Is there a food that is cheap, delicious and healthy at the same time?
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.
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.
So⌠Are you just unaware of fruits, vegetables, and legumes, haha? In my opinion thereâs 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.
I make a curry of: tofu, green lentils, pearl barley, pearl cous cous, pumpkin, potato, onions, and whatever else is in the vege drawer of the fridge. Then I cook it in a laksa paste with coconut milk. it's delicious and keeps in the fridge for at least a week with no meat.
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
Well, first we need to define what healthy means, because you could die of water intoxication, meaning there is a point where quantity matters.
Are cheese and butter healthy ? Not if it's your only diet, but there are tons of very healthy things in cheese and butter. And of course, the same goes for every thing. So we must have balance in mind when defining an healthy food.
The second is to define what is cheap. In most of European countries, fresh food is relatively cheap, but in other countries they can be super expensive. And there's nothing more healthy than fresh food. So you definitely need fresh food as a base for an healthy balanced meal.
The third is highly subjective.
As for my healthy delicious cheap meal:
Breakfast
One scrambled egg by Gordon Ramsay with a melted slice of cheddar on toast and A fruit salad of one orange, one kiwi and one small apple
Lunch
Spaghettis with fresh garlic, olive oil, fresh basil and tomato wedges
Dinner
Pan-fried chicken fillet with frozen peas and carrot rings
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
...Do we have a community yet for sharing cheap, healthy food recipes? I'd say cooking, but I don't want to get into all the back & forth over what counts as cooking/baking/frying/etc.
Maybe /c/cheaphealthymeals? Or maybe cheapgoodmeals would be better? đ¤
Whatever the case, I think it'd be a solid idea for a community for exchanging recipes and tips!
I heard that tacos are actually quite good for you, and I assume they could be if you get proper ones with lots of veg and natural ingredients rather than going to Taco Bell or some other fast food place and getting processed defrosted junk.
Source: Dr Karan on Youtube (yes, Youtube doctor, but he's British, so I trust him)
IMHO, steamed vegetables are right in the middle of the triangle. I've bought a steam cooker and it's a game changer compared to boiling. It's healthier since less nutrients are lost, preserves so much more taste and texture, there's a timer so you can start the steamer and go do something else. Also makes you use less water. I've still got to try steamed fish but I expect it'll taste great.
Carrots. Same as potatoes. Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew. Someone already mentioned onions, same idea.
I know your edit says you were thinking about dishes, and I think carrots can be their own dish with very little preparation. I like to bake mine on a sheet for half hour or so at 425f, and they are wonderful on their own. Also so low-calorie you can eat a practically infinite amount of them without spoiling a diet!
Honestly, I think most food can be found pretty cheap, except for proteins. The best bet I think is chicken drumsticks, but even those will add up. Beans are a cheap protein, but it's about just as carby as it is proteiny.
Another one is curry, which is actually real easy to make. I bought a bag of curry powder for a few bucks years ago and it's still just fine. You can get cans of paste too but honestly I can go either way, both are great, and I love that the curry powder is so absurdly cheap per serving.
I just julienne an onion and red pepper, saute for a bit, add a few teaspoons of curry powder, throw in some garlic and ginger, then add a can of chicken broth, and a few drops of fish sauce. I simmer for a while to let it reduce, then add a can of sweetened coconut milk at the end. Also at the end I add a ton of basil. Maybe some other stuff in there too that I'm forgetting, you really can't go wrong with this either.
For protein you can obviously do chicken or something, but if you want to go ultra cheap and healthy, just throw in a cup of lentils to that curry you got going. Give it 20 minute or so and you're in flavor city. I'm always blown away at how insanely tasty it is, like it's just impossibly good. You can add literally whatever spices and flavorings you want and it just gets better.
There's an asian grocery store near me with all these ingredients for super cheap so I can make that curry sauce for literally like $5-10. It's delicious, cheap, super easy, and healthy, if not a bit calorie dense from the coconut milk.
Oh boy I've got one! Bonus, it ticks a 4th box - convenient!
Not sure where you're located and there are different brands, so you'll have to investigate for yourself. But the Tasty Bite brand microwaveable Indian pouches to me manage to hit each of these dimensions. They're cheap (-ish, I wanna say $4 per meal?), healthy (probably high in sodium, but if you look at the ingredients list it's all just food - not weird processed and/or synthetic crap), microwaveable and totally delicious. Granted, it's delicious for a microwaved meal...can't exactly compete with a properly prepared Indian dish. But it's easily the best microwaved food I've ever eaten.
