
Ask HN: What are good sources of food while staying ramen profitable? - brandonhsiao
I take it ramen profitabiliy shouldn&#x27;t be interpreted literally. Disregarding taste, what are the cheapest sources of food that is still considered healthy?
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nicholas73
Eggs are probably the cheapest natural form of animal protein you can find.
Add a couple to your ramen. If you buy good quality eggs, eat the yolk too.

Chicken legs are also often priced under 99 cents a pound, even in the Bay
Area.

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jamesjguthrie
You don't eat the yolks from cheap eggs?

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nicholas73
I don't think there is harm too, but there is a distinct quality difference in
taste and nutrition, which would be a terrible thing to waste from good eggs.
Overall I think it is beneficial, but since some people are against eating
yolks, I hedge my advice by stating yolk from good eggs.

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jamesjguthrie
I eat the yolk from all hen eggs, makes no difference to me. Don't notice any
difference in quality from cheap/expensive or caged/free-range.

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nicholas73
Cheap Costco eggs taste like rubber and have pale yellow yolks. Real free
range eggs have a fattier taste with a deep almost red orange hue.

Likewise, real free range chickens have really deep flavor in comparison.

When I say real, I don't mean a chicken that has pasture time but eats the
same vegetarian feed as other factory farm chickens. They need to eat insects,
get exercise, etc.

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viennacoder
You can buy bags of dried beans at the grocery store for around a dollar each.
The bagged beans actually taste better than the canned beans, and they are
much cheaper. Just remember, some beans need to be soaked overnight before
being cooked!

For example, you can make a giant pot of lentil soup that will have 10
servings for maybe $4 worth of ingredients. And it's healthy.

Split pea soup is another good one.

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cik
I've never had Ramen, so I had to look it up, but... let's take Ramen
literally, using Amazon's Ramen pricing as a baseline, and try to inject
health concerns! At $17.49 for a 36 pack of Ramen, we're talking ~$0.49/meal.
Check!

Two kilograms (4.4 lbs) of Lentils costs me $2.49 at my local supermarket.
According to the fine people at Wolfram Alpha, 1 cup of lentils (cooked)
weighs 99grams and costs $0.125. Bags of frozen vegetables cost ~$2. I can get
~8 meals from one bag of such veggies, making each portion cost $0.25. That's
a total cost of $0.374, which means we still have ~$0.12 to go.

One package of dried soup (with beans) costs $1.99 regular price - but can be
on sale for $0.99. Taking the regular price into count, and getting 12 (small)
bowls of soup brings the per-bowl price to $0.125.

So, you can eat (unfortunately, high salt) soup, beans, lentils, and veggies
for ~$0.49/meal. You'll actually need less than a cup of lentils if you do
this, which should bring the cost down a bit.

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sejje
Is this anywhere near enough calories to survive on?

You found pricy ramen, by the way. The ramen I get (Maruchan, I think) is
~$0.20 per package, which has ~380 calories.

Your meal seems to be about 150 calories by my extremely rough estimation.

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cik
Wow... 380 calroeis is crazy. I fully admit that was the first ramen I saw ;).
The caloric intake of the meal would be ~200-250 calories - as I assume some
oil would be used.

But humans can survive on ~1200 calories. It's just not awesome.

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malandrew
Invest in a good pressure cooker (for speed) or crockpot and a dozen 1 quart
canning jars. I have a 21-qt at home. It's an investment that pays off once
you figure out all the things you can cook and freeze for later.

With this you can make tons of beans in bulk, freeze them and defrost as
necessary. I would serve the beans with fresh rice. The base for most of my
beans (about 12 quarts) was a pint of bacon fat and like 3-4 full sized onions
and a bunch of garlic.

I got my meals down to about 50 cents each. You can get beans in bulk (25lb
bags) from hispanic markets.

Lentils with a mirepoix base are another great option.

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calbear81
There's pretty high sodium in ramen and I tend to find that ramen isn't really
filling when eaten alone (and poor in nutritional value) and that means extra
$$$ to make it more filling (spam, eggs, proteins, etc.).

My go to for a cheap filling meal has always been a stew or soup. Bulk
quantity canned tomatoes, beans or rice, some protein, onions, carrots, and a
ton of herbs means a single pot meal that can last for a long time -
especially in the freezer.

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kec
You can survive pretty much indefinitely off of rice and beans and more than
eat your fill of them for about $1 or so a day if you buy in bulk.

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rayj
Get a gigantic bag of brown rice(15), gigantic bag of beans(10), cumin/spices
from an Indian/middle eastern store(5-10), 2x gigantic bag frozen
vegetables(10) some garlic (4), olive oil(10), Siracha(5), and optionally
coffee(10). That is enough food to feed a few people for a month for $74.

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wikwocket
You can grow a lot of your own vegetables for next to nothing, if you have
space, dirt, good weather/sunlight, and a rain barrel.

Tomato and peppers, for example, are both very easy to grow. There are also
spices that grow like weeds. All of these can be added to your ramen bowl. :)

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Sealy
I can't imagine that being very practical as you're likely to die of
starvation before the veggies grow big enough to feed you.

This would take months to set up.

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pasbesoin
One vegetable option, that is also quick / low effort to prepare: Microwave a
sweet potato.

Be sure to pierce it to let steam escape.

They can cook a bit unevenly. Letting it rest for a few minutes afterward can
allow it to finish cooking and "even out".

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timmm
Rice, beans, frozen veggies.

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tptacek
Chicken thighs.

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Torkild
Go with the yin yang diet- black coffee and white rice.

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katherineparker
Frozen veggies, brown rice and greek yogurt.

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lsiebert
Snap peas were cited in an eating on 1 £ a day site I saw.

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thejteam
beans and rice + vegetables. Beans and Rice until your required calorie count
is reached and then add veggies until you hit your budget allowance.

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zumbojo
pg's "Ramen Profitable" essay contains an excellent Rice and Beans recipe:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html#f1n](http://www.paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html#f1n)

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rtcoms
sprouts

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nbezzala
consider using a rice cooker to cook all the cheap stuff that you buy -
[http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/38399141597/using-a-
rice-c...](http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/38399141597/using-a-rice-cooker-
to-replace-your-whole-kitchen)

