree that it sounds like he ate pretty healthy, but stuff like this really freaks me out:
Lard is the highest calorie per cent food you can buy.
That just seems to be the epitome of penny-wise and pound-foolish for 99.9% of people, who would be far better off trimming their budget in other categories so they could eat healthier instead of viewing food as just a source of calories.
In fact, you can eat all "unhealthy" food and be far healthier than 95% of the people around you by keeping a calorie budget and exercising enough.
In my case, I buy vats of lard at the local grocer and use it liberally. It tastes delicious.
I also work out at least an hour a day. No one feels the need to moralize about people failing to work out an hour a day, and yet that will have 10 times the benefit of micromanaging the nutrients in your diet. I'm strong and fit and my cholesterol is low.
Despite the fact that everyone knows I'm fit, they still say, "Imagine how much healthier you would be and how much more energy you would have if ate "better"?"
!!
Since, I'm the one who's fit, shouldn't you be asking me for advice?
Moralizing about people's diets is part of the same line of thinking as the Progressive movement that sprung Prohibition on us. And, of course, the Progressive movement can trace its philosophical lineage to the Puritans, so there you go.
Eating lots of fruits and vegetables and low-fat foods is not a good in and of itself. A diet is only healthy or unhealthy to the extent that its quality is reflected in your own health.
In fact, you can eat all "unhealthy" food and be far healthier than 95% of the people around you by keeping a calorie budget and exercising enough.
So you're telling me that if you eat McDonald's for every meal for thirty years, you'll experience no health issues as long as you exercise enough? Tell you what: let's have this conversation again in thirty years, provided you're still around.
An anecdote about a personal experience over a relatively short period of time is of limited value to me. Study after study has shown that the western diet has severe detrimental effects in the long run, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Can you mitigate some of that by exercising more? Absolutely. But thinking that you can put whatever you want into your body with no ill effects as long as you exercise enough is ridiculous.
According to one 32,000 person study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1999), "fit persons with any combination of smoking, elevated blood pressure, or elevated cholesterol level had lower adjusted death rates than low-fit persons with none of these characteristics". The same study found that aerobic fitness had a far more important impact on longevity than obesity did.
Fantastic Voyage, Kurzweil and Grossman, Chapter 22.
What about those who were not smoking, had no elevated blood pressure or elevated cholesterol AND ALSO were fit? I would expect them to be better off compared to both groups mentioned. It's not like one has to choose between smoking and obesity ...
How "fit" or "obese" were the people, and how "elevated" was the blood pressure and cholesterol?
If the study showed that incredibly "fit" people who smoked occasionally and had a sightly elevated blood pressure and/or cholesterol had a "lower adjusted death rate" (what is that, exactly?) than people who sat in front of the computer all day but had none of the above factors, that would be one thing.
If the study showed that slightly "fit" people who smoked heavily and had an extremely elevated blood pressure and/or cholesterol had a "lower adjusted death rate" than people who sat in front of the computer all day but had none of the above factors, that would be something else.
The same could be asked of the fitness vs obesity results. How fit and how obese?
Also, have the results of the study ever been replicated? Or do they conflict with the results of other studies?
The conclusions of the study were strong, and dose-dependent. I.e. casual exercisers did much better than couch potatoes and heavy exercisers did much better than casual exercisers.
The groups were significantly different. The "obese" people in the study had BMIs of over 30. The "very obese" group had BMIs over 35. The "thin" people had BMIs under 25. Similarly, people with diagnosed hyper-tension were compared with those of low-risk blood pressures. A variety of fitness levels were examined, ranging from couch potatoes to daily (but not competitive) runners.
The study found that fitness had a protective effect against each of the other risk factors. In fact, the only other statistically independent predictor of mortality for men and women was smoking.
>Also, have the results of the study ever been replicated?
Yes. There have been a number of very large studies that have produced similar results.
