# Is there a common food that could serve as Bachelor Chow? Or would be close? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 24, 2019, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350 "2019-12-24T16:50:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/61 "2019-12-29T05:38:36Z")
> [@NotBob13](#): > > A prepackaged salad ought to work as “Human Chow”. My local, small-town, grocery store has a veggie with cheese and a chef salad always in the cold case, ready to go. The Wal-Mart one town over even has ones with fork and dressing enclosed. No fuss, no bother, minimal clean up. Two or three varieties to stave off boredom. probably only two or three day cold storage shelf life at best, though. IMHO a proper bachelor chow would have to be something with some shelf life. Preferably something you could buy a pallet load of at Warehouse Mart and have on hand at all times. ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/62 "2019-12-29T17:25:29Z")
> [@Sirreal72](#): > > One could argue that the “food as fuel” mindset is the most healthy. (Sadly, I do not.) The problem with the “highly processed chunk o’garbage” food is that they are about nothing except flavor. Our bodies evolved to desire salty and sweetness, two things that are somewhat rare in the wild. If you came across them while foraging, your instinct is to chow down for that cheap energy and electrolyte. Now we have mastered agriculture and we no longer need to hunt and forge for food sources…but evolution doesn’t work as fast as technological development. > > Unfortunately, along with agriculture, we also developed capitalism and a desire to sell all the excess food we now over-produce. And the most successful foods (profit-wise) are the ones designed to hit all our pleasure buttons, while being inexpensive to produce.) The tastiest foods are also some of the cheapest to produce, so the poorest citizens also have the worst possible eating habits…but the problem isn’t just limited to the poor. Advertisers have effectively brainwashed the entire country into consuming too much, just to sell more product and make profit. When I was a kid in the 70’s, a soda was something you drank one or twice a week as a reward or special treat. By the 80’s more families had both parents working and eating fast-food was more than a once-a-week phenomenon and people started consuming soda with their meals, and soda is inexpensive so sellers kept increasing the size of containers to get more customers for cheap. > > Today eating healthy requires making a conscious effort to chose what to eat, rather than “listening to your body”, because Big Profit has studied what the body craves and creates product to trick your body into over-consumption. Advertisers know how the mind works, so design ads to make you crave the product. And life is so damn busy, who has the TIME to put into making meals? Who want yet another thing to have to THINK about? The fact that people on this very thread think it would “be impossible” to eat the same food for weeks at a time shows just how numb we are vs where our bodies evolved from. People that may actually starve to death still eat the same foods all the time. Boredom with food (and food variety) are luxuries that, until fairly recently, few people have had. Ask yourself, when was the last time that YOU ate a food that you didn’t like? Not something poorly made, but something that is healthy but not tasty? Like unsalted peanuts? I am eating them right now, because the doctor says my sodium consumption is too high and I need to cut down on salt. And they taste horrible, and it makes me ask myself…why am I eating them? Am I hungry? And what else have I been eating lately…when was the last time I actually felt hungry? Etc. When you start THINKING about what you eat and WHY you eat, that’s when you realize how little people like to think about the world and rather focus on the interesting, meaningless things in life. :smack: Capitalism has fed more people and lifted more families out of poverty than any other economic system. Feudalism, that was a great system where the farmer peasants turned over their crops to the King and he distributed the food to his family, nobleman and his army while the peasants starved. Or maybe we should have stuck with Socialism where the government system of food redistribution is wildly inefficient like in Soviet Russian or Communist China where millions starved to death. No one is forcing anyone to eat crap food. Heaven forbid having to make a “conscience” decision on what to eat. Adults should be free to eat whatever they like or should we have a Socialist government lord over what foods are available to the public because people are too stupid to know what is good for them and too easily fooled by advertisers? Restaurants and supermarkets a full of foods that are good for you. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/63 "2019-12-29T18:49:22Z")
**[Moderating]** I should have noticed this before. But talk of which economic systems are best suited for feeding people is way out of the bounds of this thread, or indeed of this forum. If you want to discuss that, on either side, take it to Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/64 "2019-12-29T18:58:30Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > OK, I can understand that people may not want to cook, but there are ways not to do that and still eat normal food. So are there people who find so little enjoyment in food (the tastes, textures, smells, for example) that they’re willing to eat some boring “bachelor chow” on a regular basis? > [@Flyer](#): > > There are some people – I don’t think very many – who view eating as quite literally the biological equivalent of refueling a car. They want to spend as little time on the task as possible, and they see no reason to actually enjoy it. Yup. A year ago there were two guys in my department who ate soylent for lunch every day, and that was their position. It’s easy and filling enough. It takes nearly zero prep. (Just pop the lid.) You can drink it while working on the computer. So, no down time. ---
**Author:** ![Thylacine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thylacine/32/1143_2.png) [@Thylacine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thylacine)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/65 "2019-12-29T23:38:03Z")
In Australia there are a couple of companies packaging up pouches or tins of tuna or salmon with beans and corn etc., I would think a couple of those a day would cover a lot of human needs ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/66 "2019-12-29T23:58:57Z")
