
Actually eat healthily for £1 per day - gabemart
http://supplementsos.com/blog/how-to-actually-eat-healthily-o-1-per-day/
======
king_jester
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 stories about eating cheaply
often fail to achieve that goal because it is hard to do and requires a lot of
effort.

~~~
ctdonath
_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, but
because we're so used to "swipe a card, get a meal" at all levels of society.
Even if you're officially "poor", just be at WalMart at midnight on EBT
recharge day and walk out with convenience foods. For most of humanity through
most of history, what so many today belittle as "hard" was "normal" on a daily
basis.

On my "A Buck A Plate" blog I've addressed various forms of this complaint.
Difficulty? boil some water, open a few cans, spaghetti dinner done. Cost of
cooking system (stove, gas, etc.)? grandma's ancient cast-iron frying pan over
burning wood scraps in the back yard, make a nice veggies-and-shrimp stir fry.
No cooking space indoors or out? $4 crock-pot and an electrical outlet.
Cooking your own meals? c'mon, it's not that hard, really. Shopping for
inexpensive? look at every price tag in the store (Walmart, Aldi) and discount
everything over $1 per pound. Appliances? thrift shops overflow with them dirt
cheap. Dried items? throw 'em in water before going to work, ready to cook
when you return. Planning meals in advance? you _really_ have an issue with
this?

Sure convenience foods are popular. You also _pay_ for that convenience:
instead of doing the work yourself, you work doing other things then exchange
the money earned there. Do more yourself, and there's less need to be out
doing other things.

Don't confuse "you have to _do_ something" with "hard to do and requires a lot
of effort". If you watch TV _at all_ you have no excuse.

~~~
itsybitsycoder
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 too tired to cook, is it
really so hard to imagine having to work so hard that those days are every
day?

~~~
ctdonath
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 they're just not excuses any more - it all still
needs doing, and the alternative is being where I've been and I'm not keen on
going back there.

~~~
scarmig
You're relying very heavily on this "well it's physically possible, that means
if someone doesn't do it they don't really want to" trope.

It's pretty lazy, I've got to say. Stop using it like a sledgehammer. No,
don't say "I can't help but use it like a sledgehammer": try to make a new,
novel suggestion beyond "just try harder!"

Evidence that it's pretty damn lazy: you can use it anywhere. A Roman slave,
upset about being worked really hard? "Well, other slaves have worked hard
enough to buy their own freedom. Why don't you?" A poor person in rural India?
"Well, at least one multibillionaire started out in the same position as you,
and that was a couple decades ago in worse conditions. Try harder!"

Defacto it's a crutch to shift responsibility away from the social structures
we live in.

~~~
ctdonath
Again, I'll acknowledge some people truly can't. I've found they're a fairly
small subset of those claiming/imputed "can't".

We're not talking Roman slaves here. "Work 'til you drop or we'll kill you"
isn't at issue.

A poor person in rural India really is poor. Under $2/day income (world
median) is poor. My sympathies and help.

Blaming the social structures _WE_ live in, no. Assistance, tools,
opportunities, etc are prolific; if you're not using them, it's not because
they're not available to you.

Yes I'm leaning on the "if someone doesn't do it they don't really want to"
trope. That's largely the POINT in this thread, as pointed out by others too.
I just see far too much "golly, going to Walmart and buying
beef/beans/sauce/seasoning for $5 and cooking it for 10 minutes to feed 4 is
just too hard", which a poor rural Indian or a Roman slave would look on at
with sheer astonishment.

~~~
msutherl
Required to make your own food everyday are both physical and mental
abilities. Low-income Americans are certainly more than physically capable of
putting together three meals per day, but they may lack the motivation,
inspiration, knowledge, or skill required to do so. I certainly needed my
sous-chef best friend living with me and teaching me the virtues of cooking
for 3 months to really get the skills and habits down.

This is not something to argue about. The best you can do is empower people,
so stop arguing on discussion forums – go forth and empower!

------
weego
I think the main weakness of the diet not listed on their weaknesses is
they've made no attempt to break it down into a realistic 3x7 meal plan,
because it doesn't really make one. Yeah, it's easy to put together a whole
load of things cheaply that conform to predetermined values on a spreadsheet,
but sometimes sum of the parts does not give you a realistic outcome.