S.N.Blair et al. 1989 "Physical fitness and all-cause mortality" JAMA Nov;262: 2395-2401 (over 13,000 subjects)
I.M.Lee 2003 "Physical activity in women: how much is good enough?" JAMA Sept 10;290(10) 1377-1378
C.D. Lee, S.N.Blair, and A.S. Jackson 1999, "Cardiorespiratory fitness, body composition, and all-cause cardiovascular disease mortality in men." Am J Clin Nutr. Mar;69(3):373-380.
Care to provide some more details for your statement? I've never seen the film in question, but I've seen (and eaten) McDonald's "food". Fast food has been implicated in weight gain and insulin resistance by numerous studies. Hopefully your argument isn't that you can just exercise more.
> Fast food has been implicated in weight gain and insulin resistance by numerous studies.
Care to point to even a single one where the problem of fast food was not that people tend to vastly exceed their calorie requirements when eating fast food?
I'm genuinely curious. If you eat a "supersized" meal a day, you can easily exceed your calorie from that single meal depending on what you choose and how active you are. Of course you'll get fat and get other health problems in that case, but all that tells you is that eating too much is bad for you.
I know more than one person who have eaten virtually nothing but McDonald's for long periods of time, and who are not especially overweight. Mere anecdotes, of course.
I'm not saying that eating lots of fast food isn't correlated with being fat. However, I would say that since it's quite possible to be skinny and eat enormous amounts of fast food, fast food cannot be making people fat. I would expect that the same character traits which lead someone to eat lots of fast food would lead to being fat for people predisposed to that body type.
I would say that since it's quite possible to be skinny and eat enormous amounts of fast food, fast food cannot be making people fat.
What? The fact that some people eat enormous amounts of fast food without getting fat hardly means that fast food cannot be making anyone fat.
Additionally, you seem to be assuming that skinny = healthy, and fat = unhealthy.
Finally, I'm fairly certain that studies have shown that as western fast food restaurants expand internationally into new cultures, incidences of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease all rise in those cultures.
He's saying that there's no material implication. Fast food doesn't make you fat, and it's no silver bullet to health. The typical fast food reliant diet (more calories than you need) makes you fat.
Ceteris paribus, skinny tends to be healthier than fat, with longer life and better quality of life. One study cited here even indicates skinny people don't even have to be that healthy otherwise to outlive fat people. It's a simple "assumption" that requires more debunking than you have given here.
Studies have also shown that obesity is well linked to disposable income. Is it any surprise that restaurants also expand as disposable income increases?
It's pretty easy to eat healthy at McDonalds, get a grilled chicken sandwhich with no mayo, skip the fries and soda and get a bottle of water for dinner or lunch.
For breakfast get an egg mcmuffin, no hashbrown and grab a coffee or orange juice.
If you just stick to those two meals when you have to have fast food it does basically no harm.
Fast food gives you the rope to hang yourself with, you don't have to do use it.
It's a natural fat used around the world, nothing to be scared of. If you get "real" lard (not hydrogenated), it has no trans fats and can be quite useful in the kitchen. Hispanic grocery stores or butcher shops are a good spot to find it.
The word "natural" doesn't mean "part of nature" when speaking of nutrition, it means "part of our evolutionary history." We ate lard in the past(and survived because of it, and evolved toward making use of it.) We did not eat cyanide.
That's not the meaning of the word "natural" in the context of nutrition, from my understanding. Perhaps the word you're looking for is "traditional".
Semantics aside, I'll gladly grant you that lard is a food that has been eaten in the past. But, once again, that doesn't mean it's necessarily better than other foods that haven't been eaten in the past.
An good example is "golden" rice. An argument could be made (and has been made) that golden rice could save millions of people from devastating vitamin deficiency which they would continue suffer from were they to avoid golden rice for their "traditional" foods.
Plenty of traditional foods just aren't very nutritious or healthy.
I know that HNers will scoff at the citing of popular literature, but I find the arguments in "Diet for a Small Planet" and "In Defense of Food" quite compelling when it comes to "traditional" foods. Traditional diets are developed to make best use of the ingredients available in a region and are often the healthier than "scientific" diets. A good example is Mexican food. Corn and beans together make a complete protein.
I think that tradition, like cuisines, is an ever changing thing, however.
