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When I was a recent college grad, I spent a year as a stipended volunteer with an organization that did urban service placements with social justice-related nonprofits. Kind of domestic Peace Corps-ish, and the focus, other than being about the actual service, was on simplified living. We lived in co-ops, etc. During our training/orientation week, we were charged with feeding ourselves on a dollar a day as a challenge. We did okay by grouping up in clusters of 5-6 and were able to get more quality food by pooling in that way. It was really an exercise in cooperative decisionmaking.
You could eat on a dollar a day...but the better question, assuming you can afford more, is: WHY in the world would you want to?
It's obviously a very bad idea for your health. Not a great trade-off when viewed holistically.
Well, eating on one dollar a day instead of $5 a day would save you $1460 a year. Why in the world would anybody want to have an extra $1460 at the end of the year?
Can you cite one credible source that shows that a person's health is negatively impacted by cutting down their portion sizes or cooking from scratch with wholesome ingredients or discontinuing all between-meal snacks? Support your contention that it is "obviously" a "very bad idea" for your health.
Well, eating on one dollar a day instead of $5 a day would save you $1460 a year. Why in the world would anybody want to have an extra $1460 at the end of the year?
Can you cite one credible source that shows that a person's health is negatively impacted by cutting down their portion sizes or cooking from scratch with wholesome ingredients or discontinuing all between-meal snacks? Support your contention that it is "obviously" a "very bad idea" for your health.
What people in America trying to eat as cheaply as possible generally end up doing is ingesting a diet of corporately manufacture, chemically processed, fatty, sugary, nutrient-deficient "food-like" substances that are bad for their health. In other words, they compromise quality for cost. This has been documented to death among poor people in America. Unless you grow your own fruits and vegetables - the upkeep of which also costs money - you are highly unlikely to be able to get even close to an optimal quantity of varied fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, grass-fed proteins, omega 3s, etc. into your diet for under a dollar a day.
Do you really want to save $1460 a year to have put yourself on the path toward chronic diseases - any number of which will cost you a lot more than a dollar a day to the deal with for the rest of your life? Seems rather short-sighted to me.
This is the fuel you are putting into your body. I would only cut costs here up to a point where quality is not compromised, and a dollar a day is likely to put you way too far over that point.
Eating on a dollar a day (not that I am saying this is a desireable goal) means you won't be buying "chemically processed, fatty, sugary, nutrient-deficient "food-like" substance"- unless one single dollar hamburger per day is the goal. To eat that cheap you have to rely heavily on dried legumes, grains, rice. You're making the assumption that food doesn't exist outside stores and restaurants.
When I was growing up we were poor enough that at times we ate chicken feed (I'm serious) made into casseroles...had to pick the stones out before cooking. My mother could do wonders with grains and spices. I realise not everyone lives rural, but we had a couple of goats (milk, yoghurt, cheese), chickens, a garden and lived by the ocean so could pick dulse and other seaweeds, very nutritious. Also ate wild greens like sorrel, dandelion, wild garlic and mushrooms. One good apple tree provided fresh apples and plenty left over for canning in winter.
I know city people here in Michigan who stock their freezer with venison, rabbit and fresh-caught fish - grass-fed, minimal cost to obtain and good clean meat that's lived a better life than factory meat animals. I was raised eating very little meat (rice and beans together is low fat, high-quality complete protein) and still eat it infrequently. Americans eat tons of meat...for those who cook, drawing recipe ideas from less-prosperous countries leads you to lower-far, higher-fiber and IMO tastier meals. Think Indian, Mexican, Middle eastern, northern European.
Not everyone can or will do any of the above, of course...I certainly don't! But my family grew up extremely healthy and ate very little processed food at home; my sibs and I are all middle-aged now...when people realise that food doesn't have to come styro-wrapped at the grocery store after having been trucked and warehoused first, or that every grocery store has an aisle of dried legumes that simply need soaking before cooking and are much cheaper than the canned product, they can make better choices.
Even in a city with a small yard, you can grow a ton of fresh vegetables in a small space and by freezing or canning, have veg year around. I live in a climate with fairly short summers but can grow a whole bunch of produce in a roughly 5 x 10 vegetable bed.
A dollar a day will probably jepordize your health, especially if you do it for weeks. I haven't been sick in years and its amazing how resilient the body is but I think it pays to eat enough food so that you atleast aren't starving. If you crave fruit, then your body needs it, so eat atleast a banana. Here are cheap items I include in my daily diet:
rice
lentils
potatos
frozen vegetables
jelly (the expensive one with actual fruit vs sugar)
bread (1.39) per loaf
tomatos
ramen noodles, but dont eat more than 1 a day, they become unhealthy
Eating on a dollar a day (not that I am saying this is a desireable goal) means you won't be buying "chemically processed, fatty, sugary, nutrient-deficient "food-like" substance"- unless one single dollar hamburger per day is the goal. To eat that cheap you have to rely heavily on dried legumes, grains, rice. You're making the assumption that food doesn't exist outside stores and restaurants.
And you're making the assumption that people live(d) longer healthier lives in places and times that don't have an abundance of "chemically processed, fatty, sugary, nutrient-deficient "food-like" substances," too.
It's relatively easy to make the choices to live on the grains and rice diet here as we are wealthy enough to have good health care that gets us vitamins and other health benefits that cultures that lived on those diets usually did not have available to them.
My ancestors moved to where the food was, and it would be disrespectful of their aceeivements to go back to eating rice and grubs in order to impress some wannabe health nut on the internet. I also earn more than minimum wage so that I can enjoy the wide varieties of food from around the world, and no just eke out a bare existence on basic legumes and grain in order to slowly crawl to my grave sans actual living in some misguided attempt to hoarde money. There are ways of saving money, and eating healthy, but it really saddens me to see the levels of self flagellation that some people go to to deny themselves or even punish themselves for living in a land of wealth. It's no more balanced than the excesses that you rail against.
Okay, is anyone actually (except the op's link) really thinking about doing this? Or that it would be something to be seriously concidered? I always figured things like this were more of an excerize in looking at your food budget, seeing what you could do...but not to actually start living this way.
So, am I misreading some of this? Are you all thinking that this is something you would, or you think someone would seriously try? Am I alone in seeing these things as fun excerizes?
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I also earn more than minimum wage so that I can enjoy the wide varieties of food from around the world, and no just eke out a bare existence on basic legumes and grain in order to slowly crawl to my grave sans actual living in some misguided attempt to hoarde money. There are ways of saving money, and eating healthy, but it really saddens me to see the levels of self flagellation that some people go to to deny themselves or even punish themselves for living in a land of wealth. It's no more balanced than the excesses that you rail against.
