
How to eat healthily for £1 per day – version 0.2 - lenazegher
http://supplementsos.com/blog/eat-healthily-for-1-pound-per-day-version-0-2/
======
VLM
Lets flag last time's discussion of v0.1 ahead of time, so we can move on and
advance rather than rehash.

1) A little too much oil/fat to be politically correct, a bit too little to be
nutritionally correct. Canola oil? I wouldn't put that in my car. Eat half as
much olive oil if you have to, but don't eat that rot.

2) Carbs about right to be politically correct, WAY too much grains/carbs to
be nutritionally correct. Gonna get fat fat fat on this diet and feel
miserable.

3) The guy from a culture where the average TV viewership per capita is 4
hours and 38 minutes per day (per Neilson 2012) could never have spare the
five minutes to throw some beans in a slow cooker. Also all home cooked meals
take 8 hours to prepare because he says so. Finally multitasking has not been
invented (serious, HN?) so time spent stirring a pot must be spent 100%
focused on the stirring never a single brain cell firing on any other task. I
honestly believe there is some kind of cooking phobia loose on HN.

4) The point of the article was to set a ridiculously low standard while
figuring out how to make it survivable, therefore at least 10% of HN posts
will be along the lines of "her diet sounds boring". Well, congrats at missing
the whole point. I will admit that around version 1.0 it would be interesting
to see how you can improve her diet plan with the delta of $5/person-day to
$6/person-day. I spend about $12/person-day but my family eats like kings, we
really do enjoy our fancy stuff. I don't think it would be possible to cook at
home more expensively without doing ridiculous stuff like upgrading us from
organic grass fed beef to imported Kobe, or dumping genuine saffron all over
everything. Maybe if we ate morel mushrooms with everything instead of an
occasional delicacy, for example.

~~~
columbo
> 3) The guy from a culture where the average TV viewership per capita is 4
> hours and 38 minutes per day (per Neilson 2012) could never have spare the
> five minutes to throw some beans in a slow cooker. Also all home cooked
> meals take 8 hours to prepare because he says so. Finally multitasking has
> not been invented (serious, HN?) so time spent stirring a pot must be spent
> 100% focused on the stirring never a single brain cell firing on any other
> task. I honestly believe there is some kind of cooking phobia loose on HN.

This is low quality, and doesn't add to the discussion.

Here's a real case study; a mother, two children under six years old, mid-
twenties, high school dropout, only has a bus pass and foodstamps. The closest
grocery store is 3 miles away and she lives on government checks.

How much time do you believe it would take her to go to the grocery store to
get fresh produce? How much time does it take someone with kids AND a car to
get to the grocery store and back?

How much time have you devoted towards helping the poor? I mean actually
sitting down with someone in the bottom 15% (not your friends-friend who's
eating ramen at college or someone you heard of from high school) and how
successful were you in training them to spend less money?

These topics are fine for what they are: Affluent people trying to spend less.
They lose value when people look at the numbers and say "Gosh, this is so
easy, why don't the poor just do this! Why don't they just buy a hybrid and
save money on gas? Or maybe order all this stuff online with their macbooks to
save time?".

~~~
maratd
> Here's a real case study; a mother, two children under six years old, mid-
> twenties, high school dropout, only has a bus pass and foodstamps.

This is just as disingenuous as the parent and isn't even close to
representing the most common situation. The majority of people don't live next
to a market that has proper fresh produce, but demand drives supply and
there's a reason they don't.

Most upper and middle class families have largely abandoned the concept of
fresh produce. When the poor become not so poor, they follow the same pattern.
Not because they don't have a choice, but because they choose to.

My parents live a very affluent area. Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Pathmark
(large local grocer), Mitsuwa (large Japanese market). Four choices within 1
square mile. All walkable. Not a _single_ one of them has any significant
fresh food selection. Not one. Oh, they have a ton of prepared food that you
can buy by the pound, but not a whole lot if you want to make it yourself.