Also - do a quick google for B17 -- Since this whole chain of comments is a bunch of anecdotes - I've met two people who have been 'cured' of cancer taking that. After chemotherapy had failed / they had been written off.
(B17/Laertrile is banned in a lot of places US/Aus/etc - for links/containing/Cantbebotheredreadingthestudies Cyanide).
I may be wrong, but I think lard has less saturated fat then butter and possibly even cream cheese. So while not good for you in anything other then tiny quantities, it may be less bad for you then other stuff you have problem putting on your bagel.
A better title would be, "How to sacrifice you health for money." No thanks.
I can be cheap with a lot of things, but not with the food I put into my body. The kind of diet OP proposes may work OK for a while. The younger you are, the more resilient you probably are, so that can be quite a while. But sooner or later, especially if you're a little bit older, you will be trading quality of life for a few bucks.
AFAIC, the best possible use for limited resources is excellent food. This first thing this means is fresh produce, which, frankly is difficult to find "on sale". OP's advice to eat at home is excellent, OTOH, I'd rather spend 7 bucks on a restaurant salad bar than 3 bucks for a home cooked highly processed meal.
Almost everything in life, including work, is a marathon, not a sprint. I intend to be just as strong at any point in that marathon with proper lifestyle, especially nutritional excellence. Saving $ intelligently is always smart. Sacrificing potential health and well being for a few hundred dollars per month is just not a good idea.
Most of the meals I listed are actually pretty balanced. If I listed 'eat mac and cheese and dollar menu items' I would be right with you, but salads, eggs, PB&J and rice and beef are pretty good staples to build any diet off of.
I'm not advocating anyone goes near as far as I did, but something to keep in mind for that friend that eats like shit out every night spending 10x what you could by making a healthier option at home.
I'm one of those "nuts" who insists that fresh produce comprises about 80% of what I eat, so that's my major source of disagreement. I have never found a way to eat like this for even 5x what you're recommending. Salads and frest fruit are definitely good staples to build any diet of. Eggs, PB&J, rice, and beef, OTOH are compromises. But that's another whole debate outside the scope of hn.
If I ate like most people then $36/month sounds difficult, but achieveable. But I don't and I wouldn't advocate changing away from eating excellence to save money.
I've been able to eat a diet of 80%+ fresh produce on $90/month.
A lot of it involved getting the reduced-almost-bad produce and cooking it day-of, state-level farmer's markets, and dumpster diving, though. Plus, being a college student where every week you can find something free...
"especially if you're a little bit older, you will be trading quality of life for a few bucks"
Stuff and nonsense. The old-timers I grew up around - most lived into their 80s - spent their whole lives eating what I call 'close to the Earth', non-processed, non-sugared, non-transfatted foods supplemented with stuff from their home gardens. Yams, rutabagas, strawberries, potatoes, squash, herring, liverwurst, canned fruit, blueberries, etc.
Nutrition isn't about money, and I eat nicely on $25 week year spent at the store, year after year. When I needed to lose 45 pounds (from eating 'good' food) I did it in 6 months eating fruits, veggies, nuts.
The numbers you're using sound wrong now. In the last year or maybe 2 years food prices have skyrocketed. I'll go to store to pick up a few things and end up with a bag or two of groceries, and the bill is like $100 -- I know I could scrimp and figure out ways to spend less, but it wasn't always like that. The same stuff costs way more now.
If you want to talk about really healthy food, especially if you have a strange diet like veganism, then forget it, your bill will be huge.
No, you're just buying the wrong things. If I walk out of the store with $100 of groceries for my family of 3, it's an entire shopping cart full of food and lasts for weeks!
4-5 lbs of "on sale" meat, 10 lbs of bread flour, 5 lbs of sugar, 2 lbs of cheddar, a gallon of milk, cereal (from local mill, not the national brand stuff), vegetables, butter and lunch meat will cost around $60 here in the Upper Midwest. But if I spend that $60 on mostly processed food, I will barely get two grocery bags full.
