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.
Of all the places to save money, food is the absolute last on my list.
Personally eggs and meat are things I will pay the extra for the animals to be free range and fed a natural diet, and I eat a lot less of them. With a diet such as the one in the post such things can become an occasional treat and their true value is appreciated.
A non-trivial part of the problems facing the human race is related to the growing expectation of a never ending, abundance of cheap meat.
I, personally, consider eggs reasonably cheap, healthy and fast food, but I did not try to live on $3/$1 per day. (still havent' figured if I should worry about cholesterol)
The expected standard here in Uruguay is 100 dollars / month in food (and that with a 150 dollar minimum monthly wage)
I probably spend about 300 dollars per month in food (I do buy and/or eat out half the time), with a salary of 1200 dollars / month after tax. I'm pretty sure you make at least twice that.
(see also an Australian commenting the same thing: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2492511 )
To add to the conversation, some prices here:
Eggs - 2 dollars for 15 eggs
Apples - 2 dollars per kg (about 6 apples)
Rice - 1.5 dollar per kg
Well there’s one problem. Safeway is crazy expensive compared to many supermarkets, like 30–50% more.
Starving writers have been known to buy horse meat at pet stores. I wonder if that's still legal? Also, I wonder if organ meats are cheap, since they're so unpopular in the U.S.? They can be very nutrient-rich.
Lentils and rice are incredibly cheap when bought in quantity. Asian grocery stores have great deals, though you might have to look a little harder there to find brown rice. I've heard textured vegetable protein can be a cheap protein source if you can overlook its aesthetic shortcomings (honestly, vegetarianism or extreme frugality are the only reasons to eat it) but the only way I've seen it sold is in a little bag at Whole Foods, which probably isn't that cheap.
I was under the impression that a sugar crash is the result of your body maintaining your blood sugar on it's own[0].
[0] On it's own, meaning secreting insulin from the pancreas to maintain homeostasis.
The good: no, uh, 'intestinal distress', whiter teeth, better breath, no buzzy feeling like I get with coffee, and I feel like I'm alert for longer and more consistently. Also, I generally feel mellower than when I'm drinking coffee, and I have no explanation as to why.
The bad: I still crave the taste and ritual of coffee once in awhile. I have one or two cups per week, skipping the caffeine pill, of course.
I love making homemade ricotta cheese (http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/homemade_ricotta_cheese)
It's very easy and great for making a couple lasagnas which can last a long time. Not sure how it comes out price-wise though.
What's wrong with that? It's by far the cheapest way to cook. Bulk makes buying organic cheap too, as long as you don't shop at supermarkets. They have a habit of avoiding organic brands that are price-competitive with existing products.
Use a mixture of skim milk and cream. Or take a trip into the country and buy 5 gallons from a dairy farmer before it's homogenized.
We did this on reddit recently with herbs/spices sold in bulk where people basically committed 20 bux and got a healthy personal portion of the loot.
It would be great to do the same with a costco bill....
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.
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!
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 =/
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.
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.
1. Perhaps they have substantially less spending money than you do. (I never understood cutting back on food expenses until my wife and I went through some tough financial times.)
2. Perhaps they don't value food as much as you do. I enjoy good food, but I'd never say that it is near the top of my priority list. I'd much rather have cheap food and a better broadband connection than the reverse.
3. Perhaps they are trying to scrape together every bit of money they can to put towards their startup. There is a reason that PG uses the phrase "ramen profitable."
Besides I've got 3 years of data to show that it's possible to eat cheaply and still get great food.. you just have to do a few things:
1. buy in volume 2. cook for yourself/others, don't eat out 3. cut back on meat 4. waste as little as possible!
The startup is foodia, btw. More to come soon...
My wife and I have been pretty hard up (when she was finishing law school and I was a startup co-founder) - but we always managed to have decent food.
Food is one of the places you can cut a lot of your spending without needing to make major lifestyle changes, so it's one of the first places people look.
Also, I think you will find different people place different value on food flavor. I personally am very, very deep into "eat to live" territory, and I take a certain amount of pride in that approach.
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.
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.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnpp.usd...
I'd say there's too much fixation on "carbs" and "fats" and too little on the source. Would you agree that eating a fresh apple gives a different effect compared on eating a couple of teaspoonfuls of white sugar, even if the carb and caloric content is equal? I wish there was a breakdown for the source of micronutrients somewhere.
And of course, the total amount of calories and sedentary lifestyles contribute greatly to people being overweight.
But what does contribute to the growth in rates of cancer, diabetes, heart diseas and other "diseases of civilisation"? This is not so easily answered by just breaking down the food by carbs/fats/protein.
