Affordable Wai

[dime]

Yeah, and instead of tv you can watch the tomatoes growing, quite fun :D

[Oscar]

[mario91]

Growing indoors? Sorry, but what a waste of space! Unless you live in a mansion... In my house I barely have space to walk, I'd have to walk on tomatoes
Growing outdoors - yes, that should definitely be worthy and fun, but only to who has a garden or a piece of land. Many people don't.

As for me, I can make a really cheap diet. I live in Portugal, and I only spend about 150€/month eating. And I eat like 3000kcal/day, no sugar at all.

The key is relying on what you can get, quality over diversity. And have a good strategy.
In my case:
I bought 70kg of some really good organic dried figs from the south of my country (Algarve, much better than turkish ones!) - I think anyone can have acess to bulks of good quality dried fruit, even if you have to travel a bit (like me), than send it by mail, for instance!
I started drinking OJ now - I drink 1-1.5L a day. 2kg of oranges gives 1L of OJ. So i consume like 60kg-90kg oranges/month. I buy them bulk, every two weeks. 50cents/kilo... super cheap!
Olive oil - I consume lots of olive oil. Good OO is available all over the (civilized) world, and is cheap, cause 100g gives you about 700kcal.
Then, on fish, I started consuming only mackerel. Why? Because it's like 3€/kilo, and the other fish in my marker are all 8-15€/kilo. Mackerel is also one of the tastiest fish. And most importantly - it's fish from our coast. It always comes very fresh, and I know they didn't put it any antibiotics and etc. I don't consume egg yolks cause I still couldn't find good quality ones.

[Oscar]

Wish I could have fresh mackerel more often, and 50c/kilo is dirt cheap! Very nice!

[Mr. PC]

Maybe I should move to Portugal just for the 50 cent/kilo oranges (and warm weather). If I moved to Spain would it be the same price?/could someone living in Spain order in bulk from the same place you ordered? I'm thinking of moving to Spain on the assumption I could get a teaching job there.

[mario91]

Maybe I should move to Portugal just for the 50 cent/kilo oranges (and warm weather). If I moved to Spain would it be the same price?/could someone living in Spain order in bulk from the same place you ordered? I'm thinking of moving to Spain on the assumption I could get a teaching job there.

You're gonna move to another country just cause of the cheap oranges?

I don't know about Spain, but yeah they produce a lot of fruit there.
You should look for quality fruits and animal foods near where you live, cause every country produces its own fruits. If you don't have much oranges, don't eat oranges, eat other fruits. Look for producers, talk to them, buy bulks, dry, freeze, juice.. Get you own strategy to always have good quality foods. It might be harder there in Canada than in Spain or Portugal, but I'm sure you'll still find good stuff there.

[overkees]

In The Netherlands you will only be available to buy cucumber, tomato, strawberry, pear and apples. And some other berries.. pretty damn boring!

[mario91]

In The Netherlands you will only be available to buy cucumber, tomato, strawberry, pear and apples. And some other berries.. pretty damn boring!

That's not that bad. I wish I could find good quality tomatoes, strawberrys and berrys here in Pt.

[Mr. PC]

Well I've been thinking of moving anyway. I'm young, finishing teachers college, and wanting something new. Canada's gotten boarding and having affordable wai food is an important part of my life. I was already thinking about Spain or Southern France, so Portugal isn't too far off the mark. Are tomatoes hard to come by though? Because they're a fav. of mine.

[dime]

Hmm you all seem to like tomatoes? I actually avoid them, as nightshades I think they are not the best thing to eat.. unless you grow them yourself and you're sure to pick them when they are perfectly ripe.

[mario91]

There are lots of tomatoes here in Pt, also in Spain, but I am yet to find someone who actually picks them ripe, instead of green and then matures them with ethylene, and uses other harmful processes for conservation. I gave up on buying those tomatoes, they have a chemical smell, and some of them you can still see some white powder in the skin! The taste is... tasteful, yet "dirty".
Organic tomatoes here are better, but I'd never pay like 5€/kilo for tomatoes! That's robbery!

[mario91]

Well I've been thinking of moving anyway. I'm young, finishing teachers college, and wanting something new. Canada's gotten boarding and having affordable wai food is an important part of my life. I was already thinking about Spain or Southern France, so Portugal isn't too far off the mark. Are tomatoes hard to come by though? Because they're a fav. of mine.

Seems nice, then! Wish you good luck!

[colorles]

I've also had frozen Cod, Sole, and Tilapia, all of which are generally cheaper, but I'm not sure if there's a significant difference in nutritional value from Salmon. I know Salmon tastes way better.

frozen fish is generally alot cheaper, although you can get some 'fresh caught' seafood pretty cheap depending on where you are at, such as close to a fishing port for instance (or course you could catch your own fish, although like with every other food, its not easy to catch and eat it on your own when essentially all or really close to all of it is being caught far more efficiently (if you can really call it 'efficient'...)/brutally by a 'machine' far more powerful/brutal than any entity and then being sold to said entities for money, hence why its so difficult to hunt or find your own foods in 'societies', as its already being caught/stolen (or grown/cloned/whateva) on a massive scale only to be sold for money, thus making this 'machine' more powerful. this is also known as stealing). however this does out to anyone willing to 'awnser' per say, but most of the fish that seem to be sold 'frozen', at pretty much any markers (at least in USA), seem to be varieties of 'cod', such as whiting for example, or tilapia, and other fish such as pollock (a variationg of cod?) and a few others; to anyone willing to 'awnser', how do you feel of the risk of 'parasites' in frozen fish of said varieties and so forth?

[Mr. PC]

Just recalculated my diet costs, basically

4 oranges = $2.00
2 avocado = $2.00
6 yolk = $1.75
1 apple = $0.50
2 Tomato = $1.00

1 cup rice = $0.50

I'm basing this on price per lb and weight per unit. So about $7 or $8.00/day. I'm thinking though, I used to eat apples based on them being significantly cheaper than oranges, but recently they've been the same price, so I should maybe cut apples and have another orange instead, as the vitamin content is superior. Anyway, that gives me about $240/month.

I'm thinking I may cut this in half, and then have a multivitamineral each day. I found 1 that gives the daily value for most micro-nutrients, so if I have half of one each week, theoretically all I'd need would be sugar-water and eggyolks, the rest would be treats. Maybe I could cut this bill in half?

[panacea]

Doesn't work like that
The cheapest I've found is just getting as many egg yolks as you desire per day plus 1 bag of grapes made into juice (because oranges up here are nasty), mix sugar in with the grape juice, and then dilute with 50% distilled 50% spring water so that you have double the amount of grape juice volume (same amount though). You get all your vitamin c, water, and energy this way and everything else is in the egg yolks

Tastes nasty though.