Also, I can tell you as someone who grew up with parents that grew lots of our
own fruit and veg, things like onions will survive weeks or months if they are
hand-picked, strung and stored correctly but once they have been through
delivery/storage/shelf stacking for a supermarket those dents a bruises start
going bad quite fast regardless of your best efforts in storage so buying that
far ahead may itself be a false economy.

~~~
lenazegher
> I think the main weakness of the diet not listed on their weaknesses is
> they've made no attempt to break it down into a realistic 3x7 meal plan,
> because it doesn't really make one. Yeah, it's easy to put together a whole
> load of things cheaply that conform to predetermined values on a
> spreadsheet, but sometimes sum of the parts does not give you a realistic
> outcome.

That's a very fair point, but it seemed like premature optimization to try to
nail down a meal plan before all the kinks in the nutrition side of things
were ironed out. I do plan on getting to that stage in a later version.

Perhaps I should have waited before publishing this post, but honestly, I tend
to lose myself in projects like this, and without some indication that other
people are interested I often end up leaving the work in an archive somewhere
to finish later.

I hope that there's enough data there to be useful/interesting in its current
state, but I agree, needs more work

~~~
drharris
No, I think you're right on for a 0.1 version. The basic nutrition (most
important) is there, and you now have a good list of foodstuffs to go by. I
think 0.2 should allow for some diversification (trade these two foods for
these two, at an extra cost of xx). Version 0.3 can then work on some basic
recipes. Also consider things like freeze-dried fruit (easy to rehydrate to
put inside oatmeal) and vegetables (make good salad toppings) to add
diversity.

I think most people would allow sale prices if you can prove they're on a
cycle. For example, sacks of yellow onions go on sale every 3rd week at the
store I frequent, which lines right up with my usage habits.

~~~
drharris
Forgot to mention: I spent 4-5 years in which I ate oatmeal every day (and
some nights) while in the process of eliminating debt. It's highly versatile;
you can change the flavor dramatically with the addition of different fruit,
spices, and nuts/seeds. It stores in bulk for long periods of time. It is very
easy to prepare. It is highly cost effective, is fairly nutritious alone, and
easily keeps you full for hours on end. I really consider it a superfood in
terms of cost vs. nutrition. Add some flax seeds, apples, cinnamon, and a bit
of honey and not much can beat it.

------
Kurtz79
I'm not criticising the article (I love seeing hackers/hacker like mentality
applied to diet and cooking, check : <http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/>) but
I hate when I read something as "healthy food".

Of course there are foods that are good for you and others that aren't, but
somehow this always leads to the conclusion that in order to eat "healtily"
you have to eat only "healthy" foods and avoid like the plague "unhealthy"
ones.

Truth is, you can eat things like bacon, biscuits, jam, white breads, without
any problems if in moderation and in the context of a diet rich in fruit and
vegetables, and doing regular exercise (exercise != half an hour loitering in
the gym).

The diet illustrated in the article, it's indeed healthy, it's cheap, and it's
absolutely depressing.

I can't see too many people being able to stick to it for a reasonable time.
Good food is one of life's pleasures and it doesn't have to be in conflict
with "healthy" eating.

It would help a lot speaking about "healthy diet" or better "healthy
lifestyle" rather than "healthy foods".

~~~
shawabawa3
> The diet illustrated in the article, it's indeed healthy, it's cheap, and
> it's absolutely depressing.

Of course it is, but try finding a diet that costs £1 a day that isn't
absolutely depressing.

I think this overemphasis on £1 or $1 a day is way too low.

The real question is how much are people who "can't afford" or "don't have
time" to eat healthily spending on food per day? I would guess at least £5.

With £5 a day you could actually make an enjoyable, healthy and varied diet.

------
venomsnake
Now if only there was consensus what is healthy eating (it changes once a
decade, cyclical fashion). Fat is currently returning with a vengeance, while
sugar is the killer molecule. 10 years ago a spoonful of butter was considered
slightly worse than cyanide.

The amounts of protein per day is also debated as are total calories, and
carb/fat ratios.

And the number of meals per day and the optimal amounts of fasts.

~~~
DanBC
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 dressing
with a low fat (but high sugar) dressing) has always been seen as bad advice.

Of course, if people pay attention to wing-nuts pumping out crank advice then
yes, everything changes every week. Peas cause cancer one week, red cabbage
causes it the next.

Most people do not need "optimal", they need "good enough". Most people are
not at "good enough", they're at high fat, high sugar, high salt, high poor
quality foods, low exercise. Someone drinking 4 litres of cola a day and
eating a jar of peanut butter on crackers doesn't need to know whether their
total calories should be 2,000 kCalorie per day or 2,500 kCalorie per day.
They just need to eat less than 7,000kCal per day.

~~~
jerf
"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 wasn't just that cholesterol was in "bad" things, the things
were bad because they had cholesterol.

"But other stuff - replacing fat for sugar (replacing a real salad dressing
with a low fat (but high sugar) dressing) has always been seen as bad advice."

