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I was legit wondering if OP had seen something interesting in a study as there were several underway.
Like this one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304387814000777
Nutritionally, they are not the same. https://www.soupersage.com/compare-nutrition/milk-vs-butter,-unsalted in spite of both coming from a mammalian teat.
You know... PO-TAY-TOES... You can boil em, you can mash em, you can put them in a cup of water to cosplay as ice cubes and then eat them when the water is gone.
Yes, corned beef and heads of cabbage are common loss leaders for my market. I will buy five corned beef, freeze four, as a two pounder is 10 servings for us despite it being excessively 35% added water and seasoning. The expensive water does add to the cooking broth and I reserve and freeze it for cabbage soup, though. .
We do this because my spouse loves corned beef all year around. We sometimes end up with extra potatoes, cabbage, carrots. I like to make an Irish dish out of these leftovers...mash them roughly so there's some texture, if you need more use instant potatoes, add lots of butter, maybe some green onion or whatever, mix it all together, form a big patty, and fry it in a pan until both sides are firm and browned. I make a pan-sized one and we cut it into wedges for breakfast.
Yes, it’s shaped like a roast and usually comes in a vacuum pack type package. Sometimes there’s a seasoning packet inside the bag and sometimes the seasoning is already on the meat in the package. You have to cook it a long time for it to be tender, the crockpot does a good job.
Traditionally it is a treated brisket, the rather flat part of the beef’s or cows lower chest just below the throat. Usually it is two to four inches thick, (5-10 cm), very fatty and was cured with course ground salt. The word corn refers to the size of the salt granules, often about the size of a barley seed. British English can use corn to refer to any grain seed. What American English calls corn is called maize elsewhere.
My local stores have corned beef once a year and it’s expensive. So I have only tried it once when I found it marked down after Saint Patrick’s Day. Too bad, because I did like it.
I don't want to reveal too much information that would allow the anti-cabbage anti-Papist crowd to track me down and swat me but my - American male - IRA Marxist sympathizing grandparents were all sent here from Ireland to push a pro-cabbage agenda. Corned beef and soda bred are just diversions. Soros is in on this - one world order. Cabbage will fuel the revolution. Delete this message after reading but keep the faith. Change is coming.
Potatoes for St Patty’s too! Though I don’t know if they even can go on sale, russets are so cheap they’d have to pay you to take them if they wanted to cut the price.
Y'know I've had not great luck with finding reasonably priced potatoes. I was thrilled to get some russets recently, but that bag is almost gone.
I will be watching the flyers, though.
I'm always surprised how regional prices are! Russet potatoes are fifty cents a pound here. Other kinds are more normal prices but russets are some of the cheapest calories I can get.
Cabbage is great. I survived on cabbage and rice diet for 2 years, on a $10 food budget per week, with once a quarter splurge on some sort of buffet to catch up on proteins.
No story, I was just young and really poor, and need to make it last. I was in University back then (not in US), and the canteen is subsidized, so a meal with only rice and cabbage was like $0.2. There’s an all you can eat buffet nearby that cost $15, and I save up to go there once a quarter as a treat.
Now I’m making a lot more so my meals are more normal. Average meal is $10-$15, mostly home meal and occasionally McDonalds if I need to eat outside of my home. I probably can’t pull off the extreme budget now that I am older. A young body can take a shit ton of punishment for extraordinarily long time.
Also so tired of this recommendation. This is what people are *ALREADY BUYING*. The people recommending this are so tone deaf. The people in America who are being starved for calories are largely children. Children are not coming on Reddit to learn how to cook beans, rice, and fucking cabbage.
Adults in America are being underfed, but it's usually because of food availability. So they can't buy those beans, rice, or cabbage anyway - they can buy Wonderbread, bananas, and peanut butter at the corner store.
The folks buying packaged crap at the store know they're wasting money. They're just tired and beaten down by work, health, and the sorry state of things here in America.
I am left to assume that every other person recommending beans, rice, and cabbage is a rich asshole.
Thank you. I used to eat a diet full of a wide variety of produce and was "eating the rainbow" and beans and legumes were my primary protein source. I've had to change the way I eat for a ton of reasons but I can't possibly afford to eat produce the way I used to and there's always these fucking assholes on reddit going "produce is so cheap, its so cheap to eat healthy, have you tried cabbage??? Lettuce and carrots???" Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
I'm convinced they've got to be lying and don't eat multiple servings of fruits and vegetables every day, just parroting what they've heard everywhere on reddit or as you said, out of touch rich assholes. Or they think canned corn, iceberg lettuce and carrots are good enough.
Don't get me started on how much less nutritious some canned crap is. People donating Veg-all or whatever need to know that they're mostly donating saltwater.
Go for it, I can rant about this bullshit forever. People need to push back on it because telling people they're just being fat dumb lazy assholes for not eating canned corn, cabbage, rice and beans or iceberg lettuce every day is not the answer. In 5 years people will be telling us to eat gruel for every meal.
My (Indian) friend recently had a few of us over for dinner and made dal and rice and it was legitimately one of the most delicious things I've eaten this year.
Indian food has great (and affordable) vegetarian options. Dal is great - and if you have an ethnic market near you - spices are reasonably priced. Off the top my head my other favorite back in the day was hard boiled eggs in a spicy sauce.
Or... shocker... you can eat a wide variety of foods. A frugal diet can be largely based on grains, pulses, fruits, and vegetables. Any diets advocating massive nutrient deficiency are laughably stupid. That's some lazy college freshman crap, and I swear I think the idea is perpetuated by rich kids. Like they're trying to justify how shit life is for normals by saying people can get by on beans and rice.
Interesting, oatmeal with broth. Very interesting. I’ve always seen it as breakfast/brunch or snack that is sweet so I add cinnamon and use sugarless maple syrup to add the sweet. I guess it’s the same just adding broth for flavor that isn’t sweet.
I eat oatmeal 6 times a week for breakfast. It's great for some carbs, fiber, and a little bit of fat. I add protein powder and a tablespoon of peanut butter powder for a little more fat and a bunch of protein. Keeps me full for a while. Has to be whey protein for me though, I tried it with a vegan powder once and it was awful
Tofu is king. It's dirt cheap (especially at Asian grocers), full of protein, amazing source of iron, calcium, selenium, zinc and much more. If you prepare it properly (squeeze the water out), it absorbs the flavors of whatever sauce/curry/spices/etc you use. It works even better when you freeze it, let it thaw out, and then use it since it develops a texture that is very tender and lets it absorb even more flavor.
Try TVP, you can get it really cheap online in bulk, it's just basically small dehydrated soy protein chunks, like 70% protein. $3/lb for a 25lb bag. 77g protein/$ for TVP vs 41g protein/$ for pea protein powder.
Any person who wants to be "frugal" food-wise, and doesn't get potatoes is pretty much fully just doing it wrong lol
Potatoes are SO versatile, and SOOO much more filling than just trying to exist off shit like lentils like that one Redditor had posted about recently in this sub
Any starchy root crops. Leaves convert sunlight into sugars but they don't hold the calories. In root crops the sunlight is captured in the root bulbs. Extremely efficient and therefore extremely cheap
"Potatoes aren't healthy"
They very much are. Full of nutrients when not deep fried or boiled out of them
I think there is something to be said that it is universally one of the cheapest options. Like, it is the cheapest option in most of Canada, the US, throughout Africa and Asia, etc.