And they're vegetarian and sometimes vegan so a small win on the critter ethics too! Can't recommend em enough unless you mean REAL cheap or you're used to eating home cooked Indian dishes on the regular.
The above 3 primary ingredients will be cheap, healthy, and delicious when prepared properly. Adding milk and/or cinnamon to taste can improve the deliciocity.
But maybe don't eat it for every meal or you'll be shitting after every meal. Very clean colon though.
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.
If you buy local, and go with the seasons, I'd argue it is rather hard to not have all three (cheap, delicious, healthy) at the same time.
You won't have to rely on produce which is optimized for long transports but can tap into fresh, original flavors. Ripe fruits and vegetables from the fields, harvested just this morning. And because they all ripen now, quality maximizes when prize minimizes.
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
Yes - generally beans are both healthy (33% protein, 33% fiber, 33% carbs), cheap (dried or in cans), and can be pretty tasty, even out of cans, but if not with eggs, as part of a soup (tomatoes + grain + spices + veggies).
Rice, tuna from a packet, and soy sauce - cheap, delicious, healthy, and easy. You wanna get fancy, you can add some sesame oil, furikake, chop up some green onions, whatever you got kicking around.
Well chicken maybe as it is the most cheap meat.
And it is subjective, but something like chicken soup (if cooked at home) can be relativly cheap and really delicious.
Also, just thought about it - fruits and berries also easily break this trinity
Most things are unhealthy because we eat too much of it. For example (fresh) bread is delicious, cheap, and healthy, provided you eat it in moderation. Now if you ate nothing but bread all day you would gain a lot of weight.
Same goes for salt, fat, and sugar. To be fair, part of the reason we tend to eat so much of it is because normally this stuff is rare in nature and we are evolved to seek it, but we've made it so accessible and cheap, that we easily let our natural instincts take over. So that aspect explains your trinity. But it doesn't have to be that way. You can have all three with a bit of self control.
The one thing missing from the trinity is "effort". For instance, you could make any Dal, which would fit the trinity, but takes a lot of time. There are books with hundreds of Dal recipes that all taste different and work, too. And this is just one example. Less than a dollar a meal if made in bulk with rice.
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.
Extremely easy, you put carrots potatoes peas salt and a few garlic cloves, and a bay leaf to simmer, drain all, mush the garlic in olive oil and use it as dressing you got a surprisingly delicious healthy and cheap dish. Another great combination comes from cauliflower potato a pinch of garlic some strong cheese pepper salt butter and lemon juice, this combo has all the cheesy taste profile of a fondue without all the calories. Last eggplant and pistachio pesto (pistachio oil basil and pecorino or any other strong cheese) is like the most delicious combo and cheap ish too, it makes for an amazing base for sandwiches!
I think this may depend on where you live or are at the moment and what you consider cheap. I am in Mexico right now and start my days with fresh fruit salads, maybe with some yogurt and musli. With my West European economy it's really cheap.
The thing with mushrooms is that they can get pretty expensive in stores, especially if you're looking for a specific kind of mushroom. They can also be very easy to forage though, which does make them free! This is different from growing them in a private garden (which is something you can do with most produce, and requires time and resources). DELICIOUS AND HEALTHY OH YEAH BABY!!
Tacos and burritos could absolutely meet this criteria If you're doing them well at home, with the most unhealthy thing being the tortilla itself (You could argue that those are empty calories). Of course that means no sour cream or cheap cheese abuse among other things
I like pickling things. Pickled Red Onions are delicious and easy, and Pickled Green Beans are probably my favorite. Fresh Green Beans can be had by the big bag for about two bucks. Throw in a couple Habanero peppers for spice, maybe $.50 worth of seasoning, $.50 worth of vinegar if you buy it by the gallon, and you have some delicious cheap snacks that are also relatively healthy. The worst ingredients would be salt and sugar, but you can minimize its use to taste when you make them yourself. I guess it's all relative, but to me a few bucks for a quart jar of quality homemade pickles checks all the boxes when it comes to cheap, healthy, and delicious. It does take a bit of prep work though so it's definitely better if you enjoy that type of thing.
Addictive carbs and salt, dirt cheap, and healthy as shit. Also convenient and compatible with most dietary/ethical restrictions.