Also complete tripe. Low fat diets have been advocated for decades now without
a word given to what the fat was replaced with, because the fat was considered
So Obviously Bad it didn't matter, anything was better.

The dietary consensus is in fact undergoing significant change (still in the
early phases of penetrating the consensus but I'm pretty sure its inevitable
at this point), but this is _exactly_ how I expect the authorities to wiggle
out from under the fact they were giving fatally-inaccurate advice for
decades... straight-up historical revisionism. We never said cholesterol was
bad for you, we never were universally against salt (just for certain at-risk
people), we always said many fats were good for you, we certainly NEVER EVER
EVER advocated transfats as a healthy alternative to fats how dare you even
suggest that we did such a thing, and we have always been at war with Eurasia.

I will not forget.

~~~
DanBC
Please read my comment again. You rant about cholesterol. Cholesterol is an
example I give of advice that has changed. You appear to misunderstand that
very simple point I made.

> Low fat diets have been advocated for decades now without a word given to
> what the fat was replaced with, because the fat was considered So Obviously
> Bad it didn't matter, anything was better.

No, this is wrong. Calm dieticians have been suggesting that people cut down
fats, but not replace those with weird sugar-foods. You'll be able to point to
very many untrained, unscientific, 'clinical nutritionists' who give weird
advice. But I've already said that cranks exist and have always given weird
advice.

Salt is still harmful, btw.

> The dietary consensus is in fact undergoing significant change

It really really isn't.

"Don't eat too much. Eat less red meat; eat more fruit and vegetables. Reduce
the amount of fats, sugars, and salt that you eat. Reduce the amount of
processed foods (especially some processed meats). Try to eat more fresh
food."

That's been the consistent message for many many years now.

~~~
jerf
Fair enough about your point about the cholesterol.

However, I'd challenge you with this. Go back and look at _how_ the
cholesterol error was made. It's a instructive microcosm of how we got to
having such bad advice about health, where a tiny little sample of the vast
multidimensional space of health was taken because we happened to develop a
test that could see cholesterol, and we radically, radically over-interpreted
the results. (Arguably without even doing the test we could have done _right
then_ , which is to directly ask the question of whether eating cholestThen
ask if you're really, really sure that's the only time that happened, in our
set of health advice that largely was created in the same era (if not a decade
or two before) and hasn't changed since. Because I do agree that consensus
hasn't changed much over the past 50 years; what I am saying is that change is
inevitably coming, and if you know where to look you can already see its
shape.

"Salt is still harmful, btw."

There are significant studies that suggest it's only harmful if you _already
have_ hypertension. There's also some serious question in my mind about how
salt can be harming the population when studies can also show that people
actually maintain a very constant level of salt intake and have historically
maintained that same salt intake for as far back as we have records that can
reasonably answer that question.

"Calm dieticians have been suggesting that people cut down fats, but not
replace those with weird sugar-foods."

And I still think this is revisionism. I've been reading recommendations from
the government and other sources for my entire lifetime and I've only recently
seen anyone making the point that replacing fat with sugar is a bad thing, and
it is usually still people not in the scientific mainstream until _very_
recently. (Sure, Atkins said it in the 1970s, but I'm sure you wouldn't count
that.) The government has been pushing low-fat everything for a long time. If
perhaps the point was being made in some academic journal somewhere, I don't
really care, I'm talking about what the general population was told. The idea
that low-fat itself might be bad can probably be dated to when it finally
broke through that transfats (margarine) was worse than what it was replacing
(butter), which was a relatively recent development (~10 years ago), and
that's when it finally became politically viable to even _ask the question_ of
whether low-fat foods were actually better for you.

And I could quibble further (the badness of red meat is highly dubious from
what I can see, fruit's virtues seem oversold), but it doesn't matter. The
change is coming, because the advice we've been given for decades is
unbelievably awful, "our grandchildren will ask us how we could believe that"
awful. It won't stand, and when the authorities try to rewrite history to
claim nothing has changed I will not forget that it's not what they told us.

------
Nursie
While it is a great article, and potentially useful info for those that fall
on hard times, I don't share some of the other poster's views of this being
aspirational.

Food is not just a mechanical source of fuel, surely? I couldn't abide eating
the same stuff more than a couple of days in a row, let alone every day for
weeks at a time.

~~~
gnaritas
> Food is not just a mechanical source of fuel, surely?

Speak for yourself.

> I couldn't abide eating the same stuff more than a couple of days in a row,
> let alone every day for weeks at a time.

I've eaten the same lunch every day for well over a year or more at times.
Food is fuel; it doesn't have to be a source of entertainment.

~~~
nemof
Speak for yourself.