I live in a less affluent area (putting it mildly) and there is a farmer's
market 5 minutes walking distance from my house that has only fresh produce,
absolutely no prepared food. It has more fresh produce than all the the other
4 combined. Why? Because the people who live here can't afford prepared food.
It's that simple. They would, if they could.

~~~
columbo
> This is just as disingenuous as the parent and isn't even close to
> representing the most common situation.

[http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.a...](http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?ind=53)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#Po...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#Poverty_and_family_status)

[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/social-
issues/poor-k...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/social-issues/poor-
kids/by-the-numbers-childhood-poverty-in-the-u-s/)

> 47.6 percent The nation’s poorest kids primarily live in households headed
> by a single female (pdf). Nearly half of all children with a single mother —
> 47.6 percent — live in poverty. Indeed, the children of single mothers
> experience poverty at a rate that is more than four times higher than kids
> in married-couple families.

Further reading:

[http://www.google.com/search?q=single+mothers+poverty+rates+...](http://www.google.com/search?q=single+mothers+poverty+rates+united+states&oq=single+mothers+poverty+rates+united+states)

~~~
maratd
> 47.6 percent The nation’s poorest kids primarily live in households headed
> by a single female (pdf).

Exactly how is being _poor_ the most _common_ situation? Are you under the
impression that everyone is poor?

What?

Read my post. My point is that you don't have to be poor to lack access to
fresh produce and in fact, if you're poor, chances are you have better access
to it.

~~~
cboppert
I think this may be a little off. In fact a lot of poorer urban areas have
relatively little access to fresh produce and have been dubbed "food
desserts".

See: [http://newsone.com/1540235/americas-worst-9-urban-food-
deser...](http://newsone.com/1540235/americas-worst-9-urban-food-deserts/)

~~~
ctdonath
What does one do if in a desert, with nigh unto no food available and
conditions oppressive? MOVE.

Most of these "food deserts" are that way because harsh socioeconomic
conditions (to wit: disinterest in quality products, coupled with prolific
theft) made commerce in suitable foods untenable. Complain about "food
justice" all you want, but the next meal is just a few hours away as is the
next bus ticket. Demanding someone provide a balanced meal is both
unproductive and unfair, so figure out a near term solution.

BTW, some of us are trying to help by finding what is viable at low costs in
nearby stores. Strange how many deride the attempt to help.

------
danso
I must have been drunk or dyslexic when I read the original article. I
could've sworn that the URL was supplementacos.com and throughout the article,
I was wondering, "OK, where is the call to action to buy a 1 euro supplement-
taco?"

That said, virtually all of the ingredients listed (even oranges, in a citrus
salsa) could be combined to make some tasty tacos.

~~~
yathern
I read it as "supple mentos" and was, needless to say, confused how mentos fit
into the "Eating Healthily" part.

------
pvnick
Very interesting! I'm currently on a strength training/bulking diet, so I'll
need about 3-4 times as much protein, but there are some interesting tidbits
in here that I'll probably try and incorporate into my diet. I currently spend
probably 10-15 dollars per day on food, so if I can cut that down to something
like $5 that would be a huge accomplishment. If successful maybe I'll make a
blog post about it ;)

------
Kurtz79
An interesting read, and I would still prefer spending an year with this diet
than a week on Soylent.

------
ColinWright
Why not do this as a more up-to-date, honest-to-goodness Linear Programming
problem? Why all this faffing about with approximate sums by hand?

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5775071>

------
DanBC
This is a mildly interesting experiment. I kind of wish a more realistic
budget had been allocated.

The author is doing one portion for one person. The upfront costs of herbs
would be easier if you do the plan for two people.

------
Shorel
My own version:

Buy palm oil, raw pork belly, plantains, milk and sugarless chocolate.

Palm oil and pork belly are rich in saturated fat, and they are cheap because
of that.

Cut and fry the raw pork belly with a little bit of palm oil, then fry the
plantains with the oil that's left.

Make the chocolate with half water-half milk.

Enjoy something really healthy for a keto-style diet. When the currently
acknowledged science catches up with keto research, this will not be cheap
anymore: remember the shortage of butter in Scandinavia. This food will be
really expensive in 15-30 years. Enjoy while it lasts.

------
TamDenholm
It'd be interesting to see if anyone could look at this from a more "business"
point of view, basically investing money up front for a better quality diet
for less cost over the long term. For instance, buying seeds and growing veg,
herbs, etc. Even buying 2-3 chickens and keeping them in your garden for eggs
and perhaps meat. It'd be interesting to see what kind of investment would be
needed, what the running cost would be and how long before you got a 100% ROI
back.

