Actually eat healthily for £1 per day • Hacker News Board

Re: Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

#141

Post by Cass » Fri, May 10, 2013, 6:10 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #127

bch wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've got a can of assorted seeds, enough to sow an acre of all the veggies you need - $40, get busy. Now all I need is an acre of land and time to tend it. Don't you think that's a bit ingenuous? It's like saying the parts for a laptop only cost $200. Now get them and start soldering.

Didn't continue reading I see. Frozen & canned foods are not bad alternatives. Market fresh is more available than you think. Drop the "getting optimal food isn't trivial so it's impossible so give up" mindset. Don't have an acre? Start with one square foot. Seed packets are $0.10 at The Dollar Store this time of year. Grow a month's worth of carrots in a box. Add 1' boxes for lettuce, broccoli, cucumbers, beets, etc…

Seed packets are $0.10 at The Dollar Store this time of year.

Yeah, that's a really easy mistake to make. Happened to me too, last year. "Zuchini seeds ten plants for ten cents? I'm going to save SO MUCH MONEY!" I thought. Then I realized: A box big enough to grow a single zucchini plant in: €7. Yep, big planters are crazy expensive. Enough soil to grow a healthy zucchini plant: €5. Yep, you do need the entire bag if you want actual fruits instead of a pretty but useless flower.

Time to drive to the garden market, buy planters, plant them, and water the plants: Maybe two hours altogether.

So now you're at €12,10 for, IDK, maybe a dozen zucchini over the season. Not really a steal, but hey, organic food! Still worth it, right?

Then my zucchini got bugs and died. €12,10 and two hours of effort wasted.

"Yep, that happens when you grow vegetables inside. Should have put them on the balcony", my gardener friends said, nodding wisely. Know many poor people with nice big south-facing balconies?

I've in the past also failed miserably at sunflowers, and let's not even talk about the slow miserable death of my tragic attempt at salad. Now, I keep trying to grow food because I have the time and money to waste, and a shed to store all those big planters in during the winter. But if I were trying to cheaply feed my family, this sure as hell isn't a hobby I could afford.

Re: Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

#142

Post by dcalacci » Fri, May 10, 2013, 6:12 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #76

king_jester wrote: post #29

Eating cheaply is really difficult to do for the folks with the least amount of money to spend on food, as working is counter to the things that make eating cheaper: cooking your own meals, shopping or growing cheaper foodstuffs, having appliances to store items for longer periods or cook dried items, being able to plan meals out in advance, etc. That is the reason why convenience foods are popular. A lot of advice s…

A lot of advice stories about eating cheaply often fail to achieve that goal because it is hard to do and requires a lot of effort. This is a recurring sentiment which speaks volumes about our culture. Complaints of "hard" and "a lot of effort" belies how incredibly rich this society is, that the notion of just making pasta or growing vegetables is somehow prohibitively difficult - not because it's inherently so hard…

check your privilege

Re: Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

#143

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 10, 2013, 6:16 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #76

king_jester wrote: post #29

Eating cheaply is really difficult to do for the folks with the least amount of money to spend on food, as working is counter to the things that make eating cheaper: cooking your own meals, shopping or growing cheaper foodstuffs, having appliances to store items for longer periods or cook dried items, being able to plan meals out in advance, etc. That is the reason why convenience foods are popular. A lot of advice s…

A lot of advice stories about eating cheaply often fail to achieve that goal because it is hard to do and requires a lot of effort. This is a recurring sentiment which speaks volumes about our culture. Complaints of "hard" and "a lot of effort" belies how incredibly rich this society is, that the notion of just making pasta or growing vegetables is somehow prohibitively difficult - not because it's inherently so hard…

[deleted]

Re: Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

#144

Post by itsybitsycoder » Fri, May 10, 2013, 6:22 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #103

itsybitsycoder wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think as software developers, many of us are very disconnected with the lives of the very poor in our society. There are people out there working multiple full time jobs, or working full-time while raising young kids by themselves. It boggles my mind that you would consider these people lazy because they're dead on their feet when they arrive home... probably even software developers can think of days when they're…

I know it boggles your mind. I too shared the mindset susceptible to "I can't". Amazing how being dead for a few hours can change your perspective on such things. It must be done. Do it. Eradicate "I can't" from your vocabulary. Cut out all superfluous activity & costs. Unless you're in fact passing out onto the floor, you have the energy and time to do it. Yes, every day. I'm so far past tired and overwhelmed that t…

I was a poor kid too. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is great if you can do it, but it's not a sustainable, universal solution. Whether you recognize it or not, we've had advantages that other poor kids didn't -- even if that just means a lack of disadvantages. Let's not pull up the ladder behind us.

Re: Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

#145

Post by Zenst » Fri, May 10, 2013, 6:34 PM UTC

papsosouid wrote: post #138

Zenst wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have already covered this and you completely ignored it. It is you who is spewing up rhetoric. As for magic - seriously and as for being special - seriously! I'm above average height, think alot and I can not get by on 3k calories a day, somebody smaller with a slower metabolism who thinks less can, you just come along and asume it is wrong and justify it on the basis that you know better and offer NO evidence. Let…

>As for people who need higher than everage intakes for many reasons there are many examples if you can be bothered to look Yes, reasons like running marathons. The mythological "fast metabolism" doesn't burn an extra 2000-3000kcal/day. If you want to act like your position is evidence based, then you need to supply evidence. There is no evidence of anyone in history having ever being able to burn 5000kcal/day while…

http://swns.com/news/woman-lost-14-stone-gastric-bypass-5000...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/4660129/Ive-had-f...