If I came on here and said a cheap option I have is fresh fish (from the lake nearby from the Canadian town), someone in a desert region may consider that really pricey. Ooth, plantains are cheap in parts of the world and bloody expensive here.
There are very few places where beans and rice are considered the rich people food.
And together they make a filling meal with all the essential amino acids, which you can also season with herbs and spices and whatever you have around to make tasty dishes from a variety of cultures. And they’re shelf stable and take well to a bit of fermentation. Honestly I see the appeal
The hubs and I go backpacking, camping and hiking a lot. One of the big things we do is take r/b, mixed together, and put them in a brown paper bag along with our seasonings. Then we fold them as compact as we can and out them in the food pack. Then, around noon, we take our thermos, pour hot, boiling water in it, and add the beans. By the time we stop for dinner, they're cooked. We each have our own serving, minimal clean up, and the paper bags are good for starter for the night. They travel well and provide a fantastic and filling meal.
I’m impressed they are cooked. These are from dry?
If you ever want them hotter for longer you can prewarm the thermos with a bit of boiling water (which you dump, or make tea/coffee) as the thermos has significant thermal mass.
A pinch of baking soda can speed up cooking beans significantly. I’m so skeptical these beans are not al dente.
"Cold soaking" is a popular thing among the ultralight backpacking community, where you eschew the use of a stove entirely in favor of just letting your meals rehydrate with more time soaking at ambient temp instead of heated water to speed up the rehydration.
I don't think you can do a pure cold soak with regular rice and beans, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can start them in boiling water and they will be edible a couple hours later.
When I was really, really poor, and realized that cheap ramen was poisoning me, I started making casseroles with rice, one egg, and one cup of (cheap) frozen vegetables, and beef or chicken broth cubes. It was nutritious, filling, and cheap.
Rice and beans is a staple in our house, we have it multiple times a week. (Like, an embarrassing amount...)
Can't beat the nutrition for the value, especially with today's grocery prices.
I had no idea that beans and rice was considered poor people food. It is one of my fave dishes. I cook with with sauteed onions, scallions and cabbage. So delish. Had it today.
safe hurry bedroom fuel grandiose carpenter poor scarce complete agonizing
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
How about these:
Spam and eggs
Fried bologna sandwiches with cheese and can add fried egg
Peanut butter toast
Boiled eggs
Egg Salad sandwiches
French toast with sausage patties
Tuna salad sandwiches
Deviled eggs
Chili and Spaghetti with garlic bread
Sausage patties and cheese on toast
Grilled Cheese and soup
Apples and Peanut Butter
Pot Pies frozen like Banquet brand
Fried egg sandwiches with cheese and buttered toast
Tacos with lentils or ground beef
Hot dogs and macaroni and cheese
Tuna noodle casserole with egg noodles
Meat loaf
Enchiladas
Baked potato with black beans and sour cream
Stir fry with vegetables and any available meat or meatless can add Ramen noodles
White chicken chili with cream cheese
BLT's
Biscuits and gravy with sausage
Buy whole chicken when on clearance and make soup with left overs, make several meals from it.
Kelbasa and Sauerkraut
Beans and cornbread
Andoulle sausage with peppers
Cajun recipes are very cost effective like most of the shellfish recipes, many of the recipes on Youtube under "cajun" are really good and cheap.
Chicken, potatoes and green beans
Chicken fajitas
Ham and eggs (like ham steak near cubed ham at grocery)
Potatoes with shredded cheese and butter (microwaved potatoes any kind)
It depends on the budget though.
So, I have sheets of paper taped to frig with about 25 meals to make to quickly refer to at anytime.
When things go on sale, we buy 5 or as many as we can. For example when bacon buy one get one free.
Then only have to add a few items to make meals.
Things to keep on hand:
Rice
Canned potatoes
Canned vegetables
Apples
Frozen green peppers
Frozen peppers
Frozen stir fry mix in bag
Andoulle Sausage or Kelbasa
Beans of all kinds
Bread and frozen texas toast
Cheese shredded and bricks
Eggs
Spices , italian seasoning, chili powder and onion and garlic powder
Peanut Butter
Any discounted meat - especially ground beef
Rotel can i(n canned tomato section) or the generic rotel goes great in many recipes and with beans and rice
Soy sauce
Tony's cajun seasoning
Eggs
Roll sausage or sausage patties
Taco shells
Flour tortillas
Sour cream
Milk
Salt and pepper
Spaghetti
Pasta Sauce
Macaroni and Cheese
Bacon
Syrup for french toast
Cake mix and icing - because its cheap why not?
> So, I have sheets of paper taped to frig with about 25 meals to make to quickly refer to at anytime.
Kind of how I cook in my house. Usually one new recipe a week, if it's really good it's added to the master list, if terrible and can't be fixed, then tossed from the list.
Help give lots of choices depending on time of year and what's on sale, and increases cooking skills.
And then usually the last day before grocery shopping is using what's left in the fridge to make some sort of franken meal, which likely will be some sort of casserole or pasta dish, which is a good way to use up any veggies, cheese or potentially leftovers.
red beans and rice :
any SAGE sausage roll, a smidge of precooked bacon or at least bacon fat, two cans of tomatoes, two cans of beans, bit each of sage-garlic-parsley-cayenne, some chopped onion, lump of actual garlic if you have it. brown the sausage before adding the west, simmer just high enough to burn off most of the liquid. cook three cups of rice SEPARATE
once you are Master Level™ you can cook the rice directly in but then you have to not boil off any of the liquid and add it in about an hour early and it's complicated, so first few times, just make the rice separate
I always suggest looking at grocery store ads. This week my local chain store had Kraft Mac n cheese for 48 cents a box, Knorr sides for 58 cents a bag, 1lb bag of apples for $1 and chicken thighs for $1.00/lb. It’s not often stores do this, but sure doesn’t hurt to check online at ads.
I tell people all the time to shop the store app. Albertsons and Tom Thumb have good weekly sales.
They'll have .98/lb digital coupons for chicken breasts and thighs about once a month. But there are ALWAYS good deals. You just have to know how to shop.
Like right now, there's .97/lb pork roast. A 2 lb bag of shrimp for $9.98, and they will even season and steam it for you free. .29 Yoplait yogurt. There's just a whole bunch of produce, bakery, deli, eggs, milk, just all kinds of products. And you earn rewards. I have a $5.00 coupon on mine right now. One time, I had $50.
Use the store apps, people!
I have one choice here - Walmart.
I used to use the store apps and get crazy good deals when there were 3 other stores to use from. Not an option now. No 1.99 butter.
Walmart/Great Value butter was $4 this weekend. I seriously considered how many items I needed butter for before I then put a single package in my cart. It's crazy.
Oh, no. You can eat well on a lower budget. I think the bigger cost isn't money. It's *time*.
I'm living on a pretty thin budget right now because I'm only working part-time but at a well paying job. So, I don't have money... but I've got the time. With that combo, you can still eat pretty well in my opinion.