With a bit of land you can go further. I keep chickens for fresh eggs, but I realize most people can't do that. However, my potatoes, corn, carrots, broccoli, squash, pumpkins, salad greens and some herbs come fresh out of the garden so for summer/fall at least, I don't buy those things.
This is pretty much what I mean. You buy fairly average food, but I wouldn't touch most of what you mentioned with a barge pole.
Meat? No.
White Flour? No!
Sugar? Hell no!
Chedder? Maybe a little.
Milk? Maybe, but expensive.
Cereal? Probably not, unless it's real like granola or muesli, in which case it's expensive.
Veggies? of course, but those also cost.
Butter? Maybe a little.
Lunch meat? No.
Try doing without white rice, sugar and pasta, and getting fresh greens and fruits, whole grain everything, brown rice, etc. Even if you make a lot of it from scratch, it adds up.
There's a huge amount of "food fear" going on in this country (USA).
What exactly is nutritionally wrong with white flour, sugar and meat (unless you're vegetarian)? In any case, I probably have 3-4 different kinds of flour in my pantry right now, plus wheat germ flakes. And the bread I'll be eating tomorrow will be home made sourdough. I'm neither fat nor malnourished.
What's a "real" cereal? This morning my 8 year-old son asked to make his own breakfast. He had Malt-O-Meal (a local Minnesota mill) raisin bran. Is that "real?" Generic corn flakes and oatmeal are probably the cheapest cereals on the market. Are they real? If you like granola so much, buy the oatmeal, honey & nuts and make it yourself. It's simple and infinitely cheaper!
To the earlier comment about organic vs. "pesticide ridden crap." Newsflash! Organic farming also uses pesticides, just different ones. That said, my veggies (pesticide free and fertilized with our chicken & horse manure compost) are no more nutritious than the (non-organic) ones in the grocery store. The difference is that the freshness makes them taste better and improves the texture.
In both Berlin and Mountain View (two cities where I spent a lot of time of late) I can go to the local market and get a huge bag of fresh veggies for $5-10. If you're really spending $100 on a couple bags of fresh food, you're doing something very wrong.
Meat- I guess that's your choice, but can be healthy and cheap.
White Flour- He said bread flour, which is technically white, but sort of a necessary evil if you're making your own bread regularly. I make a good multi grain and rye which has bread flour in it.
Sugar- Not that bad if you use it in small amounts. I make my own ice cream (real cream), add sugar some to sauces, etc.
Veggies- looks like he grows a lot of his own, as I do. Defiantly not free but cheap if you have some experience and the right tools.
It's definitely more economical to buy lots of food in bulk. It also helps to have lots of refrigerator and other food storage space.
Unfortunately, buying in bulk isn't going to be an option for many single people with lower incomes and not much refrigerator/storage space... (maybe with the exception of beans and rice, which can be stored relatively compactly and for a long time without refrigeration).
Another thing that works against people with lower incomes is that much of the nutrious food is more expensive than the less nutritious food.
Bread is a prime example. The cheapest bread is highly processed white bread. The more nutrious whole, multi-grain breads are usually two or three times as expensive as the cheap crap.
Same with organic, cage- and cruelty-free produce vs the pesticide-ridden crap.
The numbers are very regional (cheese in the northeast is 1/2 what it is in Colorado, for instance) and were lower a few years ago (you are right). If you shop the right stores at the right times, I am sure you could come pretty damn close, even today.
Veganism can be spendy. I've only tried once (for a week). It didn't work out too well.
This doesn't have to be true. Purchasing mock meats and the like will probably get to be expensive. But cutting out meat and cheese are two of the very easiest ways to lower your monthly food costs and improve your overall health.
Rice, beans, pasta, and (frozen) veggies combined with different spices and sauces isn't a bad way to go when saving money and trying to stay healthy.
I'm much more skeptical of the health consequences from a diet including large quantities of eggs, cheap ground meat, and inexpensive cheese.
I also think the key to living this cheaply would be a multi-vitamin to help replace whatever you're invariably missing from your diet.
