Only slightly related. One weird thing I noticed when moving to Japan is that peanuts and beans were way more expensive than the US. I guess the equivalent here would be moyashi (bean sprouts) and cabbage.
this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Interesting! What is considered the cheap source of proteins over there? Is it just soy?
soy (in the form of edamame, tofu, and natto) is probably the cheapest option. Eggs are usually next on the list for people over here.
Edit: seafood might or might not be an option before eggs depending upon where one lives. Organ meat as well as we eat heart, liver, etc. a lot here as well.
Where potato
I feel like since they are mostly water weight, the math doesn't always look great. But let's go through it!
For example: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Russet-Potatoes-10-lb-Bag-Whole/10449951?classType=REGULAR&from=/search
10 pounds of food for $3 sounds great, but in a pound there is only 300 calories about, depending on type/peel/etc. So 3,000 calories for 3 dollars. At $1 per 1000 calories it isn't bad.
But let's compare to this 5 pound bag of flour for 2.38, at 3 cents an ounce:
https://www.walmart.com/search?q=flour
A pound of flour has 1,600 calories. So this bag of flour that is cheaper than the potatoes, has 8000 calories for 2.50. But you'll need to put in some elbow grease to make it edible. Doing a sourdough is probably the cheapest way to do it since all you need is flour, water, salt, and the starter you made using flour, but it is more time intensive. So about 3,200 calories for a dollar.
Rice comes in with a very similar amount of calories, but just a little more expensive at 4 cents an ounce:
Rice is a bit easier to turn edible though, so the extra dollar might be worth it for a 5 pound bag. 2,400 calories per dollar spent.
Then oatmeal comes in as our most expensive at 7 cents an ounce.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KV4H51G?tag=sacapuntas9-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1
At once again 1600ish calories for a pound of dry oatmeal, it is 1.12 per pound. So it is creeping up closer to the price of potatoes TBH, and if you were super on a budget the oatmeal would be the first to go. But I suppose potatoes aren't "that" much worse than oatmeal. But my thought was oatmeal is good breakfast option so wanted to include it, and the top bit is mostly setup for bottom.
Knowing this stuff is helpful to our daily lives because rich people hate us.
I think you need to include energy cost in the preparation stage. Bread requires a hot oven, which is a real amount of electricity
it's close to $0.40/kWh where I live. From this link it says that a bread maker uses only .36kWh, but an electric oven would be more like 1.6kWh. So bakita single loaf of bread, you end up with a not insubstantial fraction of the total cost going to heating the oven.
Of course, many bull foods require heat, so it gets a little sticky this way. Oats/oatmeal probably wins out here, as you can just soak them overnight.
It takes less time to cook than bread, but most other proteins take a bit of time to cook as well.
Good point! Rice makers are super efficient, so rice made with that might be the winner. But honestly the cheap carbs you can stand and make edible cheaply are probably just what you gotta go with.
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What about eating people's cats and allegedly ducks as well? Did you know thousands of pets are euthanized each year? That's all just wasted food.
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I can't eat that many carbs in a day. All the money I save on food would be spent on toilet paper.
You may have an insulin issue. Or a gluten issue.
I also can't eat that many carbs in a day.
Seconded. I would have issues that kept getting worse as I got older. I noticed that whenever I did keto, I felt much better. When I combined it with going gluten free, I felt amazing. Well, dad gets diagnosed with Celiac and my old DNA test results mentioned I was a carrier and more likely to develop it. I haven't had the endoscopy yet, but it's pretty likely. This sucks as I love bread and baking it.
Anyway, if gluten is an issue, rice flour can be used for a lot of things and corn/potato starch is a good thickener (whichever is cheaper where you are).
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Just posted this a bit ago:
"Sean Aloysius O'Brien... They fished his body out of the Allegheny river a week before the strike ended. Thirty two bullets he had in him. Or was it thirty four?" -Miles O'brien
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Well I'm vegetarian
Hell, even if you can easily afford way more than that, you are still closer to the person who can only afford $2 of food a day than a billionaire.
The difference between a million and a billion is about a billion
Ain't that the truth! I'm a lay off and a medical emergency from needing to do this diet.
Billionaires are either an apocalypse or a revolution away from needing to do this.
One of these is much more likely to happen tomorrow than the other.
To be clear, if you're at all concerned about maintaining a food budget, even if it's $500/week the billionaire class is still your enemy.
To be clear, the billionaire class is your enemy
To be clear, the 100 million class is also your enemy
I am always amazed how everyone is so focused on billionaires only
It’s just a class that is absolutely exploring people. You can’t become a billionaire without it. You can absolutely become an honest millionaire so it wouldn’t make sense to use that.
Yeah like there are folks who are worth 10ish million who just bought a house 50ish years ago that gained a lot of value and had dual incomes that saved all their money for retirement.
100 million folks are on THIN ice, but there is probably an author or inventor out there who made something really nice and everyone they worked with was also well taken care of. Most of them are probably garbage, but not all of them have to be. Some famous actors also were well known for making sure everyone got paid what they deserved on set and were very generous.
I just don't see getting to a billion without someone being taken advantage of on the way though.
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Hey, there might be some politicians on here who can always call up their good friends whenever they need something!
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Plant based whole foods, the fuel of the rebellion!
Two tips, one meme.
Feel free to ask me questions on how to eat on a budget so you can keep your strength up while organizing against those that wish nothing more for you to work until the day you die and own nothing of consequence!
Man where were you 8 years ago when I ate zero protein because I didn't know it could be cheap. Couldn't afford animal products and was conditioned to believe those were the only viable source of protein.
Btw I'd like to add textured vegetable protein to the list! It's one of my go-tos nowadays.
I grew up a similar way! My mom always referred to protein as meat. Needed to add chicken or beef or pork to be the "protein" to make a dinner complete.
Never mind it being cheese or bean based, meaning it had tons of protein.
I would have to do the math on TVP on if it's a better source of protein per buck than like split peas. But glad it's working out for you!
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Out of interest, what do you mean with textured vegetable protein?
Soy flour turned into little chunks to give feeling of chunks in things you're used to having meat chunks in while being high in protein. So like burritos, stews, pasta sauce, stuff like that.
I had to look it up myself.
Textured or texturized vegetable protein (TVP), also known as textured soy protein (TSP), soy meat, or soya chunks, is a defatted soy flour product, a by-product of extracting soybean oil. It is often used as a meat analogue or meat extender. It is quick to cook, with a protein content comparable to some meats.
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