I have a theory that there is a impossible trinity (like in economics), where a food cannot be delicious, cheap and healthy at the same time. At maximum 2 of the 3 can be achieved.
Is there any food that breaks this theory?
Edit: I was thinking more about dishes (or something you put in your mouth) than the raw substances
Some popular suggestions include
- fruits (in season) and vegetables
- lentils, beans, rice
- mushrooms
- chicken
- just eat in moderation
Edit 2: Thanks for the various answers. Now there are a lot of (mostly bean-based) recipes for everyone to try out!
Also someone made a community for cheap healthy food after seeing this topic!
Onion. It’s cheap, nutritious, acts as a low-key anti bacterial solution, can be served in a multitude of ways, or eaten raw.
Subscribe for more onion facts. 🧅
Subscribed.
eaten raw
You, sir, are a monster.
Hmm time for a snack
Takes a bite from a raw onion like an apple
Tony abbott is that you?
Listen for some of us that’s a delicacy.
Followed. Don’t let me down!
Great fashion accessory too
As was the style at the time
Subscribe for more onion facts. 🧅
Be careful what you offer, 'cause that’s actually a thing on ActivityPub (nothing’s stopping anyone from following you as a user, Mastodon-style).
Stop
I thought your facts would lean more towards the lemon lifestyle.
You already mentioned them, but I’m a huge fan of lentils. They go with so much stuff and you can combine them with a variety of spices. Give me any leftover ingredients and some lentils, and I’ll cook up something delicious. I can and will eat lentil soup for days.
They are also a pretty solid crop, they can grow in a variety of climates, require little water and are good for the soil.
Been a while since I had lentils and now I’m drooling.
Well, something being delicious is subjective, but if we assume a “general acceptance” of most delicious foods, potatoes could fit easily. They can be cooked in all kinds of ways, are very nutritious and, again, pretty much everyone says they’re delicious.
Completely agreed, though I’d also add that to get the most nutrition out of them you want to make sure that you are also eating the skins. (Personally I like the skins anyway, and not having to remove them makes them easier to cook!)
That’s a good point, but even within potatoes there is perhaps still a trade-off between “delicious” and “healthy”. As in steamed potatoes without sauces or stuff is kind of meh, while french fries are not that healthy.
Oven-baked potatoes is where it’s at.
Or boil it in chunks and serve it with fried onions and mushrooms.
I don’t even like french fries that much. Steamed potates, or baked ones by the campfire, I’m all in.
Chick pea curry.
Thank you so much for the share! I love chickpeas so I’ll definitely be adding this to my recipes :)
So… Are you just unaware of fruits, vegetables, and legumes, haha? In my opinion there’s a huge amount of food that fits all three categories. One of the best example of cheap, delicious, healthy, and easy is beans and rice, spiced up however you like.
Yup. Mexican, Indian, a lot of cuisine from poorer countries figured this out long ago. Beans or lentils over rice with the right spices, incredible. The restaurant version will add a lot of fat and heavy cream but if you make it yourself you can adjust that so it’s not unhealthy.
Yeah! Exactly! A huge amount of the best food (imo) comes from these cultures. Plus many of these dishes are also really easy to make in bulk, which is a big win too.
My first thought was just just “Bananas?” Lol
Ah yes, a food that you can eat for three days without pooping while you stay in a tent?
A legend has been born already for this network xD
…Do we have a community yet for sharing cheap, healthy food recipes? I’d say cooking, but I don’t want to get into all the back & forth over what counts as cooking/baking/frying/etc.
Maybe /c/cheaphealthymeals? Or maybe cheapgoodmeals would be better? 🤔
Whatever the case, I think it’d be a solid idea for a community for exchanging recipes and tips!
potato
Boil em, mash em, put em in a stew - Samwise Gamgee
in all honesty it’s probably soy
Soy milk my beloved
Whole grain pasta.
Lentils.
I have a feeling that the answer to this might be anything that you can grow from seeds. So, fresh fruits, vegetables, beans, grains, etc. then, like tomatoes or snow peas or apples or wheatberries. The thing is that these all take time to transform from seed to fruit, so if you include time in your constraint space these don’t work. But you didn’t so here you go :D
A good homegrown tomato slice with some salt & pepper is delicious, beats store bought any day.