You lost weight by decreasing the amount of energy you were eating. Low-carb diets are an effective way to do this, because they are generally restrictive (less variety means less overeating) and because protein is very satiating. But there are other ways, and yes, some of them involve eating a lot of carbohydrates. The best thing is to choose something you can stick with. In that sense, your advice is not good, since 50-60% protein would make a lot of people want to barf.
I would go so far as to say there is no such thing as a diet that is "healthy" absent particular health goals. If you are overweight, one way to become healthier is to lose weight. In that sense, a low-energy diet is effective, independent of what foods it contains.
I don't think that's true. I'm currently on a diet that's fairly high in protein (and to go with the theme of the article, comes out to $4-$6 a day I believe). I don't think it's barf-worthy.
Example: Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with a little salsa on top, bacon, mixed veggies Lunch: Usually salad of romaine, spinach, mixed greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, grilled chicken, and homemade dressing. Sometimes I'll have chili instead of a salad. Dinner: Usually a pork chop or chicken breast, some spiced lentils, and mixed veggies
I think that's a pretty well balanced high protein diet. I'd estimate it as 60% protein/20% fat/20% carbs. The veggies add relatively few carbs. The only thing it's really "missing" is starchy carbs. Sure, if your high protein plan was 2 pounds of beef a day, I'd go and say it's barf-worthy, but I'd argue most low-carb diets aren't.
The Japanese diet is one of several high carb diets that leads to excellent health and longevity. Many of the most successful regional diets are based heavily on rice, legumes, and vegetables, and are very carb-heavy. Ignoring those historically successful diets requires either an extremely myopic view of diet, or someone who has a controversial new book to sell.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not suggesting that following Taubes advice would necessarily be a bad thing. He recommends whole foods, and cutting out sugar and simple carbs and processed foods, which are excellent dietary choices to make. Most Americans would get healthier by eating as Taubes recommends. But, to claim that a low-fat, high-carb, diet is unhealthy, when there are mountains of evidence to the contrary in the form of several Asian and Mediterranean diets, is misleading, at best. The problem with the American diet is not in any one macro-nutrient...fat or carb. It is that we, as a people, eat garbage at every meal. Processed, sugared, stripped of everything good and injected with everything bad. 80% of the food at a supermarket is probably something humans shouldn't be eating, even in moderation, but most of us eat it daily and as the primary source of calories.
Taubes is another fad diet promoter. His fad diet is better than most, and has some decent science behind it. But, it's not the ultimate reference, and it's not on my list of books to recommend to people who just want some ideas about how to eat better (I recommend In Defense of Food for that; it's anti-fad, free of hyperbole and outlandish claims and is based on tradition and science).
Good Calories, Bad Calories is about why the "garbage" people eat has caused them to get fat, and why it's not the saturated fat like experts have been telling the public for a generation.
It's not a book about the best way for everyone to eat like Michael Pollan's books are. If you believe it's about telling people "eat food, but not too many carbs" I understand why you think little of it.
> "One can lose weight on a low-calorie diet if it is primarily composed of fat calories or carbohydrate calories or protein calories. It makes no difference!"
Quoted from one of the "experts" refuting taubes. And yet, research by Robert Israel and Michel Cabanac (full list of references in Roberts' "What Makes Food Fattening" bibliography) shows that this is completely untrue - even flavor makes a huge difference, let alone "caloric intake". (BTW, if anyone can point me to any peer reviewed paper that validates "calories in-calories out" theory, I would be thankful. It appears to be an argument of faith, not of science, as far as I can tell).
Good Calories Bad Calories is meticulously referenced. You may disagree with the content, but as far as science writing goes, it doesn't get any better or more rigorous.
(And that's less of a compliment to Taubes, and more an indication of the sad, sad state of science writing).
Taubes is a scientist and a journalist. The fact that nutrition is not his original field doesn't change much.
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"?
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.
> 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...
> Go with what makes you feel good. The best diet is the one you can follow. Listen to your body.
Don't mistake the presence of disagreement as evidence for there being no fact of the matter. It's of course difficult to make strong claims about complex machines like people without large, expensive randomized studies, leaving the door open for people to argue for whatever preconceived ideas they have. But that doesn't mean there is no answer, nor that you should just do whatever makes you feel good.
That said, yes, these threads are largely useless.
> I would down vote this, but I can't down vote yet.
I don't think anyone can downvote posts (aka articles, links). (At least I can't with 1.6k of karma.) It's just comments you can downvote after you get <s>200</s> 500 karma or so.
(Edited in response to BoppreH's comment.)
I agree with you and I was hesitant to state what I did about that.
Off Topic: I really wish one could not up or down vote anything without requiring a comment in reply stating your reasoning. I think it could lead to much more active and interesting discussions breaking out.
Maybe I was a little harsh stating I would down vote the submission.
Edit: Spelling and grammar stuff.