~~~
VLM
"basically investing money up front"

She came down pretty hard on that in the article, even to the point of not
buying spices because the smallest container is an expensive three months
supply. Which is too bad.

On the other hand allowing 80 pound sacks of rice vs the little 1 pound bags
that cost 2x as much per pound is going to really distort and mess up her
math, so maybe she needs to stick to her very strict budget.

------
Paul_S
Buy spices in bulk - save lots of money. The price per kg is the same as per
100g at your supermarket. And then you can get away with eating the same
staple foods all the time.

More meat and at least some beef. Obviously you can't eat steak for dinner
every day for £1 a day but come on, a little thinly sliced beef stir fried
with some teriyaki sauce - I can skip lunch for that.

Why no pasta? It's awesome to use up any leftovers you may have.

Then again you got your budget down to ~30 quid and I'm at more than twice
that (though I never get over 80 except when it spikes around every 6 months
when I buy spices) so clearly you must be making better choices. My excuse is
that I eat meat and bake cakes.

------
lenazegher
v0.1 discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5685812>

------
mseebach
I wonder what the "5-a-day" vegetable recommendation is based on - surely it
can't be as simple as 5x80 grams of any plant?

~~~
ctz
It's a UK government health recommendation:
<http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Pages/Whatcounts.aspx>

~~~
mseebach
Yeah, I know. But that's just nanny-language telling me to eat my veggies (and
I do and that's all fine) - it doesn't tell me the "why".

~~~
VLM
Top down you'll get studies with graphs of veg intake vs "illness" and pretty
much the more veg you eat, the better. This is an outcome based "why" not a
biochemical based "why".

Bottom up there really are no completely ideal foods, but there are foods that
specialize in certain things, and much as animal meat specializes in protein,
veg specializes in fiber and the micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc).
This specialization is not absolute. You could get your vitamin A from a meal
of liver once a week or so, but it seems easier just to eat a carrot every day
or two. Unless you really like liver. Fruits are almost as good as veg other
than having lots of sugar.

The "why" for the hair shirt crowd is its pretty easy to F up vegetables such
that they taste horrible, therefore they feel better because you're suffering,
because you deserve it. Why? Doesn't matter much. They'd probably be really
pissed off that I actually enjoy the taste of a salad of proper proportions,
or a snack of eating a carrot or whatever.

You guys in the UK are pretty lucky to have science based guidelines, in the
USA our govt enforced guidelines are based solely on who paid politicians
election funds, so we're stuck with "eat as much grains as you can" and stuff
like that, designed to make us fat.

------
quantumpotato_
I pick vegetables from a community garden, buy lentils from the grocery store,
cook them with spices.. add butter || peanut butter & quinoa for fats & more
amino acids. Very healthy, very cheap, tastier than anything I find in
restaurants.

------
juskrey
Is naive diet rationalisation a new hacker's disease? To die for math that is
not working in long period, anyway?

Come on, travel to South Africa and settle in savannah, hunting and gathering
for free. Anything else will kill you in unnatural and premature way.

~~~
koide
Whereas hunting and gathering for free in the South African savanna will kill
you in a natural [1] and premature way.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_of_South_Africa#Predat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_of_South_Africa#Predators)

------
deletes
I really want to see some meat on that menu. I hope they do a 1.5£ or 2£
version.

~~~
antoko
for an extra 25p /day you can spend an extra 1.75GPB a week.

so then you can buy these from asda and add it to whatever you want.... why
wait for the OP to do the work?

[http://groceries.asda.com/asda-
estore/catalog/sectionpagecon...](http://groceries.asda.com/asda-
estore/catalog/sectionpagecontainer.jsp?skuId=1000000473493&departmentid=1214921923780&aisleid=1214921924895&startValue=%27%27)

------
solox3
Apart from being cheap, this is also very denture-friendly. Chewing is
absolutely required only 1/6 of the time (carrots, seeds).