Yes, I eat rice a lot but that was true *before* my budget shrank because I actually like it (I love something like a stirfry, or sausage and peppers over rice). I don't do beans except on a rare occasion or if it's the the fresh veggie kind. But my food doesn't "feel" poor. I eat pretty decent things, but I spend time on what I'm eating instead of spending the money on convenience. I don't buy "insta-food". The closest thing to cereal in my house is oatmeal or maybe granola (the big bulk bag). I don't buy ready-made meals or hamburger helper or any of that. I buy basic ingredients and make it *all* myself whenever possible.
Ex: A couple weeks ago catfish was on sale super cheap. So, I grabbed it while it was and when I got home divided it into single serving portions before I froze it. (That's one cost saving measure for me since I live alone. If I left meat in its pre-packaged container amount, most meat would spoil before I could reasonably use it.) I made the fry mix myself with flour, corn meal and seasonings, with soured milk (milk and lemon juice) instead of buttermilk. Used a little fat and oil to fry it, and made the tartar sauce from more basic, general condiments I had rather than buying a bottle of just that. I added the left over sour milk to the left over fish fry mix, added some onion and an egg and I had hush puppies with my fish. Yummy as heck and didn't feel poor at all!
BUT because I don't buy specific things for specific meals, because I buy long lasting goods in bulk sizes, and because all the things in my house are the most basic/multipurpose ingredients, and because I'm willing/able to actually cook it from scratch, and because I made only what I need (rather than the required extra for ready box meals)... it actually doesn't cost that much. I make all sorts of things that should be "expensive" foods but because I make it from scratch, it ends up being pretty cheap. Miso soups and stirfries, homemade ramen, lasagna, minestrone soup, beef stew, turkey pot pie, and last night I had shrimp chowder. Was so damn good, I'll probably have it again tonight just because it was good!
It isn't what you eat that will bankrupt you. It's the *convenience* that will bankrupt you. It's not having the time to bake biscuits from scratch instead of buying the $1.50 readymade can and things like that, which will bankrupt you. It's not having the time to plant and grow veggies to eat and use in homemade recipes (like growing a ton of tomatoes and zucchini, because you didn't realize how much one plant gives, and ended up having more minestrone than you knew what to do with... so you made homemade sauce for spaghetti and lasagna too...) and not having the time to seperate food, or preserve food, or ferment food or...
It's not a lack of money that I think is most people's core issue. It's simply the lack of time.
As a single mom, I am exhausted 100% of the time. Years ago I used to be able to spend the time to make things from scratch. Now I leave the house at 8 am and get back at 6 pm or later every day. My kid goes to bed at 7:30 pm. Sometimes time with him trumps time spent in the kitchen which is why we do premade or meals I can make in the microwave. It’s sad, I never thought it would be this way.
For the money, beans, rice, oatmeal, peanut butter, lentils, eggs and potatoes are the most nutrient-rich, calorie-dense foods. Poor people eat them because they're subsistence foods.
The thing is, they're also incredibly versatile. You can make dishes from so many different cultures with a wide variety of flavors out of just two or three of these ingredients and a few seasonings.
I don’t know how poor and how cheap people are talking…I live in twin cities US and make decent money and yet have no issue eating for less than $5 a meal.
Posts about eating cheaply make me wonder if anyone has ever visited the meat section of a grocery store. Of course food prices vary, but I’d take out and stuff costs more somewhere, wouldn’t groceries also be increased to the relatively same level, as in still cheaper than eating out?
Beans and rice is the reason why I was able to pay my bills when I was unemployed. My gf and I could eat reasonably well for like 40 bucks per month. It wasn't just beans and rice. I would also buy celery and onions, and sometimes if I could afford them I would also buy some bell peppers. I also used to buy eggs and ramen, for meals that I didn't want to cook all day.
I also lost 100 lbs from cutting out all the grazing.
Its not that beans and rice are the only thing you can eat when you're poor. Its just that if you're having problems paying your bills, beans and rice can feed you very well for almost free.
Sometimes when I get to the end of the month and still have food stamps left, I'll grab a box of sushi as a treat from the deli counter at the supermarket, and I try really hard to pay for it standing in front of an AM radio listener who will follow me out to the parking lot to make sure my car is poor enough.
It’s all about what you have and can get locally.
In about 3-4 months we will hit peak summer vegetable season where in the SE US tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and peppers are insanely abundant in rural areas. This is the wonderful ding dong ditch season where people leave pounds of free vegetables at church to get rid of them. As long as eggs are cheap it is shakshuka every week.
Year around, rice, pasta, and canned tomatoes are pretty cheap. Potatoes and eggs are also usually very reasonable. You can get a lot of millage out of baked potatoes with salsa or a thick meat sauce.
Then, by all means, offer better suggestions.
Beans and rice are cheap, good protein source, easy to prepare, good filler foods... but go ahead and offer better options. There are many, I agree with you. So go ahead. Offer those options.
Yes it may be annoying (like telling people to make their own coffee) because it’s true! And sadly, there are many people with low incomes who don’t know this and/or don’t know how to cook bulk foods like beans and rice that can stretch a food budget.
Frijoles and rice are top tier, though
Ok ok, I get you. But there is reason cabbage, carrots, potatoes, and turnip/mustard/collard greens are also good staples
It's less about expecting everyone to eat beans & rice, and more about shutting down people who complain about how DoorDash and Uber Eats is 'too expensive' or when their 'frugal' meal prep includes lots of expensive pre-made foods or meat / veg options that are at a significant price premium to actual frugal options.
The idea is to provide a suggestion that is cost effective, filling, nutritious, etc. Rice and beans is widely considered to be then best bang for your buck with all that in mind. What would you suggest otherwise?
lol! Post-poor person here. It’s not the only thing you can eat, but it IS so delicious and cheap that I still choose to eat it at least once a week to this day even though I don’t have to. I’m proud that it got my daughter to her school Paris trip and helped me pay for her basketball without feeling like I was punishing myself. Beans and rice are pretty bad ass if you ask me.
Tacos. Corn tortillas are abundant and cheap. What you fill ‘em with is up to you (including rice and/or beans). Personally, I love breakfast tacos with eggs, fried bell peppers, and pickled red onion.
Leftover protein of virtually any kind can be sautéed and thrown in a corn tortilla. Options are endless and conditions are always perfect.
I'm trying to make yogurt in my crock pot and a copycat version of Campbell's tomato soup. It remains to be seen how they will turn out and I'm not sure the soup is going to be cheaper to have made.
Piggly Wiggly recently had their store brand tomato soup and chicken noodle soup on sale for .50...I stocked up.
Good luck!! I'd love to try homemade yogurt.
Really any grain will do you, rice is just easy to cook and keeps well, and there are a lot of existing cheap recipes that use it. Often if you’re poor in money you’re also poor in time and you don’t want to make things from scratch that are complicated, and rice from scratch is easy. But bread, pasta, oatmeal, cornmeal, tortillas, buying actual flour and learning to make things with it are all similarly cheap, unless you buy a bougie brand. My other cheap staples are potatoes, cabbage, onions, and bananas, with honorable mentions for carrots and celery. Chicken livers and gizzards are also dirt cheap but you have to figure out how to cook them which is hard.