Just from lazy google look from the first page search, there are medical conditions and let us not ignore that not everybody is the same size without being overweight.

Yes spoke to doctor, not common but not unheard of and no desire to go into my personal medical history to win a argument on the internets, sorry but the prize is just not worth it.

Like I said, I wished I was normal, truely I do. Now you have depressed enough out of me so I'm leaving it there before I start being made out too be a freak and should end my life because I don't fit into somebodies cookie-cutter template.

Re: Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

#146

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 10, 2013, 6:41 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #68

DanBC wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mention some things that are under debate. Those things are not part of "healthy" eating, they are important for "optimal" eating. Fat is not returning with a vengeance. Common sense advice has not changed particularly much over the past twenty years. There are some things - dietary cholesterol isn't seen as evil (but the foods it's in are). But other stuff - replacing fat for sugar (replacing a real salad dressi…

"Common sense advice has not changed particularly much over the past twenty years. ...There are some things - dietary cholesterol isn't seen as evil (but the foods it's in are)." No, definitely false. Dietary cholesterol has definitely been considered a bad thing and for the last 30 years people were told to avoid it, by heart doctors, in the form of avoiding cholesterol in your diet, in that specific terminology. It…

[deleted]

Re: Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

#147

Post by nkozyra » Fri, May 10, 2013, 6:41 PM UTC

lenazegher wrote: post #50

nkozyra wrote: post #14

Ah, the unquantifiable "healthy" designation.

I don't agree it's unquantifiable in this instance -- the diet is intended to meet the standards outlined by the UK Food Standards organization [1]. Whether or not you agree with the standards is a valid point, but a separate issue. [1] http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/nutguideuk.pdf

"Healthy" is a subjective descriptor, it cannot be quantified. There's a reason it differs from person to person, nation to nation, health organization to health organization.

Re: Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

#148

Post by papsosouid » Fri, May 10, 2013, 6:46 PM UTC

Zenst wrote: post #145

papsosouid wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As for people who need higher than everage intakes for many reasons there are many examples if you can be bothered to look Yes, reasons like running marathons. The mythological "fast metabolism" doesn't burn an extra 2000-3000kcal/day. If you want to act like your position is evidence based, then you need to supply evidence. There is no evidence of anyone in history having ever being able to burn 5000kcal/day while…

http://swns.com/news/woman-lost-14-stone-gastric-bypass-5000... http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/4660129/Ive-had-f... Just from lazy google look from the first page search, there are medical conditions and let us not ignore that not everybody is the same size without being overweight. Yes spoke to doctor, not common but not unheard of and no desire to go into my personal medical history to win a argument on…

You explicitly stated that you did not have anything like a parasite or missing organs, remember? Pretending you are suffering and "being made out to be a freak" because someone pointed out that your estimate was wrong is incredibly childish and absurd. You are normal, you are just acting like a baby because you want to claim you have some one in a trillion undiagnosed (and mysteriously un-noticed by doctors while in hospital for weeks) condition.

Re: Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

#149

Post by cgag » Fri, May 10, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #110

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think virtually everyone in the UK has the means to eat healthy if they really want to." For too many people this is simply not true. People living in poverty face a number of challenges to eating healthily. For example: - Cost. Fresh healthy food is becoming more costly due to exchange rate commodity price fluctuations. See [1][2]. - Access. If there are no shops nearby that sell fresh food (and this is becoming…

Cost: you're setting the standard of "fresh healthy" too high. I've got a can of assorted seeds, enough to sow an acre of all the veggies you need - $40, get busy. Assorted frozen veggies (flash-frozen minutes after picking, so yes they're fresh) are $1/pound; canned works too, and actual fresh is also available if you look with care. Access: you can arrange transport a couple times a month to someplace selling healt…

Yes, buy an acre of land and start farming, problem solved. Quit your jobs and move to a more expensive area, problem solved. Cook over an open fire made from scrap wood in your apartment, problem solved.

Re: Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

#150

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, May 10, 2013, 7:06 PM UTC

king_jester wrote: post #29

Eating cheaply is really difficult to do for the folks with the least amount of money to spend on food, as working is counter to the things that make eating cheaper: cooking your own meals, shopping or growing cheaper foodstuffs, having appliances to store items for longer periods or cook dried items, being able to plan meals out in advance, etc. That is the reason why convenience foods are popular. A lot of advice s…

I hear this alot, and it's bunk. Shopping at an overpriced bodega is still cheaper than eating out.

It takes 20 minutes to cook a hamburger or piece of chicken, pasta/potato and heat up a bag of green beans. There are very few people in the United States that lack the means to own a refrigerator and some sort of stove -- most localities codes require both for an apartment to be code compliant.