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How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food

andrewhyde.net

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Re: How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food

#101

Post by xiaoma »

321abc wrote: post #78
xiaoma wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Gro…

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 show…

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.

Re: How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food

#102

Post by stinkytaco »

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.

Re: How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food

#103

Post by klipt »

DanielStraight wrote: post #83

Or you could walk next door and mow your neighbor's lawn for $10 (at that rate, who would refuse?). Focus on earning more, not spending less.

Unless of course you're an international student, in which case earning more is illegal, while spending less isn't.

Re: How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food

#104

Post by stinkytaco »

derefr wrote: post #95
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My argument is that I really did eat McDonald's food (almost) every day for a month--and lost weight. Anecdotes are anecdotes.

Losing weight is not the only measure of health. If it were, crack heads and anorexics would be ship shape.

There are plenty of other things to worry about beyond our weight when it comes to health.

Re: How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food

#105

Post by ryanwaggoner »

randallsquared wrote: post #97
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 ch…

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.

Re: How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food

#106

Post by stinkytaco »

321abc wrote: post #99
derefr wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food

#107

Post by stinkytaco »

pmichaud wrote: post #86
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 whi…

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.

Re: How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food

#108

Post by lsb »

kingkawn wrote: post #81
socratees wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously man I don't even know how far can 20 bucks take you. How much you're goin to tip the waitress? 2 bucks?

hell yeah 2 bucks, what was she expecting?

For a tipped waitress, not at a fancy place, the federal minimum wage is $2.13/hr.

Re: How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food

#110

Post by babul »

physcab wrote: post #12

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 getti…

For people who have little money, and are able to do so, going "freegan" may be an idea...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6933744.stm

...it is better than subsistence on what is often very low quality (i.e. nutritional value) food.

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