Mmmm… Fresh Snow Peas. I used to grow them in the winter here in North Florida and my son (who was like 4-5 at the time) would sneak into my garden and eat them all. He would refuse to eat his vegetables at dinner then “go play outside” thinking he was getting away with murder 😁
To be fair, they were fucking delicious. Far more sweet than store-bought or even fresh from a local farmers market. I have no idea why 🤷
I should really start growing food again. I stopped like a decade ago when I lost the great stink bug war ☹️
I live in a new house now with a much larger bird, snake, lizard, and frog army to defend the crops. I even have snail-eating-snail shock troops to deploy on a moments notice if need be. It might be time to lay out some war plans…
As someone attempting to grow from seed here in Central Texas:
It would be SO MUCH cheaper for me to buy store bought.
You have to factor in a watering costs, soil quality, fertilizer costs, and time commitment. Oh and potentially overhauling large swaths of your yard to grow crops and flowers to encourage enough pollinators to show up.
I spent probably over $1,500 this year getting my yard in suitable enough shape to grow, after a complete bust on any kind of yield last year. I also grow herbs indoors, and yes that can be more cost effective. That isn’t to say it’s not worth it, I’m about to have an insane yield of tomatoes that I won’t know what to do with. I currently get to make my own fresh bruschetta every week with home grown basil and tomatoes. I get fresh strawberries off the vine every day, though the bushels aren’t very large. If all goes according to plan, I’ll also have some bell peppers and okra later in the season. All grown from seed. I have morning glory and passion flower vines that have volunteered all over parts of the yard, the latter being a critical food source for butterflies, so I now have a few dozen butterflies flapping around on a given day. I also have a ton of volunteer sunflowers after setting up bird feeders with black oil sunflower seeds as feed.
It’s wonderful, my yard is slowly rewilding and I love being able to grow a little food. It’ll get cheaper over the next few years to maintain. But it certainly was not cheap to get here! Container gardening is cheaper, but you still have to have the right light sources and watering schedule. If you live somewhere naturally rainy and sunny in equal measure, and the climate isn’t trying to kill you, then it might be cost effective. It was at one point in time. But it isn’t here, now. Still worth it for me though.
Yeah only cheap if you don’t include your time. And the cost of land. But as a Florida food gardener - OKRA is like nothing else. It grows even in the summer here, is beautiful, the flowers are lovely and my whole family loves it. If you grow it, you can pick them when younger, and the few you inevitably miss, save for seeds. Nutritious and delicious, and in hot climates, cheap.
Beans are the obvious answer to the OP’s puzzle though. Beans and rice, build up your spice cabinet, endless variety and so delicious, cheap, and healthy.
I tell ya, I tried okra last year and it was a total bust. Had enough seeds to try again this year, started them indoors. Of the 10 seedlings I sprouted, six made it into the ground in March, and only two are still growing. They’re by far my slowest growers, but the good news is they look like they’re finally picking up speed and are looking strong. They’re about 18"-2’ tall now. I hope they survive the next 3 months set to have more 100*+ days than not.
Our summer has 95-99F but rain everyday, the okra absolutely thrives in the heat, the hotter the better as far as I could tell. The flowers really are beautiful too. I didn’t do it this year (rotating to avoid nematodes that love okra as much as we do), peppers are doing ok and tomatoes, basil, watermelon. Eggplant. Still waiting for the rain this year though.
My winter garden was unfortunately destroyed when we had a very unusual freeze.
I stick to native heirlooms and sturdy heat tolerant hybrids and managed broccoli this spring, was absolutely stunned that it worked. Never imagined it could grow here.
That’s awesome!! Natives are where it’s at. I got a bunch of drought tolerant natives for the side and front yard, where I don’t have an automatic drip hose set up, and they’re all thriving just fine.
I’m not sure what to rotate in for the fall garden. Or next year’s, for that matter. I’ve learned so much and in so many ways I still feel like a complete novice! How do you go about planning your gardens?
Honestly I browse Johnny’s seeds with a filter on for “heat tolerant”, and thanks to my ex (who was a raving violent lunatic in his midlife but did have a wide knowledge of plants and creatures) I do know what grows here. Winter is always greens, and cilantro likes our winter so cilantro/coriander always. Plus a couple of reach things, experimental.
I tried to do beans in fall/winter because they are a staple and good for the dirt but the once in 15 years freeze killed them. But had successful collard greens, broccoli (Green Magic, cannot say enough good things about it, it survived both the freeze and the heat, the dry and the rain), fennel did shockingly well, romaine and arugula.
