Eating Healthily for $3 a Day • Hacker News Board

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#251

Post by kd0amg » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 3:59 PM UTC

wheels wrote: post #182

shadowsun7 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried the stonesoup cookbook? Premise: 5 ingredients, 10 minutes cooking time per dish. I've tried a couple, and they seem brilliant so far. http://thestonesoup.com/blog/2010/06/a-free-e-cookbook/

I have looked at it actually, and it's pretty neat, but for the way that I do things it has a fatal flaw: the ingredients are exotic (i.e. where I live they're expensive and you'd need to go to a specialty shop for some of them) and don't overlap much between recipes. 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 ba…

the ingredients are exotic (i.e. where I live they're expensive and you'd need to go to a specialty shop for some of them) and don't overlap much between recipes.

I had a housemate who kept a copy of the Wycliffe International Cookbook. It was originally meant for overseas missionaries, written with the expectation that the user would have trouble getting access to the wide variety of ingredients specified by most cookbooks (which also made it useful for a college student kitchen).

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#252

Post by Lost_BiomedE » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 4:06 PM UTC

henryw wrote: post #153

Wow, the amount of protein in this diet is really low. And all those carbs may not be for everyone. This diet may be cheap, but not healthy. 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 prote…

If you want to go low carb, I would suggest making it up with fat instead of protein. High protein diets can affect the kidney by increasing the load, especially important if you do not have perfect blood pressure. Milk thistle (silymarin) can help alleviate it.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#253

Post by papa_bear » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 4:29 PM UTC

mikle wrote: post #181

papa_bear wrote: post #176

I feel like this might be a good time to plug my project: http://swole.me/ 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!

I bookmarked it. This seems like a great resource, when it will get more foods (even though the list now looked good, and gave me a good overview of what I should expect of my upcoming workout / diet phase.). 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'm glad that you think it's useful! I'm going to try to rework the foods box in the next few days to have a bunch more foods. I thought I fixed the spillover, but hopefully changing the whole thing will take care of it.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#254

Post by yummyfajitas » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 4:31 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #249

yummyfajitas wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So processed white flour [1] isn't the culprit? Good to know. Maybe the real culprit in the obesity epidemic is fats, oils, and sugar. It certainly fits the data. [1] At the beginning of the century, whole wheat flour was uncommon except in rural areas. It spoiled too quickly.

I'm not a nutritionist. My understanding, however, is that sugars are the culprit. When you look at what has changed over the years, that's the big one. Sugar: The Bitter Truth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM There are lots of other articles concerning this, but I felt this was the best one for pure information. He's not alone in discussing this, so I don't have to just take his word for it. But like I sai…

Actually, if you look, you'll discover fats and oils have increased more than sugar. Consumption of fats and oils increased 90% (from 12.6% of diet to 23.9%), while sugar consumption only increased 34% (from 12.9 to 17.3%).

(By "increase", I mean from 1909-2004. See table 4 of my link.)

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#255

Post by papa_bear » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 4:34 PM UTC

justinxreese wrote: post #231

papa_bear wrote: post #176

I feel like this might be a good time to plug my project: http://swole.me/ 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!

I like the idea... but a 1200 calorie, non-workout day had me consuming only milk for 3 of my 5 meals

Haha yeah, you can customize the food options in the dropdown box. I'll try to add a bunch more foods sometime in the next few days. Why are you trying to eat 1200 calories a day if I may ask? It seems awfully low for anyone.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#256

Post by beagle3 » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 4:37 PM UTC

xiaoma wrote: post #147

beagle3 wrote: post #117

He follows (old) USDA dietary recommendations, which stipulate no saturated fat, and 60% carbs. That is really, really bad. The ultimate reference is "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes - it is meticulously researched and referenced, and is likely 40 years more up-to-date than your nutrition or medical professional.

Gary Taubes is a journalist, not an expert in nutrition. He also has a track record of questionable academic honesty. He's an excellent writer who has cashed in fabulously on fad diets, particularly the Atkins craze 10 years ago. Follow his advice at your own risk. http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake

I've started reading this hit piece, and saw, e.g.

> "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.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#257

Post by martinshen » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 4:39 PM UTC

Klinky wrote: post #132

robflynn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been wanting the same thing but have too many projects going on right now to try to do it myself.

Where would one start on something like that? Getting local updated pricing information would seem to be a big missing link. Perhaps crowd sourcing? That would need a critical mass to make it useful. Maybe trying to focus on specific cities first might make it easier.

I think general approximation could work. I'm not looking for something that can get me to $3 exactly... Really if someone could make an application that gave me a list of menus (that I could swap out) for the week and the corresponding grocery list, I'd use that all the time.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#258

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 4:40 PM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #22

My wife and I tried to do this recently on $1.70 per person per day. We didn't last our intended 28 days. A few observations we found: 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 su…

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

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.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#259

Post by beagle3 » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 4:41 PM UTC

TheEzEzz wrote: post #133

beagle3 wrote: post #117

He follows (old) USDA dietary recommendations, which stipulate no saturated fat, and 60% carbs. That is really, really bad. The ultimate reference is "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes - it is meticulously researched and referenced, and is likely 40 years more up-to-date than your nutrition or medical professional.

I'm a paleo guy and I agree with what you wrote, but I'm uncomfortable with stating it with such certainty. Personally, when I'm evaluating a fringe idea one thing I look for is modesty in the people proposing it. When a proponent speaks with too much certainty it smells of quackery.

It may well be wrong, but it is based on more research and science than the list 60 years of mainstream nutrition advice (I dare not use the word "science", and neither would any scientist who actually read publication in the field)

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"?

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#260

Post by georgieporgie » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 4:42 PM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #172

georgieporgie wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I save money on coffee by not buying it. ;-) Instead, I found Jet Alert 200mg caffeine tablets. They're about $3.70 for 90 tablets. Each tablet is equivalent to two cups of coffee, which really means one cup of coffee, the way we tend to serve it. I usually take one around 10am, and another around 3pm. The good: no, uh, 'intestinal distress', whiter teeth, better breath, no buzzy feeling like I get with coffee, and I…

That's quite an addiction you have. Have you considered kicking it?

Please do explain how taking 400mg of caffeine per day constitutes an addiction.

I also take a daily multivitamin that contains ginseng, and a 'super' vitamin B pill. The latter makes the biggest difference in energy levels. I guess I'm 'addicted' to vitamin B, as well.