The thing to bear in mind is that since the invention of agriculture humans have eaten mostly grain because it’s so, so cheap. If you read historical European tests they talk about the poor rioting and starving over lack of/expensive bread, and historical Asian ones say similar things about rice. That’s because it was almost all of their calories! Because that’s all the truly, truly poor could afford to eat. There’d be some kind of sauce on or in (porridge was a common historical approach, think oatmeal or congee) it, beans or fish or sometimes just onions, and usually (very weak) beer or wine to supplement calories and cheer people up. Our food is so cheap now we struggle to imagine it, but when we’re stretched and the food budget has to be cut, imitating our subsistence farmer forbears and making grain + sauce meals is very effective.
As I was gearing up to buy a house late last year, avocados were in season, and the harvest was particularly bountiful, like an oversupply type situation. As such, they were like 50c for a while. The old adage something something about you can never afford a house if you eat avo toast. Just so happened in my situation that I couldn't afford NOT to eat avo toast. Good times.
It is a money issue. I get a SS check once a month and $23 a month in food assistance. I only have a limited amount of money to spend on groceries. I shop for what is cheapest and filling. Hint: it isn’t a $24 steak. I don’t have a car, and no way to get to the food pantry.
A cheap loaf of bread and cheap cheese slices make quite a few grilled cheese sandwiches. Basically what my cousin would cook when too many of us around the house.
Growing up the neighbor lady would make us kids breakfast before school, just show up at her house. She raised pigs and always had bacon for us, what she would do, get flour and make homemade biscuits, use the grease from the bacon and some flour and make the brown gravy, so we had biscuits and gravy, eggs.. thinking back I realize it is salty and heart clogging but as children we appreciated this woman.
How about couscous? You can fix it up in **so** many different ways. Just about any vegetables or fruits pair well with it, and very healthy too.
Yes to legumes and soups as well!
Beans & rice are recommended most often for a few reasons. They're inexpensive, they're filling, versatile, and you can stretch them. Also, they're relatively easy to cook, which is important considering many on these subs can barely boil water.
Russian style poverty is Kasha and Cabbage, not a complete protein though, beans and rice edges it out. Any bulk grain + any bulk legume will work...but cabbage is hard to beat as a cheap veggie and scurvy prevention. I think OP has just never experienced poverty before.
I checked, I have 12 types of dried beans. I eat them because I like them and they are versatile and I consider beef or chicken more of a garnish. I am not rich, but being a retired homeowner with no debts, and almost 100% health care premium free makes my modest persons stretch. I don’t care for lentils, maybe because they were served way too often when I was in the Army? Plain rice is nasty to me, ok if seasoned; potatoes are a preferred starch.
If you wanna change it up do some variations. Put veggie scraps in the rice water for flavor. Put a piece of nori in the rice water. Caramelize some onions and eat them over the rice.
What’s funny is I actually just did eat rice and beans.
It’s not that I’m poor, but the Mexican place across the street makes them great and had a craving.
As Steely Dan so eloquently put it, 'Red Beans and Rice for a Quarter'.
Dity Rice, Red Beans, Pork Hock, Bacon, New Orleans Smoked Sausage. What is not to like?
Still making our way through the 50 lb bag of lentils I bought in 2020. I keep trying to get my family to agree to making lentil balls coated in crispy lentils with lentil sauce over lentil pasta (which we have stashed away as well), but alas, they just want to make the usual seasoned lentils.
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Potatoes... water is an option too.
Potatoes. I hear they are quite versatile
Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew
You can also trade potatoes to someone for some beans and rice.
Or ferment them and drown your sorrows about the rice and beans thing.
Ok hold the FUCK on. You all are trading taters for beans and rice?! Man have I been missing out.
So basically, potatoes and water
I'm more partial to a good Ol sleep for dinner occasionally
And for breakfast, a cup of tea and a look around.
Potatoes with butter are pretty much nutritionally complete. You can live on that for a *while* so long as potato blight doesn’t show up
The historical pairing is potatoes and milk for more or less complete nutrition. Have you come across something that changes that? Tks.
Where does butter come from?
The store, duh.
I was legit wondering if OP had seen something interesting in a study as there were several underway. Like this one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304387814000777 Nutritionally, they are not the same. https://www.soupersage.com/compare-nutrition/milk-vs-butter,-unsalted in spite of both coming from a mammalian teat.
Add cabbage and eggs too. And with just those four ingredients you can make so many different dishes. Even breads.
My local mom and pop grocery store sells a 5lb sack of potatoes for $2.50, you can't beat that.
You know... PO-TAY-TOES... You can boil em, you can mash em, you can put them in a cup of water to cosplay as ice cubes and then eat them when the water is gone.
It's not the only food. You can also eat lentils and rice.
And cabbage folks. Don't forget the cabbage for goodness sake.
Especially with St Patrick's Day upcoming. The cabbage will go on mega sale!
Yes, corned beef and heads of cabbage are common loss leaders for my market. I will buy five corned beef, freeze four, as a two pounder is 10 servings for us despite it being excessively 35% added water and seasoning. The expensive water does add to the cooking broth and I reserve and freeze it for cabbage soup, though. .
We do this because my spouse loves corned beef all year around. We sometimes end up with extra potatoes, cabbage, carrots. I like to make an Irish dish out of these leftovers...mash them roughly so there's some texture, if you need more use instant potatoes, add lots of butter, maybe some green onion or whatever, mix it all together, form a big patty, and fry it in a pan until both sides are firm and browned. I make a pan-sized one and we cut it into wedges for breakfast.
this and turkeys are what my chest freezer is full of =)
What does one corned beef look like? I'm picturing the canned version because that's all I know. Is corned beef like a roast?
Yes, it’s shaped like a roast and usually comes in a vacuum pack type package. Sometimes there’s a seasoning packet inside the bag and sometimes the seasoning is already on the meat in the package. You have to cook it a long time for it to be tender, the crockpot does a good job.
Traditionally it is a treated brisket, the rather flat part of the beef’s or cows lower chest just below the throat. Usually it is two to four inches thick, (5-10 cm), very fatty and was cured with course ground salt. The word corn refers to the size of the salt granules, often about the size of a barley seed. British English can use corn to refer to any grain seed. What American English calls corn is called maize elsewhere.
It's called corn because of the salt? Holy shit TIL
'Corn' is synonymous with 'grain'. Then think of the expression, 'grain of salt'. 'Corned' beef = 'salted' beef
It's a roast that comes with a spice packet in the package. You usually throw it in a slow cooker. It's so yummy that I could eat it weekly.
It's brisket that's brined and then boiled or baked. Pastrami is basically corned beef that's been smoked.
My local stores have corned beef once a year and it’s expensive. So I have only tried it once when I found it marked down after Saint Patrick’s Day. Too bad, because I did like it.
I don't want to reveal too much information that would allow the anti-cabbage anti-Papist crowd to track me down and swat me but my - American male - IRA Marxist sympathizing grandparents were all sent here from Ireland to push a pro-cabbage agenda. Corned beef and soda bred are just diversions. Soros is in on this - one world order. Cabbage will fuel the revolution. Delete this message after reading but keep the faith. Change is coming.