As a vegetarian who eats like a vegan 98% of the time (and for several years lived on no more than a $60.00/month food budget), you don't have to let budgetary constraints keep you from participating in a healthy and environmentally friendly way of eating.
I a lot of people are suggesting that this diet is not healthy, but I'm not convinced.
Eggs, salads, veggies, fruits, rice, beans, cheeses, beef...As long as things are taken in the correct quantities I see very little problem here, am I wrong?
To me, I'd just be suspicious of anything sold at those prices. You're a bottom feeder on the dregs of the food-industrial complex, and that can't be good.
No, you're just buying at the right time and in bulk. Grocery stores run tight margins and frequent loss leaders. Just because someone at the grocery store over bought and has to run a sale doesn't make you a bottom feeder. It's the same food everyone else is getting.
Yes and no. I mean, if your argument is to hold water than you'd have to buy homegrown or local produce. A loaf of bread marked down 50% isn't any different than the one at full price other than the fact that it will go bad sooner. It isn't as if stores sell recalled items or anything.
A trick I learned from a friend while in grad school. When they have football games, walk around the tailgate parties right before the game is about to start, people will almost pay you to take their extra food so that they can get to the game. And it's usually pretty good food...
For better results, go next to the ones thrown by corporations. They usually order too much food and the employees do not care and do not want to bring the food back home.
I had a friend in college who went everywhere with two tupperware containers. When he was asked whether or not he wanted left overs he would feign a no, but as soon as he was asked a second time he would say "I guess so" and pull out his tupperware.
It is important to think about eating in terms of return on investment. You can spend more money on better food (you can also spend more money on worse food) and get better overall fitness and alertness and performance in general from your body. The important thing to know is what is the cost and what is the benefit.
It ought to be treated as a science but often it isn't. If you ask 100 nutrition experts how much protein a person should get in a day, you're not going to get a consensus based on empirical evidence, but drastically different answers and emotional passions bordering on the religious.
Beans are not meat. But beans combined with many types of rice, bread, pasta, or oats can make a complete protein (the same as you'd find in an animal product).
As a poor college student I'm currently on a food budget of < $40 per month. I rarely buy anything but bread, bacon, peanut butter, cheese, bananas, eggs, yogurt, and butter. It's a bit monotonous, but I was surprised how quickly I got used to it.
Brown rice gives me severe abdominal cramps - YMMV. Rice is good for bulk and brown rice gives more fibre but whilst it's a staple for many it's not great nutritionally.
Most people undercook brown rice. My wife hated it and had stomach cramps whenever she ate it, until she started cooking it for 50 minutes or so. Using our rice cooker never cooked it thoroughly, so we use the stovetop now. Now she likes it. I agree it's not as nutritious as most people think it is...we eat quinoa more frequently, and we try to alternate with other grains and sides.
Ditch the bacon and throw in rice and beans (since you can have more variety that way, while not spending any more).
Also, experiment with cheap veggies. I get sick of PB&J, so I stick things like cucumber slices or mushrooms in there, and it seems totally different to my taste buds. Cucumbers are dirt cheap, mushrooms less so, but either way, not breaking the budget. I also enjoy a zucchini sandwich (between buttered toast).
Another way most people could cut their budgets is to look seriously at their portion size. I realize this doesn't apply to you, but if one's definition of a 'meal' is what fills up a 15 inch dinner plate and involves at least four different colors, then yeah, it's hard to eat cheaply. Most restaurant 'meals' are really at least two.
Ever since I moved to the US I've gotten into the habit of packing half my restaurant dinners for tomorrow. If the average American actually finishes these things regularly, then you guys have got a real problem.
(Exception runs for certain restaurants of course. The more "mainstream chain" it is the bigger the portions get...)
Hell, I've even had to cut down on my portion size. Find good, nutritious food that is filling, and go for stuff that is slower to digest. I've now just about halved my carb in take and replaced it with vegetables, and I haven't felt better.
Frankly I would suggest working an extra 4 hours per week and use the 30-40 dollars you will make and buy extra food. When we are young (like I used to be 10 years ago) we tend to think we can handle going with the least amount of food. Well, No. It definitely looks as if you are fine, but it takes sometimes years before poor eating habits start to show effects.
