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!
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.
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. 🧅
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?
Subscribed.
Followed. Don’t let me down!
I thought your facts would lean more towards the lemon lifestyle.
Great fashion accessory too
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.
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.
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
Lentils.
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
Chick pea curry.
Thank you so much for the share! I love chickpeas so I’ll definitely be adding this to my recipes :)
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
That is not at all a healthy meal, lol.
That happens when you get told as a child that meat is always healthy.
Umm what’s unhealthy in it? :)
I guess it depends how we define what’s a healthy meal but in my book few rules to eat healthy are:
- lower your sugar, flour, potatoes income to minimum
- lower your fat income and choose right fats
- eat more fruits and vegetables
- maintain right ballance of carbs, fats and proteins
A “kebab salad” sounds quite healthy in that take. Despite sounding strange that a common street food could be healthy
It’s a lot of salt, processed meat, and the salad bar at a normal kebab shop is not filled with nutrient dense vegetables. If it’s me, I’d eat it as a takeaway and spread the meat over three days’ worth of meals and up the nutrient content with broccoli and nuts.
When I was in college, I had the rule of not buying anything that is >$1.50 per pound. This is what I was reduced to (prices may be different now due to inflation and geo area):
- Apples, oranges, grapes, strawberries when they are on sale
- Milk, yogurt
- Pork shoulder, chicken quarters, thighs, drumsticks
- ground pork, ground beef
- Carrots, broccoli, potatoes, cabbage (you’ll be surprised at how good thinly sliced cabbages taste in a sandwich)
And then there is mc Donald’s and similar chains. They managed to avoid all three of those things
I wonder if they are actually that unhealthy. After all a burger is just meat, bread, and some veggies. Doesn’t seem that unbalanced.
I assume the most unhealthy part there is the gallon of sugar soda that people also drink there ._.
undefined> Kebab
It’s all the additives to these otherwise quite wholesome ingredients that make them less healthy and not as nutritionally dense as they should be. McDonald’s burgers are not JUST meat, bread, and some veggies unfortunately.
Don’t forget that all of their ingredients are particularly low quality. Your beef was not a grass fed cow who lived a happy life before being killed. It was a cow who lived in misery eating awful food and producing low quality meat. And I’m sure everything else on the burger was low quality too.
I don’t know, they are pretty fucking cheap.
I could eat for a week in what I’d costs to buy one McD meal. It’s wouldn’t be a very varied diet for the week but it would probably be healthier than the one McD meal.
Not in Germany lol. A cheeseburger used to be 1€ now it’s at 2,29€ 💀. Cheeseburger menu costs 5,99€
the three sisters are very nutritious. corn, beans, squash. add any spices you like, and a good oil (my faves are la tourangelle olive oil and their toasted seasame oil, sold on amazon and not expensive). salt and spices make all the difference.
I eat tofu like four days a week and it is the best thing ever.
What do you do with the tofu? I have tried a few time but it always taste kind of “bland”
Basic recipe for nice tofu:
- freeze the tofu. This is important as it changes the structure (it becomes dryer and more “meaty”), this is a common technique in asia.
- after unfreezing it, dry it with paper towels or something like that, cut it into die sized cubes if you want, sprinkle it with potato starch and fry it in a wok or hot pan with some oil. It should get brown and crispy.
- sprinkle a few drops of Japanese soy sauce on it while it the pan and continue to fry it. The soy sauce adds taste and makes it caramelise.
- add cooked rice, vegetables or whatever you want.
You can leave out some steps above. Without the freezing the texture won’t be as firm, without the starch it won’t be as crispy and without the soy sauce it won’t taste as good. I’m just saying that because sometimes it has to go fast or you’re missing ingredients, so you can compromise if needed. Doing all is of course best.
The trick that I discovered to tofu is to press it between a paper towel and a book. It makes it less watery and tastes crispier.
Not necessary when cooking all tofu, but really took my tofu game to the next level.
Everyone is going to like different things, but tofu is a bit like wonderbread. It also tastes bland, but you get addicted to it anyway. I can’t explain why, but at this point I just put thick slices of tofu into the air fryer for 5 minutes and eat it as-is. You’re right, it doesn’t taste like much, but nevertheless it’s hard to stop eating it after you’re hooked.
Some things you can try:
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Try smoked, extra firm tofu. You can eat it as a snack straight out of the pack, and the taste is somewhat stronger. It’s brown and kind of leathery.
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GRILL your tofu. Get some good char on there. It tastes absolutely heavenly and smoky.
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Put soft tofu into your smoothie. It thickens it a bit but won’t change the taste.
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Tofu tastes good in a lot of salty, carby dishes. For example, one of my 5-minute meals is chow mein noodles and canned mixed vegetables (beans sprouts, corn, and carrot) sauteed with sesame oil. It sucks some of the moisture out of the tofu, allows it to absorb flavor, and offers a firm, meaty contrast to the other components of the dish.
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You can put tofu into any “soup” - chili, curry, etc. and this is another pretty standard use.
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There are troves of marinades and dry rubs out there. A good way to start is to go to a restaurant and try bowls with tofu to get an idea of what you like, and then to use that as a template.
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Eggs
Eggs are my favorite food probably. It’s hard to beat eggs
Sweet potatoes. Very nutritious, very cheap, and taste sweet. Easy to prepare to, you can just boil or bake them for a little while without adding anything and they’re great just like that.
classic
You can cut them in half and microwave them, then eat them with a spoon like an ice cream with its own cone.
are we allowed to add ingredients? A little soy sauce on that and you’ve basically got yourself a meal
I didn’t even know that you can add soy sauce to sweet potatoes!
You can add soy sauce to anything you want!
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
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!!
A good homegrown tomato slice with some salt & pepper is delicious, beats store bought any day.