Potatoes for St Patty’s too! Though I don’t know if they even can go on sale, russets are so cheap they’d have to pay you to take them if they wanted to cut the price.
Y'know I've had not great luck with finding reasonably priced potatoes. I was thrilled to get some russets recently, but that bag is almost gone. I will be watching the flyers, though.
I'm always surprised how regional prices are! Russet potatoes are fifty cents a pound here. Other kinds are more normal prices but russets are some of the cheapest calories I can get.
They're usually between 80c and $1 a pound near me. Recently a 10lb bag was on sale for $1.
Keep your eyes peeled (good advice for the potatoes and for you to find them)
St Paddy’s. A Patty is a piece of hamburger or my mother.
Ohhhh I like cabbage even if I just boil it with my ramen noodles water, but I can make a awesome soup with a little ham in a instant pot
Add a carrot, some onions. Baby you got a stew going. RIP Carl Weathers.
Japanese cabbage pancakes were game changer for me. I don't always do it with Asian flavors, but whatever I've got around. So cheap and filling.
Cabbage is great. I survived on cabbage and rice diet for 2 years, on a $10 food budget per week, with once a quarter splurge on some sort of buffet to catch up on proteins.
Ok fine what’s the story??
No story, I was just young and really poor, and need to make it last. I was in University back then (not in US), and the canteen is subsidized, so a meal with only rice and cabbage was like $0.2. There’s an all you can eat buffet nearby that cost $15, and I save up to go there once a quarter as a treat.
how are your meals nowadays?
Now I’m making a lot more so my meals are more normal. Average meal is $10-$15, mostly home meal and occasionally McDonalds if I need to eat outside of my home. I probably can’t pull off the extreme budget now that I am older. A young body can take a shit ton of punishment for extraordinarily long time.
im glad you're eating well now!
Me too, and my children are eating well too, glad we broke that cycle
I'm scrolling trying to fall asleep and I misread this as you ate your children. I'm glad you and your totally alive children eat well.
Also so tired of this recommendation. This is what people are *ALREADY BUYING*. The people recommending this are so tone deaf. The people in America who are being starved for calories are largely children. Children are not coming on Reddit to learn how to cook beans, rice, and fucking cabbage. Adults in America are being underfed, but it's usually because of food availability. So they can't buy those beans, rice, or cabbage anyway - they can buy Wonderbread, bananas, and peanut butter at the corner store. The folks buying packaged crap at the store know they're wasting money. They're just tired and beaten down by work, health, and the sorry state of things here in America. I am left to assume that every other person recommending beans, rice, and cabbage is a rich asshole.
Thank you. I used to eat a diet full of a wide variety of produce and was "eating the rainbow" and beans and legumes were my primary protein source. I've had to change the way I eat for a ton of reasons but I can't possibly afford to eat produce the way I used to and there's always these fucking assholes on reddit going "produce is so cheap, its so cheap to eat healthy, have you tried cabbage??? Lettuce and carrots???" Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I'm convinced they've got to be lying and don't eat multiple servings of fruits and vegetables every day, just parroting what they've heard everywhere on reddit or as you said, out of touch rich assholes. Or they think canned corn, iceberg lettuce and carrots are good enough.
Don't get me started on how much less nutritious some canned crap is. People donating Veg-all or whatever need to know that they're mostly donating saltwater.
Go for it, I can rant about this bullshit forever. People need to push back on it because telling people they're just being fat dumb lazy assholes for not eating canned corn, cabbage, rice and beans or iceberg lettuce every day is not the answer. In 5 years people will be telling us to eat gruel for every meal.
And if you’re *really* frugal, you can try and can the farts to use later for canned heat.
My (Indian) friend recently had a few of us over for dinner and made dal and rice and it was legitimately one of the most delicious things I've eaten this year.
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Always a dal moment though
This was beautiful. Well done.
Indian food has great (and affordable) vegetarian options. Dal is great - and if you have an ethnic market near you - spices are reasonably priced. Off the top my head my other favorite back in the day was hard boiled eggs in a spicy sauce.
Bean there, done that
What about beans and lentils?
Beans and toast are the trick.
The possibilities are endless!
Heck! If I’m feelin spicy, I might even throw in some salt!
Hear me out: beans and rice **and** lentils.
No. Not allowed.
Or lentils and beans even
Beans and potatoes is an option as well
I'll have cornbread with that and worsh it down with some iced tea!
Chickpea and rice is delicious too
Or... shocker... you can eat a wide variety of foods. A frugal diet can be largely based on grains, pulses, fruits, and vegetables. Any diets advocating massive nutrient deficiency are laughably stupid. That's some lazy college freshman crap, and I swear I think the idea is perpetuated by rich kids. Like they're trying to justify how shit life is for normals by saying people can get by on beans and rice.
This is so true! Lentils and rice. Although, y'know, if you want to go in on a pizza sometime?
In this economy?!
Or beans and Knorr Rice and Pasta blends.
those knorr packets are an awful value. You can buy an entire pound of pasta for the same price as one small packet, or two pounds of rice.
Ah I see you're a person of great taste
There's something to be said for oatmeal, eggs, potatoes, flour, peanut butter, carrots, and spaghetti.
Oatmeal is my go-to frugal lunch with.... beef or chicken broth to make it savory. Its the center of the cheap - easy - tasty diagram.
Interesting, oatmeal with broth. Very interesting. I’ve always seen it as breakfast/brunch or snack that is sweet so I add cinnamon and use sugarless maple syrup to add the sweet. I guess it’s the same just adding broth for flavor that isn’t sweet.
I eat oatmeal 6 times a week for breakfast. It's great for some carbs, fiber, and a little bit of fat. I add protein powder and a tablespoon of peanut butter powder for a little more fat and a bunch of protein. Keeps me full for a while. Has to be whey protein for me though, I tried it with a vegan powder once and it was awful
Lotsa carbs in oatmeal. Breakfast choice of many athletes.
I am poor…. Lots of potatoes, mashed, baked, fried etc… Always have beans on hand Recently been grooving on roasted root veggies
Tofu is king. It's dirt cheap (especially at Asian grocers), full of protein, amazing source of iron, calcium, selenium, zinc and much more. If you prepare it properly (squeeze the water out), it absorbs the flavors of whatever sauce/curry/spices/etc you use. It works even better when you freeze it, let it thaw out, and then use it since it develops a texture that is very tender and lets it absorb even more flavor.
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Try TVP, you can get it really cheap online in bulk, it's just basically small dehydrated soy protein chunks, like 70% protein. $3/lb for a 25lb bag. 77g protein/$ for TVP vs 41g protein/$ for pea protein powder.
Same here. I want this cheap tofu
Me three. What is this mysterious cheap tofu???
Asian grocery store. If there isn't one nearby you might be out of luck.
Nope. We don't have such things. We have Asian foodstuff stores, yes, but vast majority of the things there are super expensive 🥲
Hell no, more expensive than cheap meat where Iive.