If you learn to like beans when you're 20 and throw it into an index fund, you'll have a modest retirement fund just on the money you saved (yes, I calculated it based on money saved and growth of the S&P).
The biggest problem with this is subjective metrics.
"Healthy" depends a lot on both what your needs are and the rest of your diet, there's no one-size-fits-all.
"Delicious" is even more subjective.
'Cheap' at least is fairly objective, but even so different qualities, different locations, or different seasons can change prices drastically, and that's before you get into the fact that what really matters is the more-subjective 'cheap to someone of your means.'
A lot of cuisine that is lauded all around the world embraces all three of those, or at least the original dishes they came from did. A lot of really fancy food today and in the last 50 years is just "peasant food". Sometimes just with fresher ingredients and more butter
100 gr of peanuts have almost all the fatty acids that you need in a day, with almost half the minimum calorie intake required and half the protein you need. They are satiating, VERY easy to grow, and even used as a way to replenish the soil with nutrients in crop rotation.
If you ask me what was the mana taken through the dessert, I'd say most likely peanuts.
Oatmeal with bananas, cinnamon, soy milk(unsweetened), flaxseed and sugar + extra fruits according to preference.
I eat it everyday for breakfast and I never get tired of the flavor. Sometimes I even get a bit greedy and eat it more than once. It's very filling, healthy, and cheap.
Try making a bean salad some time! It is cheap, tasty, and healthy.
I just buy a few cans: black, kidney, garbanzo, whatever. Some romaine lettuce, tomato, red onion maybe. Mexify it if you want with some shreddy cheese and sour cream, served with tortillas/doritos (not healthy obv). Or plain with an italian dressing or something.
It's basically impossible to fuck up, you can modify it however you want, it takes like five minutes to throw together, super cheap, totally fits all three categories. Try it some time!
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I think a ripe avocado can be a good meal by itself, it has healthy fat, vitamins & fiber.
One avocado as a meal is cheaper than alot of other options.
I was looking at similar requirements for my daily lunch during the workday. I live in London so you're paying between ÂŁ5 and ÂŁ10 per day even for just a sandwich-based lunch. I needed a packed lunch that was cheap, tasty, healthy and additionally: filling, easy/quick to prepare and low carb. So that's a big ask.
I settled on a kind of custom Greek salad. One cucumber, some red onion, pickled beetroot all diced up, olive oil (or cold-pressed rapeseed oil) and some feta cheese. Sometimes I add chickpeas and coriander.
Look into fresh produce that you can eat raw. IMHO there's no nicer snack than a crisp crunchy carrot. They're cheap, and pretty much always available. Carry a mini peeler with you and you can just grab one from a store, peel it over a rubbish bin, and scoff it. :)
Celeriac (celery root - you can also use zucchini instead) fritters. Shred celeriac, carrots, onions and peppers, mix with salt and let sit, then squeeze out the water using cheese cloth. Mix in an egg, a small handful of flour, roasted and/or black garlic and some pepper. Form into balls and deep fry until the outside is golden brown and crispy, then drain on a rack or paper towel (you can also form into patties and pan fry them, same flavor but missing the solidity and the crunchy shell).
Very cheap (it's basically just vegetables and an egg) and very low-calorie and IMHO much more delicious than french fries.
Fried soy beans with garlic. Tastes approx like potato chips, about the same price as beans, and decently nutritious. Just don't use too much salt or oil.
Ingredients are cheap (you can add nearly any seasonal vegetables) and lentils can be grown locally (America, Europe, Asia, maybe elsewhere too) without too much environmental damage and dried lentils can be stored for long times, you do not need expensive spices and no industrial processed stuff.
Cooking it in a pressure cooker makes it energy effective and done very fast.
You can freeze it over longer periods, so you can make one big pot, but eat multiple times. It should stay perfectly fine for three month in a freezer* and we kept it for three days in a fridge just fine (could stay good longer but I haven't tried it).
And we love it.
If you plan to put it into a freezer do not salt it. Salt it when heating it up again.
Are we talking about only the plain substance, not allowing for spices? Because I feel like every food isn't delicious unless you season it in some way, or at least use an oil in cooking. If we're just talking about baking everything then I'd say everything is "bland" Lol
For me it's all about how you prepare the food. I eat chicken, canned beans, and mushrooms pretty much all the time because I try to buy cheap as much as I can, but just those few main items can be made so many different delicious ways with other "smaller/lesser" ingredients.
Yes, yes there are foods that are cheap, delicious and healthy. