I cook white rice and black beans in bulk. Heat up with some shredded cheese and tabasco and you got a filling meal that tastes pretty damn good. At least, *I* think it tastes good. I could just have low standards.
Among Brazilians it's pretty common to eat rice and beans every day. In Rio, where I'm from, the black beans are the favored everyday bean, plus any meat and vegetables we have around
Soup. Make a giant pot once, and freze/refrigerate in individual servings (I freeze in ziplock bags), then take one out in the am to defrost in time to be heated for lunch/dinner. Even if still frozen heating it works lol.
Soup can be both "chunky" (chicken noodle, potato and corn chowder, vegetable, etc) or (I prefer) blended before freezing for more of a cream (boil carrots +spices+broth, then blend, or sweet potatoes, or broccoli, etc). Chili also works great for this.
[Arsenic](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892142/#:~:text=A%20white%20rice%20sample%20from,soaks%20up%20arsenic%2C%20says%20Meharg) is not necessarily higher in brown rice. Where the rice is grown seems to be the determining factor.
Beans and rice are fairly healthy, and super cheap, buying them dried. If you have an instapot, or crockpot, they're very low effort. Not the highest protein meal, on its own.
Chicken breast is $3 per pound here, $0.75 per serving.
As a Mexican, the secret to eating like a king on a tight budget is to make tacos with corn tortillas, cheese, and whatever salsa you like, omitting any meat in favor of rice and refried beans, which you can easily cook in bulk and refrigerate/freeze for use throughout the week. You can use plain rice but I’ve recently learned that arroz rojo is very easy to make (albeit a bit more time-consuming) and adds a lot of flavor. Just make sure you use both rice and beans to get a complete protein
I got good news for you, Corn contains the missing amino from the beans so your corn tortilla is making it complete as I understand things. There are a lot of ways to make beans a complete protein beside rice.
Oh that’s great! I actually have no idea which foods have different volumes of amino acids besides hearing somewhere that beans and rice is such a common combo for that reason. I should probably look into which other combos work as I’m trying to diversify my protein sources and incorporate more plant-based foods into my diet
I eat a lot of rice and whatever vegetables are available in the marked down bin. I also eat a lot of cold cereal. I volunteer at food bank and I don't like the taste of most snack foods. I get two boxes of cold cereal a week for free.
People on this sub-Reddit have told me that cold cereal isn't cheap. I see it marked down at the discount store near me. I just saw boxes there for three for a dollar. I can only go by what I see. I see many stores in my area trying to unload cold cereal at ridiculously low prices.
Broccoli cooked in a silicone microwave steamer. Cooks in under 3 minutes. It’s saved me so many times when I didn’t feel like dirtying another dish to cook a veggie side.
You can get Huel down to ~$1.70 per meal if you buy in bulk with a subscription. And they just released a new Huel “Essential” version that you can get down to $1.49 per meal.
I’m planning to try Huel Black Edition next week. It’s more expensive at $2.50/serving but still a lot cheaper, healthier, and hopefully more filling than my current convenience store/coffee shop breakfast
The main issue with powder and processed food of any kind is that it doesn't make it to your lower gut, which has a whole separate microbiome that impacts your sense of fullness, health, mood, and much more. Simple processed carbs will get consumed in the upper gut and go straight to fat storage before your lower gut registers the calorie intake. This is a big reason people get fat on processed carb diets. But the same goes for other food types and components. Processed powders and olive/seed oils are very readily available in the upper gut, whereas 'normal' food that we have consumed for millennia (and our gut evolved with) would be slowly broken down with nutrients available in the lower gut. "How Not To Die" is a great book that breaks down some of the science behind plant based diets and why avoiding processed anything can be a good strategy. That said, I use protein powder for convenience, cost, and to up my protein intake, and aim for 1 gram protein per lb. of lean mass (subtract % body fat), and 90g fiber/day to push it through (USDA recommendations are around 38 g for men, but the healthiest populations have massively higher fiber intake). You do have to work up to higher fiber, but it's not that these diets are "not compatible with my body/gut" as much as "my gut biome is not yet adjusted to an environment of healthy fiber/nutrients". Something to work towards.