I love food. I adore it. It's part of my heritage, my family, part of our
lives, our childhoods. Good food is up there with good sex, it's an
overwhelming and amazing experience.

I absolutely understand that some people find food an annoying necessity and
not something to take pleasure in, but many of us, I'd posit an overwhelming
majority in fact, love and enjoy and relish our day to day meals. As such,
living on the bread line can be a deeply depressing and dispiriting
experience.

~~~
gnaritas
I didn't say it can't be a source of entertainment, I said it doesn't have to
be. I take great please in many meals; but food is fuel and I require "just"
fuel most of the time, every meal isn't an experience and doesn't need to be.
Most meals are just fuel. That doesn't mean I don't take pleasure in meals
intended for taking pleasure in; it isn't that black and white.

------
np422
Before we start talking about "eat healthily", please visit <http://nusi.org/>
, apply critical thinking - ask for references to published research papers.
Be aware of the difference between observational and clinical studies and of
course, always remember correlation does not imply causation.

We, as in mankind, don't know very much about what really is healthy food.

~~~
goldmab
It took me a little reading to figure out the agenda, but some key phrases
like "obesity is a growth disorder" tipped me off. This is a Gary Taubes
project. He is a writer of books in favor of low-carbohydrate diets, and he
often badly misinterprets the scientific literature. He has a selection bias
about which studies he thinks are worth talking about, so as to make it appear
that low-carbohydrate diets are the answer to everything. No actual
nutritional scientists think his "alternate hypothesis" is credible.

~~~
mberning
If you think there are literally no legitimate nutritional scientists that
agree with Taubes then you are woefully misinformed.

~~~
goldmab
Thanks. I think a lot of them agree that low-carb approaches work for weight
loss and some other outcomes, since that's what the science shows. But his
"insulin hypothesis" is pure pseudoscience and I'm not aware of any papers
about it.

~~~
frankc
Unvalidated/untested hypothesis are not "pseudoscience".

------
wtvanhest
If you want to save some money, save some time and eat healthy, try this:

Go to the grocery store, buy these 3 items:

1 bag of frozen vegetables.

3 chicken breasts

1 bag of dried lentils.

Sunday night:

Cook lentils in water, don't add anything Slice chicken breasts down the side,
add seasoning, no oil, just seasoning, don't bread it etc. Bake the chicken
breasts

Monday for lunch:

Microwave a bunch of the vegetables, grab your chicken breast, and precooked
lentils mix lentils in with vegetables and throw the chicken breast on top,
cook together.

Repeat that 4-5 days a week. Your energy will be higher, you will start
loosing weight, and you will save money. Its the only meal I have found that
does all three.

[it should go without saying, but there is no dressing added, no butters, oils
etc. once you start adding that stuff you might as well just grab a burger or
some Chinese food]

[ADDED] I am not advocating this be your only meal. Its just a meal that
replaces the normal garbage that I would eat if I didn't have a good, low-
cost, delicious alternative.

If you are fully aware of your diet and are in good shape, then by all means,
add whatever you think you want to make it taste better, but this meal really
doesn't need it.

My comment about not adding butters/oils etc. is aimed at people who think
they are eating healthy by having a salad with blue cheese dressing.

Also, for those of you in your early 20s who think you know how to eat well,
prepare yourself. Once you get to your late 20s, early 30s, it starts getting
much tougher.

~~~
ryeguy
There is nothing wrong with butter, oil, or dressing in moderation. If it
makes a rather boring dish more interesting, it's worth it - none of those
things up the calorie count too much.

~~~
frou_dh
I'd say satiating meals is a better goal than interesting meals. If you're
completely satiated by reasonable portions then your energy levels will be
solid and you'll lose/maintain weight without needing to think about calories
at all.

~~~
dgabriel
We all have different goals, but interesting meals are certainly near the top
of my priority list, especially since I eat with my family and meal times are
more than just a way to fill a hole.

~~~
frou_dh
For most people, I imagine a decent-sized subset of appealing meals can be
very satiating at the same time.

p.s. wtvanhest: Not sure what you have against blue cheese. Hopefully not
"dietary fat makes you fat because it's calorie dense" because that would
again be anomalous 80s thinking that ignores satiety effects and runs with a
1-dimensional model for something as complex as nutrition and aggregate
consumption behaviour.

~~~
DanBC
Calorie dense food "hiding" in salad needs small amount of caution.

So long as you're aware of what you're eating it's fine.

If you can't understand why you're still 17 stone you might want to look at
whether you're having a blue cheese dressing on a salad but counting that
snack as 0 calories, which is something a surprising number of people do. They
have their 3 meals, which come to something like 2,000 kCal per day, but they
don't count all the other snacks they eat.