Buy one container of good yogurt and use it as a culture to make your own from then on with fresh milk. It's easy (google home made yogurt) and tastes infinitely better. Best of all, as long as you have a little yogurt, you can use it to make more.
executive summary: base your meals around cheap food staples, such as rice, beans, oats. buy other cheap things, use coupons and buy expiring food in order to spice up each meal.
Or go wash dishes/clean up the back of the house for a hour or so every day in a restaurant in exchange for breakfast and dinner. You'll eat a lot better.
The part about dumpster diving reminded me of when I used to help a friend of mine slop his pigs. He had arrangements with a few restaurants and old folks homes for their leftover food and we would drive around, pick it up in these large plastic garbage bins and feed it to his pigs. It would always surprise me when he would often pick over the food before we gave it to the pigs, looking for things like chicken legs which he would summarily devour. I never could bring myself to do it.
Spending all that time working seems to be much more economical.
I just eat bread in the morning and afternoon and cook a different meal every night. Probably comes down to about $20 a week. I could eat for less that $0.75 if I want to, but I don't.
Bread machine. Pick one up at a thrift store for a couple of dollars. Thrift stores always have bread machines because people love to buy them but never use them.
Put the ingredients in the bread maker, let the maker raise the bread and then throw the loaf in the oven to cook. Great bread for pennies.
This is absolutely doable, but when life is stressing theres nothing like an extravagant meal to bring back some cheer. It doesn't have to be eating out, home-cooked is fine, but rib-eye ain't cheap either way.
Green olives, goat cheese, and crackers really do melt away my troubles.
Just curious how many calories in a typical day? That diet definitely looks very lean to me. One box of spaghetti is usually enough for 1.5 meals for me, if that. If I'm working out I'll eat an entire box in one evening.
$36 a month is a nice number. It peaked my curiosity but he goes through a lot of work and his food suggestions basically mean you're going to miss out on a lot of delicious flavours.
food is very expensive those days, i live in tunisia and i estimate it (my spending) to $100/month
I like to eat and spend on eating, i think it's better than spending it on some kind of mobile phones; isn't eating better.
so $36 only if you don't have money: the poor, however a hacker can write few articles or code few lines and get an easy $150 a month and feed himself well;
a lot of comments focussing on health. one other issue is that finding all the best deals and using coupons takes time. if you treat it like a salary, maybe you could beat minimum wage(?), but it's not a good salary by any means.
I don't see what the problem is with my comment. It's a sincere comment. I wish I could substantially cut my food bill. But I have a serious medical condition and have gotten off multiple prescription drugs in part by changing my diet (and doing a lot of research on what works for my particular condition). I know lots of people with my condition who are taking several thousand dollars a month in prescription drugs -- more than my monthly income in some cases. What I spend on food is high but it's cheaper than the alternative.
I've gone dumpster diving on a couple of occasions with some friends of mine. I actually think most people should, at the very least, watch other people dumpster dive at least once. You will be absolutely amazed at the amount of perfectly good food that gets thrown out.
Go to a bakery right after they close. There will be garbage bags full of bread (and nothing but bread so it's relatively sanitary) that was baked that day. Even if you don't eat any, it will probably change your perception of waste.
When I was a poor starving student and worked in a supermarket the managers had to put all the expired cakes and cookies in the trash compactor to stop workers taking them. Not sure if this was so we would buy from the store instead or in case we sued if we got ill
I believe the reason is actually to avoid intentional over production. If the employees know that they'll be able to take home any left overs, then why not bake a few extra cakes... that kind of stuff.
I'm still a student but when I was much poorer and starving I raided a Dunkin Doughnuts dumpster and ended up with an industrial sized trashbag of every doughnut they made sitting in my living room for 3 days, until me and my roommates got sick of eating nothing but doughnuts and threw them out proper.
Fair enough. It looks like you aren't advocating vitamin deficiency so I can approve.