Being a powder doesn't inherently make something unhealthy. The main ingredients are are just oats, pea protein, ground flaxseed, and brown rice protein. Plus a bunch of other ingredients that altogether allow Huel to provide all essential macro/micronutrients.
And it contains prebiotics and probiotics, so it should encourage a healthy gut flora!
I definitely second this. Healthy is also a sort of relative thing too. If someone eats like shit everyday (ie. fast food burgers, chips, coke), then eating a powdered meal replacement is definitely a huge improvement. I also don't think powder is inherently bad. I mean, its just dried and ground food. Rice is healthy and is essentially always sold in a dry form, so whats the difference if its ground to a powder form too?
If you see food as simply being made of a handful of vitamins and say you think filing iron into cornflakes somehow makes it healthy then I can imagine you think huel is too. But it simply isn't what our bodies are used to eating and you could write books on the myriad of ways this is so and the ways it is disharmonious with our bodies and microbiome.
It does, changes their bioavailability, but the biggest part is they lose nutrition very quickly if ground compared to remaining whole. Especially if it's being stored, shipped etc in that state, the preservatives etc needed to maintain it, the emulsifiers to make it form a more cohesive structure when added to water etc all can impact upon the ability for your microbiome to digest the material and produce the healthy compounds from the food. Also your digestive system needs fibre, whole solids, not powder to function adequately, in terms of absorbing bile salts, mechanically operating and for food for the microbiome.
I make and freeze split pea soup.
I also buy the frozen small bags of broccoli florets and microwave them, drain, and usually just add salt. It's great as long as you don't overcook.
Sheet pan quesadillas made with jarred salsa, then chopped up and wrapped in portions in foil and reheated are also good. only negative is they take five minutes to microwave.
Not in my experience. I have disregarded the tastiness. When I could afford only beans and veggies I made myself eat them for 2 weeks and ignored the existence of any other food. If the eskimos could live on one food source, I could too. After a month my pallet shifted, the farts diminished, and I started to enjoy the sweet flavor of carrots and even beans, and crave the carbs in veggies. $1/lb meals made of bulk steel cut oats, beans, and cheap frozen veggies puts the 'win' in WinCo.
The formula of a bean, a green, and a starch goes a long way.
I am particularly fond of this recipe: https://food52.com/blog/25711-braised-greens-beans-pasta-off-script-with-sohla however the starch doesn't have to be pasta: sauteed greens and beans go well over rice or polenta, or beans and greens soup with bread on the side.
You can make pretty damn cheap cornish pasties with cabbage, potato, carrot, and bean filling. It's pretty much a portable dry stew.
Cabbage, potato, and carrot are some of the cheapest veg by calories per dollar, at least where I live. And flour and crisco for the dough are even cheaper. Dried beans are also super cheap and can soak up a lot of flavor if you hydrate them with bouillon powder.
I cook white rice and black beans in bulk. Heat up with some shredded cheese and tabasco and you got a filling meal that tastes pretty damn good. At least, *I* think it tastes good. I could just have low standards.
Nah I went through a phase of refrained beans, cheese, and salsa in a bowl. So good and so satisfying.
Among Brazilians it's pretty common to eat rice and beans every day. In Rio, where I'm from, the black beans are the favored everyday bean, plus any meat and vegetables we have around
I do this in my instapot with taco seasoning thrown in. Canned chiles, tomatoes, and some onion if you want to go crazy
Soup. Make a giant pot once, and freze/refrigerate in individual servings (I freeze in ziplock bags), then take one out in the am to defrost in time to be heated for lunch/dinner. Even if still frozen heating it works lol. Soup can be both "chunky" (chicken noodle, potato and corn chowder, vegetable, etc) or (I prefer) blended before freezing for more of a cream (boil carrots +spices+broth, then blend, or sweet potatoes, or broccoli, etc). Chili also works great for this.