Which by reading this submission seems to stay true to past submissions.
Well, there's too much fixation on micronutrients such as carbs, fats etc. 100g carbs from HFCS is not the same as 100g carbs from vegetables. 100g fat from industially processed seed oils is not the same as 100g duck fat. I personally prefer not to eat anything that comes packaged, in a box, can etc. and go for meat, fish, poultry, fruit, veggies, nuts etc. But I guess that qualifies me as someone who "thinks his way of eating is healthy".
Go with what makes you feel good. The best diet is the one you can follow. Listen to your body.
Well, there are a couple of issues with that. I personally feel good on a diet with copious amounts of beer and pizza, add ice cream to taste. Side effects may be years or even decades away for a healthy person, but some of them may be irreversible by the time they are evident.
Your body will never tell you "oh I feel my bone density is 1% lower today" or "oh I feel my arterie wall is 0.1mm thicker today". Some people find out they have osteoporosis only when they suffer a broken bone.
The other thing is that all of us (with the exception of those with genetic disorders) posess the same biochemistry. So I'm not sure how far can you go with "listen to your body". Maybe someone can genuinely feel bad on a diet that mostly consists of fruit, vegetables, some animal products, some nuts and lacks processed sugars, grains, vegetable oils, trans fats and fast food, but I think I'm yet to hear about such a person.
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."
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!
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.
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.
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.
His counter argument for the lack of sustainability for this diet is the "cheat day" but I haven't found that to be effective at all with sustaining the diet.
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.
From the looks of things, he's a much better cook than me. The stuff I make is far more ghetto, but revolves around like 15 ingredients or so that I basically buy every time I go to the grocery store. That keeps me from having to actually plan meals. I usually cook in the opposite direction -- I look at what I have on hand and figure out what I can make from that.
My gut sense is that that would be more approachable for folks that are transitioning from fast-food and frozen pizzas.
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?
In the end I couldn't justify the cost to eat something I just didn't enjoy. More power to those who enjoy it.
Keep an eye on your quinoa while cooking and turn off the heat as soon as the curly germ separates from the seed. At that point, ideally, there should be very little excess water left. Keep the cover on your cooking container on for a few more minutes while the quinoa soaks up the remaining water.
The result should be rather firm quinoa kernels that "pop" as you chew them, rather than the mushy goop you'd get if you overcooked. Quinoa is much tastier this way.
I also second the recommendation to rinse the quinoa. This is especially important for quinoa that hasn't been pre-rinsed, as quinoa naturally contains an outer coating of that acts much like soap (witness the foam coming out in your rinsing water) which can give you digestive problems if not thoroughly rinsed.
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/quinoa-and-black-beans/Detail....
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.
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.
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..
okay granted, these ancestors were millions of years ago and only a couple feet tall. But it's not a controversial assertion.
Are you going to eat meat? Just try to capture a wild animal with your bare hands and eat it raw, you will look ridiculous. This isn't a practical option without technology.
And even if you manage to capture it somehow or scavenge one that is already dead, there are tons of bacteria and diseases that you can get from raw meat since humans don't have the hydrochloric acid that carnivores do. Are you going to eat diary? Of course not, it is totally unnatural to eat another animals milk.
Legumes, beans, and grains although healthy, generally need to be cooked or otherwise prepared. They aren't edible raw. Similarly, many vegetables need to be cooked and they contain parts that are indigestible. Nuts often need to be cracked open.
On the other hand, fruits are just there on the tree ready for picking they don't need any special preparation - it should be completely obvious that this is the food of primitive people - our ancestors.
Needless to say, I stopped at the flank/brisket stage. Head is a bit... nuts to deal with.
$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.
That's quite plausible, given that he planned the diet from the beginning to make use of complementary sources of vegetable protein, and includes milk.
thats more than enough to survive on, since thats what a $3/day diet is really going for.
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.
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.
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
Such a device pays for itself in a month or two, if one is a regular soy/nut milk aficionado.
* If you really want to be simple, you can make cashew milk in a blender with: 1 cup cashews + 3 cups water. (Works better than making almond milk as there is no pulp to strain out)
PS: The human body can cope with horrible diets for reasonably long periods of time. Also, trying to balance everything correctly every day is vary hard and probably less useful than focusing on what you eat over a week/month.
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.
1: http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Country=India/Salary, 328,379 rupees is approx = 7400 USD
There are many opportunities to earn in USD while living abroad.
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).
For some reason, eating out or takeaways is relatively cheap though.
Veg like carrots are a good way to get full for not much. We found it was also helpful to have a weekend budget where you could treat yourself. Keeps you sane.
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.
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.
No wonder why so many people has weight issues.
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:)
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.
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.
That can't be 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..
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.
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".
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.
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.
"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)?
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.
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.
