You might be better off googling for it, as there are sites devoted to this sort of thing. I know I don’t feel much like swotting up 21 inexpensive meals to a 2400 calories a day specification. Others might be less lazy, I guess. I wouldn’t bet on it.
And while there are sites devoted to cheap and healthy recipes, I think learning to shop the weekly specials and techniques like stir frying are major components that a list won’t address. A meal that’s $4/serving* for me will cost something else for you. Plus, you probably wouldn’t bother to make it, because it’s gross or you don’t have a steamer or something.
I’m not endorsing any of those recipes, I’ve never tried them. They’re just examples of all the sites out there for the purpose.
*Cost per serving estimates are kinda not true, anyway. Supermarket chains advertise meal recipes that are cheap per serving, but if you actually have to go out and buy the ingredients and apply the full cost to that meal, the cost is much more. In some cases, like if you buy a jar of dried spices and only use it once, yeah, the entire price of that jar should be counted for that one entree.
Chronos hit it, except for the “not very appetizing” part. With the right spices and prep, rice, beans and cabbage can serve you very well. Add some squash, a few potatoes, tomatoes and peas and you will eat well, very cheaply. Especially of you have a crock pot and/or pressure cooker.
Then you shop the day-old bread store and farm stands for anything else. Meat is out, for obvious reasons.
Well for edible protein - here are some starting points:
McDonalds McDouble - 4.3 cents per gram
Chick Peas (canned - I’m not soaking stuff) - 4.0 cents per gram
EAS Myoplex (easiest way to get 42 grams in quickly that doesn’t make me want to vomit) - 6.5 cents per gram
Those are my sources when I feel like counting - I know some will complain about the non Chick Pea ones, but just posting to show some prices.
Lentils (no soaking required although honestly on a budget thinking of soaking beans the night before a bulk cook is no big shit) - 2 cents/gram
Peanut butter also in the large two pack - 1.5 cents/gram
All store in bulk well.
Getting a solid amount of protein, even a fairly generous 80 g/day, could run from $1.20 to $3.20 depending on how much you wanted to go with some chicken and tuna.
That price for the McDonalds burger is, I assume, for the double cheeseburger on the dollar value meal (not offered at many locations now). 23 grams of protein for a buck and yup 4.3 cents a gram. The issue for nutrition of course is what comes with that protein compared to what comes with the protein in the other choices listed.
Lentils are a great source of protein, cheap and easy to make. Stews, soups, and other dishes with them added will cover much of your protein needs. I make a breakfast out of them by adding some eggs, chicken and bacon to a big pot full of lentils. (not much of the eggs/chicken/bacon just enough for some flavor) pretty damn cheap over all.
Rice, beans, and cabbage aren’t very appetizing. Rice, beans, cabbage, and spices can be. But then you’re adding cost (albeit a fairly small amount) that isn’t doing anything for nutrition. Though even with the spices, rice and beans will probably still be cheaper than any of the other options.
At the bottom end of the budget, that becomes a feature, not a bug. The first and foremost thing you need from food is Calories. Too many Calories are, of course, a problem, but if that’s a problem you’re facing, then you can probably deal with it by just buying less. Heck, that’s why junk food tastes good to begin with: Our tastes are evolved to put a very high priority on getting enough Calories.
Plumpy’nut. But these exercises to me were always a somewhat academic exercise since the costs get so low, they get dwarfed by other factors. If you’re really hard up, go dumpster diving. It’s free and the quality and abundance of food thrown out in first world countries is so great these days that you can achieve a far more palatable and nutritious dishes than a month of rice and beans and cabbage.
The discussion in that other thread just had me thinking of some of my favorite low cost meals and wondered what others would come up with.
Yes the basic beans and greens and brown rice in a variety of variations based on what’s cheapest that week (throw in some orange vegetable like squash or sweet potato, sometimes canned tomatos and onions) would likely win out for value especially if going both by nutrition and tastes best values. Frozen spinach with chickpeas and garlic over ditalini pasta is cheap nutritious and good too. Cereal milk and a banana for breakfast is a good nutrition value too. My snacking on almonds and dried fruit bought in bulk instead of a real lunch is probably not a best buy.
And yes DummyGladHands, 2400 calories. I know most on-line calorie calculators are silly but using this one with my stats and just “somewhat active”, not counting daily exercise, gets that. This agrees that its a good place to start for a modertely active male. I don’t count calories myself.
Even though this comment was originally referring to fast food, it’s worth peeling off on it’s own. Are there cheap proteins that aren’t also heavy carbs? I’m pre-diabetic, and would probably have a hard time on a rice and beans diet.
Several of the ones mentioned are not heavy carbs - canned tuna fish, frozen chicken breast at 4 cents a gram or less are pretty cheap. Peanut butter is a bit high in fat perhaps but so long as you get a no added sugar kind very low in carbs. And the fat is considered “the good kind” (saturated fat OTOH increases diabetes risk).
And don’t dis the beans greens and brown rice! All that fiber is among the best things you can do to help prevent progression. Soluble fiber helps delay glucose entry into the body and the form of carbs in beans in very slow to release. The “indigestable bits” of bean … so long as you build up to tolerating more of them … are feeding your microbiome which then produces a whole bunch of good stuff. Brown rice, and for that matter all whole grains, particularly if less highly processed, lower risk of progression from pre-diabetes to diabetes.
Bottom line is that the protein sources you want to avoid are the high saturated fat meats, especially processed meats. You want to avoid highly refined carbs. The amount of carbs and fats is not so critical (albeit there may be something to a diet moderately high in protein) as the source of them.
To help prevent diabetes you want nuts, beans, fish, chicken or turkey, lots of whole grains, vegetables and fruits, and monosaturated fats (canola oil , olive oil and blends of them are pretty cheap). The beans greens brown rice combo is about as good of a mainstay as you can create.
No need to soak dried beans ahead of time if you have either a Crock-Pot or a pressure cooker. Although seriously, how hard is it to throw the beans in some water ahead of time?
Spices are a cost, like a used crock pot, that can be amortized over the lifetime of the jar. A few basic bottles lasting a year comes to a few pennies a day max. And some do have potential health benefits. Tumeric in a curry powder with some black pepper may have a host of benefits including decreased Alzheimer and lower cancer risks, for example.
The extra I was in reference to was not the calories. It’s the 60% of the advised saturated fat and 51% of sodium in about 25% of those (my estimated) calorie needs. With a lack of any significant amount of anything else nutritiously worthwhile compared to other protein sources. Peanuts give lots of fiber, a variety of minerals, healthy fats. Beans same without the fats and with other fiber types and more of it. Tuna, omega threes. So on.
DSeid, I think we’re fundamentally agreeing: I just draw a distinction between “almost zero” and “zero”, where you don’t. But spices are certainly a good value, given the small amount you need per serving.
Oh, and another good way to get nutrition on the cheap is to produce some of your food yourself. There are a number of garden crops that produce a lot for a fairly small time investment, and an even smaller investment of land and raw materials, and chickens require very little attention and produce much more than the value of their feed in eggs.