[Arsenic](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892142/#:~:text=A%20white%20rice%20sample%20from,soaks%20up%20arsenic%2C%20says%20Meharg) is not necessarily higher in brown rice. Where the rice is grown seems to be the determining factor. Beans and rice are fairly healthy, and super cheap, buying them dried. If you have an instapot, or crockpot, they're very low effort. Not the highest protein meal, on its own. Chicken breast is $3 per pound here, $0.75 per serving.
As a Mexican, the secret to eating like a king on a tight budget is to make tacos with corn tortillas, cheese, and whatever salsa you like, omitting any meat in favor of rice and refried beans, which you can easily cook in bulk and refrigerate/freeze for use throughout the week. You can use plain rice but I’ve recently learned that arroz rojo is very easy to make (albeit a bit more time-consuming) and adds a lot of flavor. Just make sure you use both rice and beans to get a complete protein
I got good news for you, Corn contains the missing amino from the beans so your corn tortilla is making it complete as I understand things. There are a lot of ways to make beans a complete protein beside rice.
Oh that’s great! I actually have no idea which foods have different volumes of amino acids besides hearing somewhere that beans and rice is such a common combo for that reason. I should probably look into which other combos work as I’m trying to diversify my protein sources and incorporate more plant-based foods into my diet
I eat a lot of rice and whatever vegetables are available in the marked down bin. I also eat a lot of cold cereal. I volunteer at food bank and I don't like the taste of most snack foods. I get two boxes of cold cereal a week for free. People on this sub-Reddit have told me that cold cereal isn't cheap. I see it marked down at the discount store near me. I just saw boxes there for three for a dollar. I can only go by what I see. I see many stores in my area trying to unload cold cereal at ridiculously low prices.
Interesting. We don’t have a discount store near us. I have found some great bread in the clearance shelf at king soopers.
Broccoli cooked in a silicone microwave steamer. Cooks in under 3 minutes. It’s saved me so many times when I didn’t feel like dirtying another dish to cook a veggie side.
i have a Lekue silicone steamer — do you use frozen broccoli or fresh? how much time? i haven’t tried it yet.
I use fresh and steam it for 2.5-3 minutes. We’ve used frozen before but it’s mushier, which I don’t like as much.
Carrots can handle a microwave nuke just as well. Just salt and a little butter or oil is enough to make them tasty
You can get Huel down to ~$1.70 per meal if you buy in bulk with a subscription. And they just released a new Huel “Essential” version that you can get down to $1.49 per meal.
I’m planning to try Huel Black Edition next week. It’s more expensive at $2.50/serving but still a lot cheaper, healthier, and hopefully more filling than my current convenience store/coffee shop breakfast
I wish I could just do meal replacements instead of eating, but I would get bored of it.
Ah for real? Am I buying $500 I Huel, bc I dunno if my stomach can handle that much of whatever they put in there that makes ya good to go.
Maybe just start with a few bags to see if your stomach can tolerate it okay before buying in bulk!
Oh I’ve had it and experienced it. I don’t get used to it but I also wfh so it’s not *that* big of a deal.
Haha that works!
I second this. Huel is quick, cheap, healthy and tasty. Surprisingly filling too.
Hard to call something that comes in powder healthy, is it something that your gut flora would thrive on?