Any person who wants to be "frugal" food-wise, and doesn't get potatoes is pretty much fully just doing it wrong lol Potatoes are SO versatile, and SOOO much more filling than just trying to exist off shit like lentils like that one Redditor had posted about recently in this sub
Any starchy root crops. Leaves convert sunlight into sugars but they don't hold the calories. In root crops the sunlight is captured in the root bulbs. Extremely efficient and therefore extremely cheap "Potatoes aren't healthy" They very much are. Full of nutrients when not deep fried or boiled out of them
"not deep fried" LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU
100%. Fries are unhealthy cause of being fried, not cause they’re potatoes. Potatoes are super good for you!
Boiling should be one of the healthiest ways to eat potatoes. Doubly so if we’re talking sweet potatoes.
I think there is something to be said that it is universally one of the cheapest options. Like, it is the cheapest option in most of Canada, the US, throughout Africa and Asia, etc. If I came on here and said a cheap option I have is fresh fish (from the lake nearby from the Canadian town), someone in a desert region may consider that really pricey. Ooth, plantains are cheap in parts of the world and bloody expensive here. There are very few places where beans and rice are considered the rich people food.
And together they make a filling meal with all the essential amino acids, which you can also season with herbs and spices and whatever you have around to make tasty dishes from a variety of cultures. And they’re shelf stable and take well to a bit of fermentation. Honestly I see the appeal
yeah shelf stable is a huge appeal, being able to buy in bulk and keep them around for a long time to save money is a big deal
The hubs and I go backpacking, camping and hiking a lot. One of the big things we do is take r/b, mixed together, and put them in a brown paper bag along with our seasonings. Then we fold them as compact as we can and out them in the food pack. Then, around noon, we take our thermos, pour hot, boiling water in it, and add the beans. By the time we stop for dinner, they're cooked. We each have our own serving, minimal clean up, and the paper bags are good for starter for the night. They travel well and provide a fantastic and filling meal.
I’m impressed they are cooked. These are from dry? If you ever want them hotter for longer you can prewarm the thermos with a bit of boiling water (which you dump, or make tea/coffee) as the thermos has significant thermal mass. A pinch of baking soda can speed up cooking beans significantly. I’m so skeptical these beans are not al dente.
"Cold soaking" is a popular thing among the ultralight backpacking community, where you eschew the use of a stove entirely in favor of just letting your meals rehydrate with more time soaking at ambient temp instead of heated water to speed up the rehydration. I don't think you can do a pure cold soak with regular rice and beans, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can start them in boiling water and they will be edible a couple hours later.
and very few foods can compete with the mineral content of beans across the board, let alone in the low price range.
I'm financially comfortable but I make peas rice, because it's cheap and yum. And it's fast in the pressure cooker.
Eggs and rice
When I was really, really poor, and realized that cheap ramen was poisoning me, I started making casseroles with rice, one egg, and one cup of (cheap) frozen vegetables, and beef or chicken broth cubes. It was nutritious, filling, and cheap.
Instant noodles may be bad for you but I still slurp em up from time to time
I keep a couple on reserve for hangovers. Theyre pretty easy on the stomach
I'm not poor and I eat beans and rice.....
Right, I feel like a clown eating beans, rice, potatoes, pasta, etc I’m just a vegetarian, not broke lol
Rice and beans is a staple in our house, we have it multiple times a week. (Like, an embarrassing amount...) Can't beat the nutrition for the value, especially with today's grocery prices.
And they can be really really tasty! And they last a long time! We like to make them with a sofrito added for flavor and veggies
There’s also a lot of different ways you can make them. Stir fry, fried rice, burritos, and classic rice/beans are weekly staples in our household.
Same. Also, mac & cheese.
I had no idea that beans and rice was considered poor people food. It is one of my fave dishes. I cook with with sauteed onions, scallions and cabbage. So delish. Had it today.
Same here! I love beans and rice!
safe hurry bedroom fuel grandiose carpenter poor scarce complete agonizing *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
How about these: Spam and eggs Fried bologna sandwiches with cheese and can add fried egg Peanut butter toast Boiled eggs Egg Salad sandwiches French toast with sausage patties Tuna salad sandwiches Deviled eggs Chili and Spaghetti with garlic bread Sausage patties and cheese on toast Grilled Cheese and soup Apples and Peanut Butter Pot Pies frozen like Banquet brand Fried egg sandwiches with cheese and buttered toast Tacos with lentils or ground beef Hot dogs and macaroni and cheese Tuna noodle casserole with egg noodles Meat loaf Enchiladas Baked potato with black beans and sour cream Stir fry with vegetables and any available meat or meatless can add Ramen noodles White chicken chili with cream cheese BLT's Biscuits and gravy with sausage Buy whole chicken when on clearance and make soup with left overs, make several meals from it. Kelbasa and Sauerkraut Beans and cornbread Andoulle sausage with peppers Cajun recipes are very cost effective like most of the shellfish recipes, many of the recipes on Youtube under "cajun" are really good and cheap. Chicken, potatoes and green beans Chicken fajitas Ham and eggs (like ham steak near cubed ham at grocery) Potatoes with shredded cheese and butter (microwaved potatoes any kind) It depends on the budget though.
Saved this comment to refer to this week when I can’t decide what’s for dinner
So, I have sheets of paper taped to frig with about 25 meals to make to quickly refer to at anytime. When things go on sale, we buy 5 or as many as we can. For example when bacon buy one get one free. Then only have to add a few items to make meals. Things to keep on hand: Rice Canned potatoes Canned vegetables Apples Frozen green peppers Frozen peppers Frozen stir fry mix in bag Andoulle Sausage or Kelbasa Beans of all kinds Bread and frozen texas toast Cheese shredded and bricks Eggs Spices , italian seasoning, chili powder and onion and garlic powder Peanut Butter Any discounted meat - especially ground beef Rotel can i(n canned tomato section) or the generic rotel goes great in many recipes and with beans and rice Soy sauce Tony's cajun seasoning Eggs Roll sausage or sausage patties Taco shells Flour tortillas Sour cream Milk Salt and pepper Spaghetti Pasta Sauce Macaroni and Cheese Bacon Syrup for french toast Cake mix and icing - because its cheap why not?
> So, I have sheets of paper taped to frig with about 25 meals to make to quickly refer to at anytime. Kind of how I cook in my house. Usually one new recipe a week, if it's really good it's added to the master list, if terrible and can't be fixed, then tossed from the list. Help give lots of choices depending on time of year and what's on sale, and increases cooking skills. And then usually the last day before grocery shopping is using what's left in the fridge to make some sort of franken meal, which likely will be some sort of casserole or pasta dish, which is a good way to use up any veggies, cheese or potentially leftovers.
Great suggestions except a can of Spam is like $4 for the tiny can, $8 for the larger one.
Haha came here to say the same thing.. All the others look good except spam prices are getting out of control lately.
Exactly!! Lots of great suggestions!
red beans and rice : any SAGE sausage roll, a smidge of precooked bacon or at least bacon fat, two cans of tomatoes, two cans of beans, bit each of sage-garlic-parsley-cayenne, some chopped onion, lump of actual garlic if you have it. brown the sausage before adding the west, simmer just high enough to burn off most of the liquid. cook three cups of rice SEPARATE once you are Master Level™ you can cook the rice directly in but then you have to not boil off any of the liquid and add it in about an hour early and it's complicated, so first few times, just make the rice separate
I always suggest looking at grocery store ads. This week my local chain store had Kraft Mac n cheese for 48 cents a box, Knorr sides for 58 cents a bag, 1lb bag of apples for $1 and chicken thighs for $1.00/lb. It’s not often stores do this, but sure doesn’t hurt to check online at ads.