Satiety is important, but it's still calories in vs calories out.

~~~
frou_dh
Yeah, and that's exactly why "calorie excess" is nowhere near the conversation
ender it's so often used as. At best it's a conversation starter to use on
those dummies to which it is not self-evident. The thorny part of
overconsumption is _WHY_ one is compelled to do so, not simply that one does.

------
fpp
Before even going into the side-effects of such a diet let's just have a look
at the numbers used:

Olive oil (extra virgin)(price per kg quoted) 3.30 (price per kg actual) 6.39
(weekly quoted) 1.96 (weekly actual) 3.80

Yellow split peas (dried)(price per kg quoted) 1.16 (price per kg actual) 0.98
(weekly quoted) 1.62 (weekly actual) 1.37

Bananas (price per kg quoted) 0.68 (price per kg actual) 0.68 (loose /
leftover 2+ BBD) (weekly quoted) 0.38 (weekly actual) 0.50 (1)

Carrots (price per kg quoted) 0.46 (price per kg actual) 0.80 (loose /
leftover 2+ BBD) (weekly quoted) 0.26 (weekly actual) 0.50 (1)

Onions (price per kg quoted) 0.42 (price per kg actual) 0.90 (loose / leftover
5+ BBD) (weekly quoted) 0.23 (weekly actual) 0.50

Red cabbage (price per kg quoted) 0.80 (price per kg actual) 0.96 (loose /
leftover 3+ BBD 1 piece) (weekly quoted) 0.45 (weekly actual) 0.96 (1)

Tomatoes (chopped, tinned) (price per kg quoted) 0.78 (price per kg actual)
0.93 (3 400g cans est. BBD of opened can 4 days) (weekly quoted) 0.87 (weekly
actual) 0.93

(1) this requires you to go to the supermarket twice a week for e.g. 3
bananas, 3 carrots + 1 cabbage - it also assume that the cheapest offers are
always on sale (which is not the case) plus that none of the food goes bad.

weekly total quoted: 5.78

weekly total actual (no transport cost, cheapest goods always on sale) 8.56

at this point you're already far over the proclaimed budget and if I call this
rightly (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woyzeck>) you're on a diet that the
protagonist (Woyzeck) was put on to find out if he will be going crazy by just
eating that kind of food (peas).

 _(update)_ sorry forgot the rice and oats

Long Grain Rice (price per kg quoted) 0.40 (price per kg actual) 1.39 (weekly
quoted) 0.25 (weekly actual) 0.88

Oats (price per kg quoted) 0.75 (price per kg actual) 0.75 (weekly quoted)
0.42 (weekly actual) 0.42

weekly total quoted (updated): 6.45

weekly total actual (updated) 9.86

~~~
a_c_s
Did you read the full article or just the data?

1\. The author assumed NO sales.

2\. Aside from bananas everything else will easily last a full week. If you
wanted to say you are only shopping once a week then that means you either are
willing to eat very ripe bananas by the end of the week (some people do this),
or if you are like me then you would have to just eat bananas the first part
of the week and not eat them the end of the week.

3\. Including transportation costs is beyond the scope of a diet - the author
already minimized costs by limiting things to a single supermarket (as opposed
to the original article which would have required multiple trips to multiple
stores to track sales and get deals).

4\. The assumption that there is no waste is explicitly discussed by the
author as a drawback that needs to be addressed in subsequent iterations

(Edit: formatting)

~~~
fpp
I have neither included transport cost nor sales nor waste.

If you live in the UK you might immediately know what including these in that
completely unrealistic article would mean.

(1) You have to go to one of the superstores to get these prices - Tesco
Express, Sainsbury's Local e.a. almost never store the cheapest goods and
normally mark up all other goods by a substantial amount (30%+). Next cheapest
goods on the list are often 100%+ more than the prices used in the article
(that's the superstore price of course) - most extreme (from my own
experience) with rice - the cheapest rice you most likely find in a Tesco
Express is £4+ vs. 40p quoted, that's 1000%.

(2) Getting to a superstore can be rather costly - assuming about £3.2 for bus
tickets (that's £6.4 per week uups just doubled your weekly budget by only
adding the transport cost) - you might alternatively walk about 10-16 miles
each time (both ways, can be more if you live on the countryside) - guess
that's the healthy part of that diet - walking 32 miles each week (you should
than of course also adjust you calories / fat / vitamin intake which gets us
to about e.g. £12 actual vs £7 and 12 hours spent walking).

(3) To use sales most effectively you have to have a budget to vary your diet,
buy larger quantities when available etc - neither of this is possible in the
constraints of this assumption - hence I also did not use sales prices.

------
Isamu
Project for someone: provide better sorting, ranking, visualization etc. for
food nutrition info. You sometimes see these, not all of them are well done.

OP mentions use of the USDA National Nutrient Database. Here is where you can
get a download, plus previous versions and updates from previous versions if
you plan to maintain your own database copy over time:
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=8964>

~~~
lenazegher
That's a really interesting idea. A potential problem is finding a similar,
standardized source of food price data (if you want to include that). Some
data are published by the USDA ERS [1], but it's far from comprehensive.