Potatoes + Milk + Fish. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/67 "2019-12-30T00:15:25Z")
Back in the day when I was working a minimum wage job looking for something better, I went cheap - primarily rice and beans, the fruits and veggies I got on the crunch and dent section of the produce section, and for added protein I popped a buck for a package of chicken backs and a buck for 24 hours access to the Lynnhaven Fishing Pier in Virginia Beach. I would crab all day, 8 or 10 hours. I had one of the eaarrly large rolling coolers, and I would trundle my catch down to the fish store and ‘bank’ it til the end of the day when I would exchange for store credit and actual different seafood, and keep a cooler of crab for myself. I would go home and cook everything up and freeze it in portions in ziplok bags, so all I needed to do was grab a protein, some beans, some rice and whatever fruits and veggies I had, and seasonings [general spices tend to be fairly cheap] were going to be my food for the day and cook it up. Lots of soups and stews … I would also make my own bread, flour and yeast are fairly cheap also. I lucked out and found a hovel [13th Bay St, Norfolk, a beachfront white/military slum in teh process of beginning gentrification] that the heat, hot water and cooking gas were included in the rent. It turns out that rap potatoes and onions are fairly cheap, and instant milk while disgusting to drink is useful as an ingredient. See, potatoes are a fairly decent food - someone once claimed that potatoes and whole milk were pretty much as complete as you could get for 2 items … a single acre of potatoes would provide 80% of the nutrition for a family of 4 for a year [or something like that, it was ages ago in a Smithsonian or other similar magazine on the Irish Famine and monocropping.] The potato is a moderately forgiving crop as long as you don’t get the blight … On the plus side, on chemo frequently the only solid food I could get down and keep down tended to be mashed potatoes with skins made with yoghurt salt and pepper. At least I was able to do medsludge =) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/68 "2019-12-30T00:45:53Z")
That’s definitely a way to eat on the cheap. But it’s a far cry from the minimal effort the OP is looking for. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/69 "2019-12-30T01:04:01Z")
Alas, “cheapest” and “easiest” do not coincide. One must choose. “Cheapest” with nutrition requires effort and time. “Easiest” requires some modicum of money. I mentioned packs of stew for under US$2 per, microwave in one minute, done. Yes, the equivalent could be made (cheaper!) with potatoes, veggies, milk or an egg, maybe some scrap meat - and time, a busy bachelor’s most valued commodity. Even boiling a pack of ramen noodles with a can of tuna added takes precious minutes. For slightly more money than a Hormel dinner package, try Tasty Bites instant Indian foods. Microwave for one minute; pour into bowl over chunks of whatever. Enjoy, fast. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/70 "2019-12-30T01:14:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But I don’t imagine that canned beef stew would be missing much of anything. It’s certainly got all the protein and fat that you need, and it probably contains enough vegetables to cover the vitamins. No fiber. I suggest those food bars, like Kind or larabar or Clif. Many contain fiber. Get a box or mixed flavors from a brand that gives decent fiber. Take a vitamin once in a while, you will need C and D likely. I find Clif bars the tastiest. ymmv. Another choice is drinking V8 and eating beef jerky. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/71 "2019-12-30T01:21:06Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > Cite? > **[How to add more fiber to your diet](https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/fiber/art-20043983)** > > Some of the health benefits of eating dietary fiber might surprise you. Find out what fiber can do for you and how to get more in your diet. > **[7 Things That Can Happen When You Don’t Get Enough Fiber](https://chicagocrusader.com/7-things-can-happen-dont-get-enough-fiber/)** > > By Elizabeth Overstreet, BlackDoctor.org > **[10 Warning Signs You’re Not Eating Enough Fiber](https://www.eatthis.com/fiber-deficiency-signs/)** > > If you're like 93% of Americans, you're not eating enough fiber—these are the surefire signs you need to step up your fiber game. > **[The Fatal Five in IDD: How Constipation Impacts Health](https://www.relias.com/blog/the-fatal-four-how-constipation-impacts-health)** > > Constipation is never fun, but if DSPs know the signs and symptoms of constipation and the other Fatal Five it doesn't have to be deadly. _Complications From Constipation The most severe – and unfortunately, a relatively common – complication from chronic or extended constipation is bowel impaction. Impaction means that the stools in the colon have hardened and become so solid and/or large that the body is not able to remove them. This can be deadly if not treated. Bowel impaction can cause toxins to build up in the body and could lead to a ruptured intestine._ ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/72 "2019-12-30T02:24:26Z")
You also could do worse than bean and cheese burritos. Cheap, filling, plenty of fiber , carbs & protein. Of course a vitamin pill once a day too. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/73 "2019-12-30T03:17:33Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You also could do worse than bean and cheese burritos. Cheap, filling, plenty of fiber , carbs & protein. Of course a vitamin pill once a day too. As I mentioned, they’re usually not far from the beer in the store cooler. Easy does it. ---