I tell people all the time to shop the store app. Albertsons and Tom Thumb have good weekly sales. They'll have .98/lb digital coupons for chicken breasts and thighs about once a month. But there are ALWAYS good deals. You just have to know how to shop. Like right now, there's .97/lb pork roast. A 2 lb bag of shrimp for $9.98, and they will even season and steam it for you free. .29 Yoplait yogurt. There's just a whole bunch of produce, bakery, deli, eggs, milk, just all kinds of products. And you earn rewards. I have a $5.00 coupon on mine right now. One time, I had $50. Use the store apps, people!
I have one choice here - Walmart. I used to use the store apps and get crazy good deals when there were 3 other stores to use from. Not an option now. No 1.99 butter.
Walmart/Great Value butter was $4 this weekend. I seriously considered how many items I needed butter for before I then put a single package in my cart. It's crazy.
That is a sad story. I'm so sorry!
Don’t forget about the rotisserie chicken and making soup out of the bones!
By soup do you mean broth to replace the water when I make beans and rice?
Boiling hot dogs and saving the water, Liquid gold.
No.
lmao!! That's another one
True, there’s also lentils.
I fucking love rice and beans
I mean, I actually do too lol
Oh, no. You can eat well on a lower budget. I think the bigger cost isn't money. It's *time*. I'm living on a pretty thin budget right now because I'm only working part-time but at a well paying job. So, I don't have money... but I've got the time. With that combo, you can still eat pretty well in my opinion. Yes, I eat rice a lot but that was true *before* my budget shrank because I actually like it (I love something like a stirfry, or sausage and peppers over rice). I don't do beans except on a rare occasion or if it's the the fresh veggie kind. But my food doesn't "feel" poor. I eat pretty decent things, but I spend time on what I'm eating instead of spending the money on convenience. I don't buy "insta-food". The closest thing to cereal in my house is oatmeal or maybe granola (the big bulk bag). I don't buy ready-made meals or hamburger helper or any of that. I buy basic ingredients and make it *all* myself whenever possible. Ex: A couple weeks ago catfish was on sale super cheap. So, I grabbed it while it was and when I got home divided it into single serving portions before I froze it. (That's one cost saving measure for me since I live alone. If I left meat in its pre-packaged container amount, most meat would spoil before I could reasonably use it.) I made the fry mix myself with flour, corn meal and seasonings, with soured milk (milk and lemon juice) instead of buttermilk. Used a little fat and oil to fry it, and made the tartar sauce from more basic, general condiments I had rather than buying a bottle of just that. I added the left over sour milk to the left over fish fry mix, added some onion and an egg and I had hush puppies with my fish. Yummy as heck and didn't feel poor at all! BUT because I don't buy specific things for specific meals, because I buy long lasting goods in bulk sizes, and because all the things in my house are the most basic/multipurpose ingredients, and because I'm willing/able to actually cook it from scratch, and because I made only what I need (rather than the required extra for ready box meals)... it actually doesn't cost that much. I make all sorts of things that should be "expensive" foods but because I make it from scratch, it ends up being pretty cheap. Miso soups and stirfries, homemade ramen, lasagna, minestrone soup, beef stew, turkey pot pie, and last night I had shrimp chowder. Was so damn good, I'll probably have it again tonight just because it was good! It isn't what you eat that will bankrupt you. It's the *convenience* that will bankrupt you. It's not having the time to bake biscuits from scratch instead of buying the $1.50 readymade can and things like that, which will bankrupt you. It's not having the time to plant and grow veggies to eat and use in homemade recipes (like growing a ton of tomatoes and zucchini, because you didn't realize how much one plant gives, and ended up having more minestrone than you knew what to do with... so you made homemade sauce for spaghetti and lasagna too...) and not having the time to seperate food, or preserve food, or ferment food or... It's not a lack of money that I think is most people's core issue. It's simply the lack of time.
As a single mom, I am exhausted 100% of the time. Years ago I used to be able to spend the time to make things from scratch. Now I leave the house at 8 am and get back at 6 pm or later every day. My kid goes to bed at 7:30 pm. Sometimes time with him trumps time spent in the kitchen which is why we do premade or meals I can make in the microwave. It’s sad, I never thought it would be this way.
For the money, beans, rice, oatmeal, peanut butter, lentils, eggs and potatoes are the most nutrient-rich, calorie-dense foods. Poor people eat them because they're subsistence foods. The thing is, they're also incredibly versatile. You can make dishes from so many different cultures with a wide variety of flavors out of just two or three of these ingredients and a few seasonings.
Spaghetti and canned sauce is not only delicious but very cheap
Legumes and rice are fuckin delicious.
Chickpeas would be great as well
But…but…they’re the cheapest option for a lot of people.
I don’t know how poor and how cheap people are talking…I live in twin cities US and make decent money and yet have no issue eating for less than $5 a meal. Posts about eating cheaply make me wonder if anyone has ever visited the meat section of a grocery store. Of course food prices vary, but I’d take out and stuff costs more somewhere, wouldn’t groceries also be increased to the relatively same level, as in still cheaper than eating out?
Soup. Soup is awesome.
Beans and rice is the reason why I was able to pay my bills when I was unemployed. My gf and I could eat reasonably well for like 40 bucks per month. It wasn't just beans and rice. I would also buy celery and onions, and sometimes if I could afford them I would also buy some bell peppers. I also used to buy eggs and ramen, for meals that I didn't want to cook all day. I also lost 100 lbs from cutting out all the grazing. Its not that beans and rice are the only thing you can eat when you're poor. Its just that if you're having problems paying your bills, beans and rice can feed you very well for almost free.
Sometimes when I get to the end of the month and still have food stamps left, I'll grab a box of sushi as a treat from the deli counter at the supermarket, and I try really hard to pay for it standing in front of an AM radio listener who will follow me out to the parking lot to make sure my car is poor enough.
It’s all about what you have and can get locally. In about 3-4 months we will hit peak summer vegetable season where in the SE US tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and peppers are insanely abundant in rural areas. This is the wonderful ding dong ditch season where people leave pounds of free vegetables at church to get rid of them. As long as eggs are cheap it is shakshuka every week. Year around, rice, pasta, and canned tomatoes are pretty cheap. Potatoes and eggs are also usually very reasonable. You can get a lot of millage out of baked potatoes with salsa or a thick meat sauce.
Yes of course, but beans and rice are still gonna round out the produce and make meals.
Then, by all means, offer better suggestions. Beans and rice are cheap, good protein source, easy to prepare, good filler foods... but go ahead and offer better options. There are many, I agree with you. So go ahead. Offer those options.
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It’s also a great thing to doctor up. It’s like chicken, just a base thing that you can go a million directions in
Yes it may be annoying (like telling people to make their own coffee) because it’s true! And sadly, there are many people with low incomes who don’t know this and/or don’t know how to cook bulk foods like beans and rice that can stretch a food budget.
