Let’s face it, the economy sucks.
Housing bubbles, jobless recoveries, and laughably insignificant raises… it’s getting tough to justify spending a lot of money on food.
But using that as an excuse to simply eat less is wrong-headed. When it comes to optimizing your diet to favor fat loss and muscle growth, quality trumps quantity.
But eating well on a tight budget is a cinch, and I’m going to prove it to you.
How Low Can You Go?
With a simple Google search, you can find countless people on a food budget of a dollar a day. It’d be tempting for me to jump on this boat as well…
…but I suggest you stay as far away from this advice as possible!
Most of these people are:
- Eating a lot of junk food.
- Eating fewer calories than their bodies need.
You’ll rarely find good deals on ribeyes and asparagus, but a quick look at the coupon section of your newspaper (yes, they still exist) and you’ll realize that eating on a dollar a day is easy – as long as you are willing to survive on food produced in a factory.
Due to generous government subsidies and ginormous marketing budgets, food companies are able to sell their products at rock-bottom prices without the fear of going out of business.
Additionally, anyone can live on a dollar a day (for a short time, anyways), if they eat below their body’s energy requirements.
Despite conventional wisdom to the contrary, this is an unsustainable method that generally results in poorer overall health and, once you fall off the bandwagon, increased fat storage. (The subject of this New York Times article struggled with low energy on his dollar-a-day diet, a telltale sign of a compromised metabolism.)
Boo. Hiss.
For budget eating to be sustainable and healthy, you must:
- Eat real food.
- Have your caloric requirements met.
Game on!
The Challenge
I’m going to put my money where my mouth is (quite literally) and show you how you can eat like a champion on $50 a week.
Why $50? It’s somewhat arbitrary, but let me explain how I arrived at that number.
According to this infographic, Americans currently spend $3,465 per person on groceries each year, which equals $66.63 per week.
But half of all people earn less money than the average, by definition, so we should set the bar even lower.
From my research, the maximum food stamp allocation in California (where I live) is $200, or roughly $50 per week, which is what someone who is utterly destitute can still count on to survive. This, I believe, truly gives us an idea of the “lower limit” I should be looking at for food spending.
But Wait, There’s More…
As you all know, I am a big proponent of cooking.
By buying unprepared food and cooking it yourself, you save a lot of money while reducing the amount of garbage – especially refined vegetable oils, sugars, and processed grains – that ends up in your belly.
What you don’t save on, I concede, is time. There’s just no way to compete with a microwave dinner that requires only removing it from its package and hitting “start.”
But that doesn’t mean we still can’t do it fast.
In our culture, 30 minute meals seem to be the “holy grail.” If you can spend a half hour working in the kitchen each night and wind up with an edible product, you instantly become a superhero. Probably one of those really fast ones.
Multiply that by seven nights a week, and you’ve got 3 1/2 hours.
Sounds like a challenge to me.
The Big Haul
So I went to my local Trader Joe’s to go shopping for a week’s worth of food and came home with what you see here. (Actually, I stopped by the Von’s next door as well, since they had a couple of items I needed.)
2 whole chickens- 1 lb bacon
- 1 gallon milk
- 4 sticks butter
- 1 dozen eggs
- 6 lbs potatoes
- 2 lb carrots
- 2 large onions
- 2 hearts celery
- 2 cloves garlic
- 6 lemons
- 1 bunch parsley
- 1 package thyme
- 1 lb rice
- 1 lb lentils
- 1 bottle red wine (for hedonistic purposes)
Total spent: $48.21
Total kcal (according to FitDay): 22,152
I didn’t break the bank, and I’m not likely to starve. Sweet!
In the next installment, I roll up my sleeves and get cookin’. Can I spend less than 3 1/2 hours working on preparing all this food? Make sure to subscribe via email or RSS to make sure you find out!
I'm a science geek, food lover, and wannabe surfer.
{ 8 comments }
Excellent experiment I look forward to seeing how it all goes .. I spend heaps on food and most if the day I don’t even eat!
Here is a tip that’s helped .. I go to the food markets near the end of trading they always try and get rid of fresh food as lower than normal.
We also grow our own vegetables and herbs and that helps a little too
Wow $ 48.21 and lashing out on wine? At lease you’ve got your priorities right! .haha
raymond
Darrin – This is a great idea! We might have to try something like this in the future (don’t worry, we’ll give you full credit!). The ingredients sound delicious. We can’t wait to hear how your cooking turns out.
Cheers,
J&K
Darrin,
The recession has definitely had a big impact on spending across the board. In today’s economy, it has to be difficult for the average person to spend more than $50 per week on food. I agree with you that it can easily be done, though. I set a monthly food budget of about $180 (or about $45 per week) on groceries and I rarely go over.
You can actually stock up on a lot of good, healthy foods relatively cheaply if you stick to the produce aisle. I say don’t waste your money on $5 energy drinks and $3 protein bars. Just stick to real, natural foods.
Alykhan
Darrin, what a coincidence, this week I created budget diet plan for a couple and the weekly budget was almost yours. It is common misconception that eating healthy is expensive and normal people can’t afford it. Instead of spending for soda you can buy a whole chicken and veggies (meat and veggies is the easiest way to drop weight).
@Raymond:
Farmer’s markets are a great way to save some money on quality food here as well. “Cutting out the middleman,” as it were. When I go to them it’s usually earlier in the day, but I’ll bet you can get some deals before everyone closes up shop.
Yeah, I love me some wine! I guess I’m just showing off at this point, haha!
@Jeremy&Kim:
Awesome! I’d love to hear how it works for you!
@Alykhan:
Damn, sounds like you’ve one-upped me. 🙂 Too many “health-minded people” unquestioningly load up on expensive bars, powders, and supplements. You can definitely save money by steering clear.
@Rumi:
Awesome! People definitely build it up in their minds too much the cost of healthy eating. Much better to try it yourself to find out.
I was wondering how you came up with $48.21…and amazingly you managed to stick to your budget. That’s pretty impressive and a nice list of foods to boot!
@Dave:
$50 was the big goal to make it under, seeing as that’s what someone dependent 100% on food stamps could expect to collect. I could have definitely done it in much less had I clipped more coupons, went to more grocery stores, etc. But I wanted to minimize the hassle as much as possible.
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