I knew someone in college who ate nothing but mac and cheese. After a few months his hairline started to recede. When this happened he started eating cheeseburgers every now and then and it grew back.
Easy to fix: buy dried pinto beans and lard. Soak the pintos in water over night. The next day, pour off the water and simmer them in fresh water for about an hour. Strain your beans, put them in a pan (or cast-iron skillet), and pour liquid lard over top of them until the fat is about half-way up the beans. Cook over medium heat until the beans have exploded out of their skins. Now, take a potato masher to them. If they're too dry, add more fat. Season to taste.
Refried beans are a great source of protein, fat, and flavor, and are one of the cheapest foods around. Pair it with some rice and vegetables and you've got a pretty nutritious meal (assuming you need all those calories).
You'll be eating 2 grams of carbohydrate for every gram of protein that you get that way. Sure, getting your carbs from beans is not nearly as bad for you as getting them from sugar, but there are much higher quality, and more expensive, protein sources that one should prefer.
Honestly, I don't really buy into the idea that getting your protein from a mix of beans and grains will somehow cause you to end up making up the cost difference in medical bills due to the amount of carbohydrates you're ingesting, given the huge number of people on this earth who do so and who appear to have perfectly fine results from this sort of diet. Just make sure you're getting some exercise (which you should be doing regardless of your diet).
That all having been said, tofu can be quite cost effective, low in carbs, and high in protein. Of course, you might tell me there's aggression issues associated with tofu ingestion, and that it contains chemicals that mimic estrogen. So, there's seitan, which is also high in protein, low in carbs, and can be made relatively cheaply from wheat gluten in bulk. Of course, there are lots of people who decry wheat gluten as well, not to mention people who're legitimately allergic to it.
So that brings us to meat and fish. Meat often comes along with saturated fats and often raises your blood's LDL cholesterol levels, not to mention all the health, environmental, and ethical concerns of factory farming. You could take part in a co-op for your meat, but that is not going to enable you to eat for especially cheap. Fish is generally better in the fat and cholesterol departments, but many carry with them mercury content that makes a lot of people nervous and the threat of overfishing. There are fish that avoid most of these concerns, such as tilapia, which fit most of the criteria, but is still not anywhere close to as price effective as dried beans.
If you don't want to get your protein from beans, that's fine. I personally advocate people pay a little more and eat a healthy, varied diet, including many (or all) of the above-mentioned dangerous foods. But this crap about "medical bills are expensive too" implying that somehow eating an incredibly traditional and largely vegetarian diet will send you to the hospital is just ridiculous.
Traditionally, poor people who couldn't afford meat have been much worse off health-wise. And the biggest health decline in human history occurred when we switched from hunter-gathering lifestyles to farming (see Jared Diamond). Further, the Keyes hypothesis about the dangers of fats -- weren't you the one suggesting refined beans? -- are not well supported (see Gary Taubes).
Poor people who couldn't afford meat have been much worse off health-wise because they weren't eating well in general, because they don't have access to medicine, because they don't have access to supplies for hygene.
Put another way: poor people are worse off for a great number of reasons, but I don't think that proves that rice and beans will kill you.
Jarad Diamond (among others) showed that switching to civilized society shortened lifespans. You're not advocating becoming a hunter-gatherer and neither am I, so it's not really germane. Civilized society has a lot of factors that contribute to earlier death, such as population density helping the spread of disease. To draw from his work that carbohydrates will send you to the hospital is to draw a totally unsupported conclusion.
"Weren't you the one suggesting refined beans?" I was the one who replied with a recipe when you suggested that the diet was lacking fat and protein.
You don't address the issues of cost and you still haven't shown that the level of carbohydrates present in beans are a problem. My point is that most foods present trade-offs and you should probably eat a reasonably balanced and varied diet.
Get a bicycle, stop commuting and grow your own food.
Works for me. Costs virtually nothing. Keeps you fit and healthy. Provides 75% of our food needs.
Also stop the guilt complex on quality, organic foods and branded goods. People give you evil looks if you pick up the "value eggs" in Tesco in the UK. "Think of the chickens" they chant. Fuck the chickens.