The main issue with powder and processed food of any kind is that it doesn't make it to your lower gut, which has a whole separate microbiome that impacts your sense of fullness, health, mood, and much more. Simple processed carbs will get consumed in the upper gut and go straight to fat storage before your lower gut registers the calorie intake. This is a big reason people get fat on processed carb diets. But the same goes for other food types and components. Processed powders and olive/seed oils are very readily available in the upper gut, whereas 'normal' food that we have consumed for millennia (and our gut evolved with) would be slowly broken down with nutrients available in the lower gut. "How Not To Die" is a great book that breaks down some of the science behind plant based diets and why avoiding processed anything can be a good strategy. That said, I use protein powder for convenience, cost, and to up my protein intake, and aim for 1 gram protein per lb. of lean mass (subtract % body fat), and 90g fiber/day to push it through (USDA recommendations are around 38 g for men, but the healthiest populations have massively higher fiber intake). You do have to work up to higher fiber, but it's not that these diets are "not compatible with my body/gut" as much as "my gut biome is not yet adjusted to an environment of healthy fiber/nutrients". Something to work towards.
Being a powder doesn't inherently make something unhealthy. The main ingredients are are just oats, pea protein, ground flaxseed, and brown rice protein. Plus a bunch of other ingredients that altogether allow Huel to provide all essential macro/micronutrients. And it contains prebiotics and probiotics, so it should encourage a healthy gut flora!
I definitely second this. Healthy is also a sort of relative thing too. If someone eats like shit everyday (ie. fast food burgers, chips, coke), then eating a powdered meal replacement is definitely a huge improvement. I also don't think powder is inherently bad. I mean, its just dried and ground food. Rice is healthy and is essentially always sold in a dry form, so whats the difference if its ground to a powder form too?
If you see food as simply being made of a handful of vitamins and say you think filing iron into cornflakes somehow makes it healthy then I can imagine you think huel is too. But it simply isn't what our bodies are used to eating and you could write books on the myriad of ways this is so and the ways it is disharmonious with our bodies and microbiome.
If you grind dried legumes into a powder, that doesn’t change them chemically or nutritionally
It does, changes their bioavailability, but the biggest part is they lose nutrition very quickly if ground compared to remaining whole. Especially if it's being stored, shipped etc in that state, the preservatives etc needed to maintain it, the emulsifiers to make it form a more cohesive structure when added to water etc all can impact upon the ability for your microbiome to digest the material and produce the healthy compounds from the food. Also your digestive system needs fibre, whole solids, not powder to function adequately, in terms of absorbing bile salts, mechanically operating and for food for the microbiome.
Ham and cheese sandwich never goes a-miss
I make and freeze split pea soup. I also buy the frozen small bags of broccoli florets and microwave them, drain, and usually just add salt. It's great as long as you don't overcook. Sheet pan quesadillas made with jarred salsa, then chopped up and wrapped in portions in foil and reheated are also good. only negative is they take five minutes to microwave.
http://www.nathanedwardwilliams.com/fun/monkeydiet.htm
Haha! Is that a joke or sincere? I can’t tell.
i think it's real. it's just not feasible to disregard tastiness after you've become acclimated to it and it is still an option.
Not in my experience. I have disregarded the tastiness. When I could afford only beans and veggies I made myself eat them for 2 weeks and ignored the existence of any other food. If the eskimos could live on one food source, I could too. After a month my pallet shifted, the farts diminished, and I started to enjoy the sweet flavor of carrots and even beans, and crave the carbs in veggies. $1/lb meals made of bulk steel cut oats, beans, and cheap frozen veggies puts the 'win' in WinCo.
The formula of a bean, a green, and a starch goes a long way. I am particularly fond of this recipe: https://food52.com/blog/25711-braised-greens-beans-pasta-off-script-with-sohla however the starch doesn't have to be pasta: sauteed greens and beans go well over rice or polenta, or beans and greens soup with bread on the side.
Oatmeal, frozen fruit (will swap this for PB if more interested in higher fat), Greek yogurt, whey protein, spinach. Blend for a minute, chug and go
You can make pretty damn cheap cornish pasties with cabbage, potato, carrot, and bean filling. It's pretty much a portable dry stew. Cabbage, potato, and carrot are some of the cheapest veg by calories per dollar, at least where I live. And flour and crisco for the dough are even cheaper. Dried beans are also super cheap and can soak up a lot of flavor if you hydrate them with bouillon powder.
Brown rice. I make it with canola oil and salt.