I hope this won’t ever be a major consideration for me again… but back when I was a grad student, I would often attempt to keep meals under $1 (a box of macaroni and cheese, for example, cost $0.33, something like $0.50 if you factor in the butter and milk).
I was just wondering what the cheapest meal (or menu) would be to keep you alive (I know, for example, that I would have developed scurvy if I had stuck to the mac-and-cheese meal plan for too long). Don’t answer “dog food”, either… I’ve read that dog food will keep any mammal alive pretty much indefinitely, but I’m looking for actual human food here.
For starters, what’s the cheapest source to get enough vitamin C to avoid scurvy?
Most vegetables contain at least some vitamin C. My bet on the cheapest source would be cabbage. Assuming that cooking fuel/electricity isn’t an issue, I would thing that some combination of beans, rice, and vegetables would be among the cheapest, most nutritious things you could make.
I have to agree with cabbage - so cheap and so full of nutrients. Most people don’t know that potatoes are also a significant source of vitamin C – 1 potato gives you 20mg vitamin C, (about 30% of the US RDA) plus 500 or so mg of potassium.
I would go with either cabbage and potatoes (for the calories) or brown rice, both of which have been the entire diet of large groups of people throughout history. There might not be enough C in the rice, in which case you eat an orange whenever you get the craving for one.
IIRC there was a cabbage diet, theory being it took about the same amount of calories to digest then you got out of it - I’m not saying it’s true but something that should be looked at before attempting this.
If you live along bays (salt water) and have free access to it you could live a long time on seafood gathered, you may require some equipment, but muscles and other clams can be gathered by hand for free. With a $10 net you could catch crabs. Add a $40 fishing pole kit from Wal*mart ™ and you could be bagging some fish - but you cost is already rising as well as the time required of you to gather this food.
I don’t think fresh water is anywhere as productive and wouldn’t could on it for needed food. I did this once, after being warned several times, If you plan to catch your food and need it as a part of you food supply you won’t catch a darn thing, If you bring enough food for your trip and want to try to catch something you will. True enough we had 1 week to go in the middle of nowhere, down to 1 days rations and didn’t catch a freakin’ fish. Luckly we were able to dig up some fresh water muscles to keep us going, later found crawdads come out at night. And of corse once we were able to gather our own food, we caught 3 fish.
The oceans a little too far away, if absolutly nessesaary you could start turning over rocks and looking for nice juicy bugs.
One of those cylinders of oatmeal with the white guy on the label only costs a few bucks, and it seems to last forever, especially if you buy in bulk. I would imagine oatmeal is nutritious and simple to prepare.
This is an especially good idea if you’re eating Ramen, because the nasty cholesterol from partially hydrogenated oil can be counteracted by the healthier and fiber-rich oatmeal.
Yes, oatmeal would be good; basically any grain is good as a staple, as minimally refined as possible to keep the cost down (as long as it is ground up enough to release the nutrients)
I guess that also rules out the subsistance farming lifestile too
If you want to go the meat route, the cheapest way I would say would be chicken quarters which on sale (well around here YMMV) goes for 0.29/lb. This would also make a very good addition in terms of taste and nutrition to a raymond noodle diet for very little extra if at all.
Maybe you might require 2 lbs/day so about $0.60, I think that competes pretty good with the above carb-centric solutions - just don’t go crazy with the sauce.
The trouble with rice, cabbage and oatmeal are that they are highly deficient in just about eveything except carbohydrates, and cabbage isn’t real rich even in that. Even allowing for a little fruit for some of the more immediately essential vitamins, you are going to have a severe protein and oil deficiency on these things, not to mention B12 and iron.
The point to keep in mind is that humans evoled to live on an omnivorous diet. No one plant food is going to provide minimum nutrition.
You will need to take vitamin supplements to make up for the b12 an other substances you aren’t getting form meat. Unless you are higly active you will need to include a fair chunk of legume to be able to consume enough protein.
Here is a really cheap idea for you (although it’ll cost you more than a dollar to buy, each meal will factor out to be pretty damn cheap):
Buy a whole bunch of spinach (wash well!) an onion and tomato, some canned tuna, and also some olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Toss it all together and De-lish!
The local supermarket here sells fairly large-sized jars (6 oz?) of shelled sunflower seeds for $1. I like to toss some into my oatmeal. The primary advantage for me is that these ingredients store well. Another good stored item is peanut butter and all you need is a clean spoon to enjoy some.
If you’re really going for low cost, you can snag free packets of sugar and ketchup from any restaurant, such as McDonalds. You can use the sugar in the oatmeal. Some people like the taste of ketchup all by itself and I know tomatoes are a source of vitamin C.
If you don’t mind weekly trips to the market, milk and eggs seem to be fairly inexpensive these days.
OK, so you need carbohydrates; we’ve established that the grain will supply that, as well as most of the fibre, if you choose kibbled whole wheat or something.
You need protein, so a big sack of beans, plus maybe some cheap, fatty meat - I can get a pound of bacon misshapes/trimmings for about 60 pence, or there’s tinned corned beef for something like 30 pence per tin.
Then you need all the vitamins and stuff - some of these come along with the grain and the meat, but not all of them - so cheap seasonal vegetables and maybe a large bulk bag of the cheapest fortified breakfast cereal?