Summer this time is basil, watermelon, tomatoes, eggplant in the shade of the tomatoes, jalapenos and habaneros and purple sweet sweet potato - the watermelon and sweet potato are the experimental ones, not sure they will work. Started the sweet potato from a Stokes Purple from whole foods.
Oh and mint all the time in one of the planters, the one with tomatoes and eggplant now. I cut it back brutally once in awhile but it just lives there.
I mostly just try to rotate so nothing is in the same place twice in a row. Except the mint. It’s tough as nails and nothing here really attacks it.
If I was in Texas I think it would be beans and peppers all the time! I eat so much of them and beans can take the heat but don’t like our rain, peppers too taste so good when grown in dry climate.
Woah that was long. But a mix of heat tolerant hybrids from Johnny’s seeds & plants from a local grower. I get dirt from same local guy, it’s amazing and our soil in this yard is unusual for Tampa already, not so sandy.
I love all of this, thank you so much for going into such detail! I’ve seen Johnny’s seeds online, and was curious to order from them, but I didn’t know how reliable they were. I’ll go take a look at their stuff.
I’ve been getting soil, mulch and compost from a wholesale landscape supply place. Unfortunately I didn’t haul off my sandy turf mix entirely, so now the grass has grown over and there’s a lil hill on the side of my front lawn, oops. Way too hot to do jack squat about it right now, though!!
I would love to see a picture of this lovely sounding back yard oasis.
Sure! I’ll gather a few here shortly, I’m quite proud of the transformation and I’d be happy to show it off. :)
The one thing missing from the trinity is “effort”. For instance, you could make any Dal, which would fit the trinity, but takes a lot of time. There are books with hundreds of Dal recipes that all taste different and work, too. And this is just one example. Less than a dollar a meal if made in bulk with rice.
so something like this?
You just made a food pyramid that isn’t stupid.
You know, thinking back, we should never have trusted that stupid infographic. It was a lie from the get go. It was a food triangle. This is a true pyramid.
Isn’t the true pyramid the one with a square base? I think this is called a tetrahedron.
I would consider Effort (time/energy) as a part of ‘Cost’.
I work a government job and a side-hustle. I earn a large amount per hour in my private business. If I cancel a client so I can cook a time intensive meal, then the food is getting more expensive.
Also, if I’m exhausted from working 1.5 jobs, an effort heavy meal isn’t cheap for me.
Lots of bean/lentil dishes are pretty magic for that.
There’s also an element of skill/experience in that category too. I can’t find the exact quote but David Chang said something to the effect of “anyone can cook a filet mignon well, but cooking with scraps takes skill”.
As i’ve gotten more competent in the kitchen i’ve absolutely gone from buying fancy cuts of meat to stew meat and will buy mutton any time i ever see it. I’ve also got much better at observing what fits well together, if there’s some left over potatoes in the fridge then I know that I can mash them, roll them into gnocchi and make a quick pesto with some wilty kale from the back of the fridge and basil from the garden. I’d totally have planned and made the same dish ten years ago, but i’d have started by going to the store and buying the ingredients. Being able to work with what I have and balance it is key.
Imo, natto fits all three, also a bean dish.
Oh, god no.
I cook Jamie Oliver’s “basic tarka dhal” all the time. It doesn’t take that much time in my experience, and being a basic recipe it lends itself to lots of variations. Highly recommend.
https://www.jamieoliver.com/features/lentils-and-basic-tarka-dhal-recipe/
With a multicooker dal is a pretty easy one pot meal, or at least basicish dal is
My go-to low-effort, low-cost, healthy and tasty food stuff is…
Breakfast cereal.
In th UK at least, breakfast cereal is fortified with all kinds of vitamins and minerals. New laws have limited the amount of sugar allowed in children’s cereals. Even the supermarket own-brand ones are impressively full of your RDAs of good stuff.
Cashews. Benefits: heart-healthy fats, antioxidants, essential minerals.
Kebab plate with vegetables.
A coleague of mine was eating it when he was on a diet to lose weight. It’s basically kebab/gyros meat and a vegetable salad with a dresing (usually tzaziki). You have basically no sugar in it, it’s just protein and vitamins.
Back in the day it cost like 4-5 € where I live which was pretty cheap for a lunch. Now it’d more like 6-7 € but that’s still decent
