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Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

miketuritzin.com

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Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#261

Post by papa_bear »

StavrosK wrote: post #190
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!

That's a fantastic app, but it seems to report that we need to eat about 1000 calories/day (both for me and my family members) more than other calculators... Any idea why?

I found it a little high too, so I may switch the equation for another one but I'm not sure yet.

I originally made the site specific to gaining weight for lifters (hence the name), and the high weight gain calorie values seem to make sense for the most part, but I do think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.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#262

Post by georgieporgie »

gwern wrote: post #240
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…

$4 for 90x0.2g of caffeine? How wasteful. I just spend $13 for 400g: http://www.smartpowders.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=s...

I've heard of that. Besides the obvious dose management, I wonder how quickly it's absorbed by your body versus the tablet. As I mentioned, I feel like the tablet gives me a more consistent, less spiky boost than coffee does.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#263

Post by dkarl »

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…

Sugar crash is a good sign. If you stop constantly pumping sugar into your body, your body will eventually starting maintaining your blood sugar on its own -- which is how it's supposed to work.

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.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#264

Post by rdmlx »

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…

Please elaborate on how you do this.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#265

Post by dkarl »

pyre wrote: post #170
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…

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.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#266

Post by brianleb »

gwern wrote: post #240
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…

$4 for 90x0.2g of caffeine? How wasteful. I just spend $13 for 400g: http://www.smartpowders.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=s...

Please do not do this. I am sure you don't have the equipment to measure an appropriate dose of caffeine (because scales accurate to 100 milligrams are not very cheap for household use...), and it is not safe to 'eyeball' it. You will start to notice unpleasant effects (restlessness, etc) around 200-500mg, and then above that (say 600-1000mg) you may start to get into what could be called toxic effects (palpitations/arrhythmias, GI bleeding, potential for seizures). Caffeine has a half life of 5-8 hours and so by the time you go for your next dose you probably haven't cleared the first one, so you can definitely build up serum concentration.

Your body can develop a dependency on caffeine and you'll get splitting headaches when you aren't taking it. I also had a friend in college who developed a light but unpleasant allergic reaction to caffeine after (ab)using caffeine pills.

It is not easy to die from caffeine toxicity, but it is definitely possible when you have powder on hand. One or two spoonfuls will do it, so if you have children in the house I recommend even more strongly against having this powder around.

Oh, and the stuff is BITTER. Really, really unpalatable.

[1] http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/821863-overview#showal...

[2] http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-11-03/news/27080105_1_c...

EDIT: Oh, and don't base the amount you take on the size of a caffeine pill. Tablets, capsules, etc. are formulated with binders, preservatives, and inert ingredients that often take up much, much more space than the active compound. (I'm a pharmacist).

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#267

Post by jasonlotito »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #254
jasonlotito wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Sorry, I wasn't clear. It's the increase in the fructose in our diet via juices and sugars. Be wary as well, as those charts lump different things together.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#268

Post by xiaoma »

beagle3 wrote: post #256
xiaoma wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 complet…

The problem wasn't just Taube's penchant for taking extremely selective evidence and his own hunches over the vast majority of the available research evidence.

The problem is many of the very scientists that Taubes referenced were furious about him misrepresenting their work, and taking extremely selective quotations to make it sound like they were supporting theories that they did not actually believe were true.

>"Taubes is a scientist"

The claim that Taubes is a scientist is unsupported by anything I've ever read about him, or his current wikipedia file. What science has he actually done, as opposed to reported on?

RE calories in / calories out: Here's article might interest you. It details a nutritionist's "twinkie diet". He dropped 27 lbs in two months, shed body fat and improved various blood markers while eating 1800 calories a day, mostly from junkies. It's not a peer reviewed study, but it was conducted by a professor of nutrition at the university of Kansas. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#269

Post by burgerbrain »

adrianN wrote: post #192
burgerbrain wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

33% of a food budget sounds like a lot. 33% of $9 hardly does...

And yet, if 9$ is your food budget, they are the same.

The point is that when you realize that the food budget is equivalent to $9, the only way you can make the coffee expenditure seem unrealistic is to conveniently not mention that fact and say something like "You spend 33% of your food budget just for coffee?".

Accusing someone of having a caffeine addiction for spending a mere $3 a day on it is just silly.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#270

Post by mikey_p »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #258
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.

In many areas this is illegal, and the courts have held up the law saying that there is no such thing as a consumer right to buy raw milk.
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