Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You can eat for less than a dollar a day - actually zero dollars a day sometimes - by going down to Social Services and picking up an EBT card. You can even make money on food by "shopping" for people with your leftover balance! <borat voice>Nice</borat voice>!
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.
Exactly the opposite is the case. A dollar a day will get you one little burger from the value menu, so the number of people reducing their eating cost by going that route is exactly zero, with a margin of error of zero, and you are talking about a non-existent hypothetical. People cutting their cost of food to the bare minimum buy large bags of plain flour and cornmeal and dried beans and rice. I challenge you to produce a single citation that anyone's health has been harmed by eating cooked-from-scratch food, instead of higher-priced processed or ready-to-eat food.
Anyone who reduces their daily intake of food to one little value-menu burger will very quickly (like the next day) start looking really hard for a better way to stretch that dollar, and then you will have no example to back up your contention.
As for your nutritional variety, it has been demonstrated that the bare bones Mexican diet of beans, rice and corn tortillas provide a well-balanced diet and can be eaten every day, supplemented with fresh fruits and vegetables. You can always find some of those for under a dollar a pound in the USA. A quarter pound of fresh fruits and veggies is plenty, leaving 75c for the beans-rice-tortillas, which is enough. There is less than 3 years differential between the life expectancy of Americans and Mexicans, so there are plenty of people living to old age on that diet.
Tvdxer, I think the premise is based on having to buy all the food at retail, from sources available to everyone. It excludes accessing free food, such as dumpster diving, hunting and gathering, working for food, using social assistance, etc.
Exactly the opposite is the case. A dollar a day will get you one little burger from the value menu, so the number of people reducing their eating cost by going that route is exactly zero, with a margin of error of zero, and you are talking about a non-existent hypothetical. People cutting their cost of food to the bare minimum buy large bags of plain flour and cornmeal and dried beans and rice. I challenge you to produce a single citation that anyone's health has been harmed by eating cooked-from-scratch food, instead of higher-priced processed or ready-to-eat food.
Anyone who reduces their daily intake of food to one little value-menu burger will very quickly (like the next day) start looking really hard for a better way to stretch that dollar, and then you will have no example to back up your contention.
As for your nutritional variety, it has been demonstrated that the bare bones Mexican diet of beans, rice and corn tortillas provide a well-balanced diet and can be eaten every day, supplemented with fresh fruits and vegetables. You can always find some of those for under a dollar a pound in the USA. A quarter pound of fresh fruits and veggies is plenty, leaving 75c for the beans-rice-tortillas, which is enough. There is less than 3 years differential between the life expectancy of Americans and Mexicans, so there are plenty of people living to old age on that diet.
Tvdxer, I think the premise is based on having to buy all the food at retail, from sources available to everyone. It excludes accessing free food, such as dumpster diving, hunting and gathering, working for food, using social assistance, etc.
Funny that someone answered this precise question in detail with a citation of sources.
Clicking into those sources, you find that while there are many good things about the average poor Mexican's diet, there are some serious deficiencies as well. It is no panacea, especially in its most spartan form.
If I had enough money - and fortunately I do - I sure wouldn't strictly adhere to this diet just for the sake of saving a few extra bucks.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,694 posts, read 58,012,579 times
Reputation: 46171
Quote:
Originally Posted by ambient
....If I had enough money - and fortunately I do - I sure wouldn't strictly adhere to this diet just for the sake of saving a few extra bucks.
Many don't have the bucks and MUST get by on $1 / day or less.
I will admit this has been a challenge when visiting your locale; San Francisco, CA. I probably have to spend $3-$5 / while in the city (big bucks for me). I usually bring enough fresh fruit and produce to get me by for a few days. Spend less as I get out and about the countryside. (I don't buy food / groceries in Carmel and Monterrey either .)
Can't say I remember being sick much, I had 800 hrs of sick leave saved up when my Bay Area CEO absconded to Monte Carlo to 'Double-Down' on my Retirement and Sick leave accounts... In 32 yrs of service, I'm sure I didn't have 100 days of sick leave used. Been eat'n cheap for over 50 yrs. Guess I better get to the Dr. ?
Many don't have the bucks and MUST get by on $1 / day or less.
