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Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

miketuritzin.com

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Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#281

Post by simpleTruth »

colanderman wrote: post #19

As a vegan on a limited budget, this approximates many of my meals (though I could stand to eat more nuts and seeds and fewer grains), and I can attest that any day I eat roughly this mix of foods is a day I feel superbly healthy. I would suggest replacing the low-fat dairy milk with a non-dairy alternative such as soy or almond milk. Although this would up the cost to $3.50ish/day, non-dairy milks are usually fortif…

Just a FYI. I have personally read a lot of negative things about soy heavy diets. Not that I know what I am talking about, but if you do eat a lot of soy it's worth looking into.

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.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#282

Post by Shorel »

chollida1 wrote: post #219

> Maintains the standard caloric ratios: 20-30% of calories from fat, about 10% from protein, and the rest from carbohydrates This is the weirdest breakdown I've ever seen. If you are at all concerned about lean muscle mass, and you should be if you want to be even the slighest bit athletic, then the minimum amount of protien you'd want is a half gram per pound of body weight. Most people who work out or play sports…

Yes, but the blogger is right: that's the accepted medical and dietarian wisdom, and it is backed by government programs like the one from Michelle Obama.

No wonder why so many people has weight issues.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#283

Post by pyre »

zecho wrote: post #230
gnosis wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in the UK recently, I saw some exposes on supposedly "free-range" farms. The reporters used hidden cameras to record the atrocious conditions showing many sick and dead birds on excrement-covered floors that had obviously never been cleaned. Dead birds are supposed to be picked up every few hours, but it was clear some of the dead birds had been lying there for days. Of course, the eggs laid by these sick,…

The rules in the US are similar. You merely have to have a door that the (often sick) chickens could theoretically leave through. I'm fortunate enough to live in the Midwest and I know all my farmers personally. I know what I'm getting, but I understand this isn't possible for everyone. However, it wasn't long ago when people raised chickens and pigs in New York City. If you want the best nutritional value for your b…

IIRC in the US (or maybe in Canada) the requirements to claim that your chickens are 'free range' is that they get 15 minutes of time outside of their cages per day.

When I was still eating eggs, I remember a few brands labeling themselves as 'cage free' instead. Though they still do things like burn the beaks off of the chickens so that they don't peck each other in the crowded conditions.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#284

Post by maxhs »

joshuacc wrote: post #220
D_Alex wrote: post #144

Can I ask: What is the motivation of trying to limit the cost of your food to such a low (for first-world) amount? I am really weirded out by the number of me-too responses, the philosophy of such extreme saving on food is alien to me. For me, delicious food is near the top of my priority list. I really do not stint at all, my grocery bill is abt $40/day for 2 people... that is $15k/yr, such a bargain considering: re…

A few things. 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. Perha…

I'm scraping together every bit of money towards my startup... but not skimping on food at all. Perhaps that's because it's a food startup and I'd feel hypocritical eating ramen everyday! But, really, it's more because I think there are better things to skimp on than food.. i.e. the fuel that makes us who we are and sustains us everyday.

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...

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#285

Post by pyre »

eru wrote: post #140
dilap wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised you found eggs to be expensive. Where I'm at (Eugene, OR), you can find eggs for $7 for 5 dozen -- an incredible deal per nutrient dollar, even on your extreme budget. (This is at the Red Apple, if any Eugene locals are curious.)

Or get yourself some chickens, if you have a lawn.

Unfortunately this doesn't scale well because in most places where you can keep chickens within city limits, roosters are forbidden. If you're only buying female chicks, then you're supporting the practice of just dumping all of the male chicks into wood chippers or just suffocating them by dumping hundreds of them into tied-up trash bags. (Note: Those are both 'industry-standard' practices. Some animal activist group tried to sue a farmer over those practices a while back and the judge ruled that he did nothing wrong because he was following the industry standards.)

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#286

Post by pyre »

dkarl wrote: post #265
pyre wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's also eating brown rice though. Brown rice is a lot more filling than white rice is, which means that you need to eat less to feel full.

He priced a 50lb bag of brown rice. I wonder, could you eat that much brown rice before it started to go bad? (Brown rice keeps less than a year; a quick web search says about six months.) You'd have to eat over a quarter pound (uncooked dry weight) per day every day to finish a bag in six months.

Maybe he didn't take that into account. I doubt that he's eating that much rice every day. On the other hand, if you are cooking for more than one person you might be able to go through the bag in less that six months.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#287

Post by lsc »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #273
lsc wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amusing that the guy who has two double-shot lattes a day just likes coffee, but the guy who takes the same amount of caffeine in pill form has 'quite an addiction' when they are both consuming the same amount of the drug in question.

>I find it amusing that the guy who has two double-shot lattes a day just likes coffee, I find it amusing that you say that, since I never implied any such thing. My father drinks coffee every morning and is a grump without it. He's just as much of an addict as someone who takes coffee pills. Trust me, I'm not one to use the "addiction" word as a scare word or to pass judgement. Though I do find it funny how often HN…

>I find it amusing that you say that, since I never implied any such thing.

really? because four servings of coffee a day doesn't seem that much over the median dose, at least among people I know, if you adjust for body size. When I'm on, I consume more caffeine than that. So, to me, suggesting that someone has a problem when the dosage is that close to the median suggests that you are criticizing the delivery method more than the dosage.

While technically speaking many people (myself included) are 'addicted' to caffeine, I think comparing coffee dependence to something like alcohol dependence does not make a lot of sense; If I started every morning with a nice glass of scotch and finished a fifth every time I had real work to do, I'd likely be dead at this point. If I stop drinking caffeine, I sleep a lot and have a hard time getting work done. Some people get headaches. Withdrawal from long-term Alcohol abuse, on the other hand, often comes with hallucinations and sometimes death. Caffeine dependency isn't in the same class at all. In fact, while I agree that caffeine can be addictive, I'm not at all convinced that caffeine dependency is a bad thing.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#289

Post by patrickk »

minikomi wrote: post #127
wheels wrote: post #41

I've thought about putting together a brief founders' cookbook with a dozen or so of the recipes for things that I survived on in the lean days that you can make for about a buck or two and in about 20 minutes. The real trick is not buying prepared foods at all. Things like flour, rice, eggs, beans, pasta, potatoes, fresh fruit and vegetables, milk, yogurt, cheese, ground beef, fish filets and chicken breasts are all…

Or an app.. This is your ingredients for this week. This is todays recipe.

To use the cliche - there's an app for that. It's called Epicurious and it's great. Not daily/weekly breakdowns but you can type in what you have in your fridge and it'll tell you what you can make with it. Of course if you have a smartphone or a tablet you also have google. Got a mind-blowing recipe for marinaded steak online that everyone loved :)

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#290

Post by chollida1 »

Shorel wrote: post #282
chollida1 wrote: post #219

> Maintains the standard caloric ratios: 20-30% of calories from fat, about 10% from protein, and the rest from carbohydrates This is the weirdest breakdown I've ever seen. If you are at all concerned about lean muscle mass, and you should be if you want to be even the slighest bit athletic, then the minimum amount of protien you'd want is a half gram per pound of body weight. Most people who work out or play sports…

Yes, but the blogger is right: that's the accepted medical and dietarian wisdom, and it is backed by government programs like the one from Michelle Obama. No wonder why so many people has weight issues.

> Yes, but the blogger is right: that's the accepted medical and dietarian wisdom

I'd disagree with this statement.

you can go look and find pretty much any percentage from an accepted medical expert.

Saying there is one accepted answer is just plain wrong:)

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