[1] e.g. [http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/quarterly-food-at-
home...](http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/quarterly-food-at-home-price-
database.aspx)

------
tejay
The same triple constraint nature of the project management triangle exists, I
think, with food intake. Quality, cost, and ease/speed of preparation -- pick
two.

Every two days, I cook up 2 lbs ground beef, boil 4 cups beans, and 4 cups
rice. I let it cool off, and throw it in Tupperware, and into the fridge. I
take from that whenever I'm hungry. It doesn't taste the best, but it fills
you up, is cheap, and is good for you! If you're feeling the need for some
extra veggies/fruit, avocado, frozen blueberries, and frozen kale offer the
most nutritional content at the lowest price and least preparation time.

Like work, I don't think this will ever be 'optimal', but it's good for now,
in that it saves me time, money, and waistline. Can tweak it as I go.

~~~
drharris
You can make that combination taste good. When cooking your beef, add some
garlic, onion, bell pepper (if $$ allows), cumin, oregano, and chili powder.
If they're black beans, add cilantro, onion, and garlic. In the rice, saute
the dry rice in a few teaspoons of olive oil before adding water, and replace
some of the water with lime juice. Now you basically have a simplified
Chipotle burrito bowl. Garnish with avocado, cilantro, pico de gallo, etc.

------
rythie
Actually it's interesting to look at what people in developing countries (who
typically only have £1/day or about that) eat: <http://imgur.com/a/mN8Zs>

~~~
Nursie
I think that British family might be on the run, having escaped (barely) from
the late 80s/early 90s.

They even have a VHS machine!

(Also I like that the german family have put everything in very neat rows)

------
weiran
This article (and many others like it) miss out an incredibly cheap and
healthy source of food, growing your own vegetables.

~~~
ExpiredLink
Given that most people nowadays live in towns or agglomerations ...

~~~
DanBC
A lot of stuff can be grown in tubs or growbags.

Yes, there's the cost of getting it and tending it, but there are advantages
in positive mental health and exercise (with bigger yards) and some hippy
"feeling connected to the world" stuff.

Eatings peas just off the plant is great.

Even herbs and spices can be grown if you just have a window sill.

But, yes, it's not for everyone. Some people just don't like that kind of
thing.

------
ExpiredLink
'Healthy' doesn't mean the same for all people. If you are not so young any
more your cholesterol level becomes high priority. For me food that does not
lead to a high cholesterol level is healthy food.

------
susi22
This can actually be formulated as an interesting (constrainted) optimization
problem.

Given

* an amount of calories

* a distribution of macronutritions (protein,fat,simple carbs, complex carbs)

* a certain variablility (at least 20(?) different foods)

do minimize:

\- Cost

Interesting problem.

A more thorough database with micronutritions would even yield a healthier
result

Edit: Look like it's not new: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler_diet>

------
josephturnip
I think the biggest flaw is the assumption that each day must stand on its
own. I'd say that its generally much cheaper to make one big meal than to try
and make 3 individual meals, but there's no attempt to create large soups or
chilis or something in which you CAN use fractional prices because the final
product will last several days or can be frozen.

------
nobodysfool
Butter is cheaper than olive oil, and it's good for you.

[http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-
products/0...](http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/0/2)

Compare that to olive oil.

Also, add milk. Yes, fresh milk is out of the question, but not powdered.

------
frou_dh
Am I the only one unduly annoyed by the ubiquitous slogan "fruits and
vegetables"? Fruit is full of fructose AKA sugar. They are worth eating some
of, but it's bizarre that they've come to occupy this front and centre
position in diet advice.

~~~
mscrivo
There's some evidence to suggest that eating fructose in combination with
fiber (as found naturally in fruits) is far less harmful than just sugar
alone, and way less harmful than refined sugar.

Source: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>

~~~
ryeguy
You are correct that fructose with fiber is pretty harmless, but that video is
bullshit. See here:

[http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-
ab...](http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-
fructose-alarmism/) [http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-
of-...](http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-
fructose-alarmism-debate/)

------
sandGorgon
There is a subreddit on this, tagged by the CHEAP keyword
[http://www.reddit.com/r/fitmeals/search?q=CHEAP&restrict...](http://www.reddit.com/r/fitmeals/search?q=CHEAP&restrict_sr=on)

------
JoeKM
I eat lots of Amy's low-sodium organic soup. I dunno, it's quick and easy, and
tastes good. Doesn't seem like there are too many canned soup lovers around
here.