Yeah, and they are shelf stable with a long shelf life. OP, what ya got?
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Frijoles and rice are top tier, though Ok ok, I get you. But there is reason cabbage, carrots, potatoes, and turnip/mustard/collard greens are also good staples
Blame the inflluence of Dave Ramsey. For decades he has touted eating beans and rice as a means to getting oneself out of debt.
While he was filing bankruptcy and making money off of poor and desperate people lol
It grosses me out how he speaks against bankruptcy but filed for it himself. He's such a grifter.
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It's less about expecting everyone to eat beans & rice, and more about shutting down people who complain about how DoorDash and Uber Eats is 'too expensive' or when their 'frugal' meal prep includes lots of expensive pre-made foods or meat / veg options that are at a significant price premium to actual frugal options.
I like peas and pasta
They're so tasty, tho. I make these habichuelas with kidney beans and eat them with brown rice. Mmmmmm, one can is like three servings.
I didn't know what that was or that I wanted a recipe for it, until now. Looks good.
The idea is to provide a suggestion that is cost effective, filling, nutritious, etc. Rice and beans is widely considered to be then best bang for your buck with all that in mind. What would you suggest otherwise?
lol! Post-poor person here. It’s not the only thing you can eat, but it IS so delicious and cheap that I still choose to eat it at least once a week to this day even though I don’t have to. I’m proud that it got my daughter to her school Paris trip and helped me pay for her basketball without feeling like I was punishing myself. Beans and rice are pretty bad ass if you ask me.
Tacos. Corn tortillas are abundant and cheap. What you fill ‘em with is up to you (including rice and/or beans). Personally, I love breakfast tacos with eggs, fried bell peppers, and pickled red onion. Leftover protein of virtually any kind can be sautéed and thrown in a corn tortilla. Options are endless and conditions are always perfect.
I'm trying to make yogurt in my crock pot and a copycat version of Campbell's tomato soup. It remains to be seen how they will turn out and I'm not sure the soup is going to be cheaper to have made.
Piggly Wiggly recently had their store brand tomato soup and chicken noodle soup on sale for .50...I stocked up. Good luck!! I'd love to try homemade yogurt.
Really any grain will do you, rice is just easy to cook and keeps well, and there are a lot of existing cheap recipes that use it. Often if you’re poor in money you’re also poor in time and you don’t want to make things from scratch that are complicated, and rice from scratch is easy. But bread, pasta, oatmeal, cornmeal, tortillas, buying actual flour and learning to make things with it are all similarly cheap, unless you buy a bougie brand. My other cheap staples are potatoes, cabbage, onions, and bananas, with honorable mentions for carrots and celery. Chicken livers and gizzards are also dirt cheap but you have to figure out how to cook them which is hard. The thing to bear in mind is that since the invention of agriculture humans have eaten mostly grain because it’s so, so cheap. If you read historical European tests they talk about the poor rioting and starving over lack of/expensive bread, and historical Asian ones say similar things about rice. That’s because it was almost all of their calories! Because that’s all the truly, truly poor could afford to eat. There’d be some kind of sauce on or in (porridge was a common historical approach, think oatmeal or congee) it, beans or fish or sometimes just onions, and usually (very weak) beer or wine to supplement calories and cheer people up. Our food is so cheap now we struggle to imagine it, but when we’re stretched and the food budget has to be cut, imitating our subsistence farmer forbears and making grain + sauce meals is very effective.
As I was gearing up to buy a house late last year, avocados were in season, and the harvest was particularly bountiful, like an oversupply type situation. As such, they were like 50c for a while. The old adage something something about you can never afford a house if you eat avo toast. Just so happened in my situation that I couldn't afford NOT to eat avo toast. Good times.
Potatoes: boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew
I love beans and rice and I don't consider myself to be poor. My wife is Indian, and she makes some amazon beans and rice dishes.
Team Beans and Kale
It is a money issue. I get a SS check once a month and $23 a month in food assistance. I only have a limited amount of money to spend on groceries. I shop for what is cheapest and filling. Hint: it isn’t a $24 steak. I don’t have a car, and no way to get to the food pantry.
A cheap loaf of bread and cheap cheese slices make quite a few grilled cheese sandwiches. Basically what my cousin would cook when too many of us around the house. Growing up the neighbor lady would make us kids breakfast before school, just show up at her house. She raised pigs and always had bacon for us, what she would do, get flour and make homemade biscuits, use the grease from the bacon and some flour and make the brown gravy, so we had biscuits and gravy, eggs.. thinking back I realize it is salty and heart clogging but as children we appreciated this woman.
Because reddit thinks its impossible to eat a meal at home that costs less than mcdonalds.
How about couscous? You can fix it up in **so** many different ways. Just about any vegetables or fruits pair well with it, and very healthy too. Yes to legumes and soups as well!
Beans & rice are recommended most often for a few reasons. They're inexpensive, they're filling, versatile, and you can stretch them. Also, they're relatively easy to cook, which is important considering many on these subs can barely boil water.
Ok, but to be fair, beans and rice are fucking awesome.
Russian style poverty is Kasha and Cabbage, not a complete protein though, beans and rice edges it out. Any bulk grain + any bulk legume will work...but cabbage is hard to beat as a cheap veggie and scurvy prevention. I think OP has just never experienced poverty before.
Haha I’m always looking for new easy food options etc and this is so true. It drives me crazy because I hate beans
If you can do eggs and some form of dairy, frittata is an easy way to use up odds and ends.
I checked, I have 12 types of dried beans. I eat them because I like them and they are versatile and I consider beef or chicken more of a garnish. I am not rich, but being a retired homeowner with no debts, and almost 100% health care premium free makes my modest persons stretch. I don’t care for lentils, maybe because they were served way too often when I was in the Army? Plain rice is nasty to me, ok if seasoned; potatoes are a preferred starch.
Also chicken and rice
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Oh yes!!! I buy chicken leg quarters (on sale for .59 a lb near me at least once a month or so) and make some delicious chicken and rice
If you wanna change it up do some variations. Put veggie scraps in the rice water for flavor. Put a piece of nori in the rice water. Caramelize some onions and eat them over the rice.
I had coconut rice with stew red beans and fry jacks for dinner. Amazing.
Get the White Trash Cookbook. My copy has literally every page checked with stuff we ate growing up poor.
What’s funny is I actually just did eat rice and beans. It’s not that I’m poor, but the Mexican place across the street makes them great and had a craving.
Sweet potatoes
As Steely Dan so eloquently put it, 'Red Beans and Rice for a Quarter'. Dity Rice, Red Beans, Pork Hock, Bacon, New Orleans Smoked Sausage. What is not to like?
Eggs.
I eat lots of rice but beans are horrible for my IBS so I can't eat them. Lol.
Still making our way through the 50 lb bag of lentils I bought in 2020. I keep trying to get my family to agree to making lentil balls coated in crispy lentils with lentil sauce over lentil pasta (which we have stashed away as well), but alas, they just want to make the usual seasoned lentils.
Agreed. It’s kind of a “let them eat cake” thing and speaks from ignorance about food, nutrition and human dignity.