Where? In the US? That is why we have food stamp programs. This idea that people are practically starving in the US is silly. There isn't any legitimate reason for anyone to go hungry in this country. The biggest cause is parental neglect.
Many don't have the bucks and MUST get by on $1 / day or less.
Where? In the US? That is why we have food stamp programs. This idea that people are practically starving in the US is silly. There isn't any legitimate reason for anyone to go hungry in this country. The biggest cause is parental neglect.
Having worked in a poverty law center assisting disabled, homeless and mentally ill people in getting things such as food stamps and other public benefits, I assure you that many, many in this country who qualify for food stamps and the like do not, in fact, receive them without much assistance from agencies such as the one I worked for, and at times, not even then. There assuredly ARE people going hungry in the U.S., whether or not you deem the reasons for that to be legitimate, and both in cases that have to do with parental neglect and in cases where that's not the situation. There are major issues of access, for many different reasons, both within the system, and out. The idea that nobody goes hungry in the U.S. is a nice bit of mythology, and the implication that those who do, deserve it, is both ill-informed and callous.
I am tired of hearing that eating at the fast food joints is cheaper than eating healthy. Those people eating never fill up because the body doesn't get the nutrition it needs. In understanding that one could exist on $1.00 if they had to, isn't that well worth the knowledge as part of being prepared for whatever may come your way? The most wonderful book I ever purchased was "More-with-Less" - a world community cookbook. I am guessing that many of you may have seen it over the years. It is a production of the Mennonite community and is more than a cookbook. It is a learning experience. Fast food will not satisfy the body, thus your 700 pound man that only eats a little based on volume. I am betting that if today everyone started eating just rice and beans that on a whole, the country would be eating healthier than they are right now and the food stamps would go a lot further so the kids didn't have to go to bed hungry every night during the last two weeks of the month.
Merc, I made a point to state I neither eat like this myself now, nor do I want to and I'm not suggesting people should, either. A dollar a day is not sustainable, IMO. In fact I'm probably going to stop at Starbucks on the way to work and buy myself a $5.00 foo foo coffee.
I was just pointing out that there ARE ways to cut food costs by thinking "outside of the box", as it were, and making some healthier choices at the same time. The "dollar a day" diet in the original link was an experiment, not a recommendation. But it does offer food for thought for those who want to cut back on the grocery bill.
When I grew up we didn't have much and we ate a lot of beans, pinto, and navy.. With potatoes and corn bread..A lot of the meat we ate came from the wild, hunting rabbits and birds.
I have an old class school picture with about 30 kids in it, we are about 7 years old..
There is not one over weight kid in the picture.. I wonder if it has to do with that there were no fast food happy meal places those days..
I'm still wondering why a bag of oranges cost 50 cents per orange or 1 orange cost me 75 cents? Did the trees become golden in the last few years?
I still like a good pot of pinto beans with home made fries and cornbread... or mashed potatoes... I'd go out and get me a couple of rabbits, but I'd probably go to jail now days for shooting them...LOL
Clicking into those sources, you find that while there are many good things about the average poor Mexican's diet, there are some serious deficiencies as well. It is no panacea, especially in its most spartan form.
If I had enough money - and fortunately I do - I sure wouldn't strictly adhere to this diet just for the sake of saving a few extra bucks.
The report you cited showed that I was essentially correct, that the Mexican diet is overall very healthful and nutritious. But the missing elements from the Mexican diet can easily be supplemented without going over the dollar-a-day threshold. In fact, a multivitamin can be added to the daily diet of any Amerian for less than 5 cents a day, which would by themselves overcome all the nutritional deficiencies experienced by poor rural Mexicans who do not have access to these supplements. A 95-cent Mexican diet and a nickel Flintstone would give a child all he needed for healthy growth.
I think the dollar-a-day diet was not suggested as the universal target diet for all Anericans, but rather as an alternative diet for Americans at risk below the poverty line and using public assistance, to show that anyone can be well fed regardless of economic circumstances. My reference to the praiseworthy (even by your link) Mexican diet was illustrative to show that such a regimen could be exercised by Americans at a cost of only a dollar a day at current US retail food prices.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
.)
Guess I better get to the Dr. ?
for those who want to cut back on the grocery bill.