------
nkozyra
Ah, the unquantifiable "healthy" designation.

~~~
lenazegher
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>

~~~
nkozyra
"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.

~~~
papsosouid
It can be quantified, and it was. You are just arguing for the sake of
arguing. You not liking the definition of healthy that she specified does not
mean it can not be specified.

------
Shorel
> Around 50% of food energy from carbohydrate

That's NOT healthy at all.

~~~
ska
> That's NOT healthy at all

This statement assumes facts not in evidence.

There is a lot of argument about what the best distributions are, without any
real resolution at this point. The author reasonable chose to target a
standard without claiming it was the only way to go.

~~~
Shorel
No, the author simply repeated old stuff. If all those 'reasonable' diets
worked, the current obesity epidemic would not be in its worst point, as it
is.

Some evidence about sugar:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRAwgdvhWHw> [http://martin.ankerl.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/01/trouble_...](http://martin.ankerl.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/01/trouble_with_fructose_slides.pdf)

~~~
ska
This is what "no real resolution yet" means: every few years we get a pet
theory or two.

The reason this so easily devolves into a `religious` argument scenario is
because the basic science is still too weak.

The author did the right thing to stay well shut of all that in this article.

------
tyilo
1 calorie != 1 kcal 1000 calories == 1 kcal

~~~
lenazegher
Any mention of calories in the article refers to large calories, hence the
notation as kcals.

I agree it's confusing, but because almost everyone means a large calorie when
they say "calorie", it seemed like the most readable and simplest solution was
to refer to them as calories and use the kcal notation in the tables.

------
walshemj
SPAM

------
Zenst
Whilst it is nice people try and point out cheap options they ignore the
following:

1) cost of running a fridge and freezer 2) calorie intake and how people are
all different 3) large supermarket nearby and only you hanging around the
reduced counter

With that I'm sure a very short small inactive person could live well on this
amount and intake but we are not all small inactive people.

A few years ago I was in hospital, I eat breakfast, dinner, evening meal and
late night snacks and had seconds on every occasion. I was not overly active
and bordering on totaly inactive. I slept lots as well. In short I eat almost
twice the ` so called` reccomended calorie amount. I had nothing like worms or
the sort and over a 2 week period I lost over a stone in weight. Now I'm large
frame, over 6feet tall and male and a active brain yet was phsicaly inactive,
eating twice the so called daily calorie intake and had no medical issues like
worms or digestive issue at all and I lost weight. In short my my personal
calorie intake is over twice what the so called average is and when I read
articles like this it is hard not to feel persecuted as other read them, take
them as fact and then think you are wrong. Yet the facts show, as well as
common sence that not everybody is the same.

The acticale on the BBC was born out of benifit cuts and was showing how
somebody could eat cheaply, it totaly ignores that a even the `so called`
average daily intake is 2000 for a women and 2500 for a man and that men and
women are paid the same amounts, with that most of the replies and posted
menu's came from small frame short people and females (no offence intended
btw). With that I'm jelous I'm not a small female and able to eat less to lead
the same quality of life. Sadly that is not so and that is te case for many
people. We are all different and there is no cookie-cutter way to say this
will sort everybody as it won't, or shoe shops would have shoes the same size
and that would be it for everybody.

What I find worrying is the mentality that some people have and wil impose
based upon this and what might be good for them is not good for others and
they will not know any better as the `reccomended intake` gets bastardised
from being average to the normal for all.

That said, not everybody has a garden to grow their own vegtables and that
helps hugely, sadly I can't but we all have windows and a small window ledge
herb garden can help loads.

I would also say baking your own bread helps as well on many levels.

Beyond that your down to mapping out what time what supermarkets reduce items,
keeping it to yourself and playing hit and miss that others not in the same
situation as you as there are only so many reduced items.

I have found you can eat cheaply, or you can eat healthy, but as a non
vegan/vegatarian it is extreemly depressing.

~~~
ctdonath
_A few years ago I was in hospital, I eat breakfast, dinner, evening meal and
late night snacks and had seconds on every occasion. I was not overly active
and bordering on totaly inactive. I slept lots as well._

A few years ago I was in hospital, and they didn't let me eat _at all_ for
_two weeks_. No, not even [whatever gotcha you want to insert here]. Lost 10
pounds I didn't need anyway, and otherwise felt fine. Wasn't particularly
hungry during that time. Did watch a ridiculous number of cooking shows
though.

Sufficient calories are easy to come by. A 50 pound sack of rice or bread
flour is $18, enough calories to keep a large male operating a normal schedule
for over a month. Spend your limited money on nutrients.

~~~
Zenst
Not eating for two weeks and watching cooking programs is bordering on
sadistic, though if you have a strong will then I'd call you a hero.

Sadly in the UK such volumes of rice for such prices are not available at the
consumer levels. As for bread flour, thats impossible, least in the UK. But
you are right that rice and bread are the cheapest form of calorie intake. And
yes nutients are extreemly important, though how many people right even when
they have the money is probably another area and seperate issue of concern.

I would be interested in seeing a chart of a typical food shop compared
country by country price wise, certainly would be extreemly interesting. I do
know when I was in America that food was easily half as cheap and twice the
size than what I could get in the UK and I utterly loved it.

But I'll will say it - you are a hero for being able to go two weeks without
eating AND watch cooking programs, but after the first few days I suspect it
was easier to endure as your bodies metabolism adjusts. But not many people
could endure what you endured as it takes some extreeme willpower and not
everybody has that, or even close, there again some people have no choice.
There again everybody is different - even identical twins.

So +1 from me for being able to go that long and watch cooking programs,
certainly something I would not want to entertain as would many others.

[EDIT ADD] I had a look at todays prices of rice, and for the cheapest,
including amazon and ignoring shipping cost aspects and I truely envy you
being able to get rice so cheaply as for the amount you can get 50kg for in
the UK you would just about be able to get 10kg for that price and that is
using a exchange rate of 2:1 $:£ ratio.

------
gbog
Just reading Antifragile, and stumble on this seemingly immortal shitcliché:
one need to eat "At least 55 grams of protein per day", "Around 50% of food
energy from carbohydrate".

I do not even want to know what a carbothing is. This is plain proved
horseshit. Our stomach has been prepared by Mother Evolution to handle a wide
range of variation in the feed. And the risk of stomach boredom is very real.

So the real proper diet is: do not have a diet. Do know what is tasty, eat 1kg
steack some days (rarely), eat stone soup other days. Don't eat things that
have been invented in the last 50 years (from margarine to exctasy). Do never
ever watch TV or other addicting ads carriers.

Amen.

~~~
aghast
On the one hand, you have a point, and it's really tempting to give into this
sort of ethos, as an approach to diet and nutrition, but at some point it
becomes important to acknowledge that a very real and practical biology reigns
over your internal organic processes. These processes can be measured and
understood at a chemical level.

We don't understand them perfectly, and many people (maybe more than half the
world?) don't actually measure out their hunger in grams and milliliters, or
understand the fundamental building blocks of metabolism at the chemical
level, and get buy just fine, purely trusting their guts.

One size doesn't fit all, and sometimes cravings are correct, but not all the
time. Addictive substances and microbes show us that "what you want" isn't
always "what you need."

Opiates have been around for centuries, and demonstrate that just because you
might feel a hunger for something and find it satisfying doesn't mean it's
good for you. You're body's understanding of the world around it can be
distorted. Sometimes the things that distort it's intuition are odorless and
colorless. Natural food does not come with labels (and even labels can be
wrong), and if you're uncertain of the purity of the water you boil your meat
in, well, maybe there could be something in it that is sapping and impurifying
your precious bodily fluids.

Meanwhile, it might be counter-intuitive that bread mold can ward off
infection, but then again we have penicillin which has proven to be a powerful
and valuable anti-biotic.

So, feel free to operate on faith and emotion, but going through life with
your blinders on, you might be caught off guard by things that you could have
avoided if you hadn't chosen to ignore them.

~~~
gbog
> many people (maybe more than half the world?) don't actually measure out
> their hunger in grams and milliliters

You seem serious here, so I have to take it seriously. Then I'll break it to
you: people who measure their hunger in grams are at most 1% of the world.
Nobody does it in France and Europe, neither in China, India, Africa, etc.

What seems a rational and normal behavior to you is a crazy and facepalming
waste of time.

Moreover, despite the down votes (thanks for explaining by the way), I still
think this behavior is harmful and anti natural. The evolution gave us a
stomach that, normally tuned, will react to hunger, good food, bad food, with
sensations of pleasure or displeasure. Bypassing this is risky, increase your
fragility.

Food is not chemistry, it is more ancient, more important in our daily lives,
it is has a direct influence on health and mood, it should be taken with
precautions, and it must be eaten with enjoyment.