**Author:** ![Jlatorre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Jlatorre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jlatorre)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/74 "2019-12-30T04:43:15Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > I thought I read somewhere that Monkey Chow isn’t complete nutrition because monkeys in captivity are fed fresh fruits in addition to the Monkey Chow? I don’t know about that, but I can attest that one can probably survive on it. My friend John Bersch used to work in a ltesting ab where his job was to feed the monkeys with … yes, Purina Monkey Chow. He read on the bag that it was "suitable for apes, monkeys, and other large primates. “Well,” John thought. “I’m a large primate.” So he partook of some, and he found it palatable if not exactly scrumptious. After he quit that job, he became a long-distance trucker, and always had a bag of Monkey Chow with him for his long hauls. In those days (and to some extent, even now), time was money, and if he didn’t stop for food, he could make big bucks. ---
**Author:** ![Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8491ac/32.png) [@Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fake_Tales_of_San_Francisco)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/75 "2019-12-30T10:35:09Z")
I have Huel for lunch nearly every day and as the portmanteau suggests, it does pretty much work as ‘human fuel’. It does come in a variety of flavours, though. You can exclusively eat Huel and it will provide you with everything your body technically needs, but that would most likely be incredibly boring and socially debilitating. Link for reference: [https://uk.huel.com/](https://uk.huel.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/76 "2019-12-30T15:42:28Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > Dal bhat (Lentil soup and white rice). The national dish in Nepal. Nutritionally, its a complete meal. > > Years ago while hiking to the Everest Base Camp in the dead of winter, there was literally nothing else available to eat along the trail. It was 10 days of strenuous hiking between Lamasongu and Namche Bazar and each little hamlet we stopped at for lunch or dinner/sleeping only had Dal Bhat to offer us. Quite tasty the first day or so, but after a week, we were almost gagging when we tried to get it down. > > The point being, even if you found some kind of “bachelor chow”, you would very quickly get so sick of eating it that you would be force to find other kinds of food to eat. Ah, yes, fond memories of dal baht tarkari. The Nepaleee eat it all the time, and that is all they have, apart from occasional fruit and chillies. No wonder the Gurkhas are not afraid of death. After two weeks I was ready to kill for a salad. After three weeks we finally got meat. Goat. Tough and greasy. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/77 "2019-12-30T16:00:01Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > Capitalism has fed more people and lifted more families out of poverty than any other economic system. Feudalism, that was a great system where the farmer peasants turned over their crops to the King and he distributed the food to his family, nobleman and his army while the peasants starved. Or maybe we should have stuck with Socialism where the government system of food redistribution is wildly inefficient like in Soviet Russian or Communist China where millions starved to death. > > No one is forcing anyone to eat crap food. Heaven forbid having to make a “conscience” decision on what to eat. Adults should be free to eat whatever they like or should we have a Socialist government lord over what foods are available to the public because people are too stupid to know what is good for them and too easily fooled by advertisers? Restaurants and supermarkets a full of foods that are good for you. Yeah, I think that poster is confusing cause and effect as well. Lots of foods are salty and sweet because that’s what we’re evolutionarily geared to enjoy, not because that’s what the evil capitalist corporations are pushing on us. I mean, there’s a REASON that pretty much every culture’s special occasion foods are some combination of greasy, salty, savory or sweet. Because that’s what people like the most. Originally, that stuff was expensive- you had to import salt and sugar, save up grease, and meat was expensive as well. So they were special occasion foods, while everyday stuff was far blander and less interesting- stuff like turnips, beans, etc… If capitalism is responsible for today’s state of affairs, it’s because the profit motive of food corporations causes them to enable us to eat more and more of it for less money than ever before. I mean, I can go out today and for $25, I can get a lunch that’s basically what a poor Cajun might have got once or twice a year (crawfish etouffee & bread pudding). And the various ingredients have become cheaper such that for a lot less money, we can have a meal that pushes all the buttons- a hamburger and fries, for example. Again, this is because people trying to make a buck have figured out how to grow, process and ship frying oil for cheap. Same for bread, ground meat, pickles, etc… ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/78 "2019-12-30T16:06:04Z")
Robert Atkins claimed meat and veggies would do it. Sliced meat and canned vegetables all bought on sale. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/79 "2019-12-30T18:48:27Z")
**[Moderating]** **bump** , I already said that discussion of economic systems was out of bounds for this thread, and that if anyone wanted to debate those points, they should do so in Great Debates. This is a Warning for not following moderator instructions. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350/80 "2019-12-30T19:15:00Z")
Forget economics and ideologies. National military systems are necessarily state-run. Which military provides the tastiest and most nutritious packaged rations? Such would probably qualify as “bachelor food”. For awhile, anyway. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-common-food-that-could-serve-as-bachelor-chow-or-would-be-close/845350.md?page=5)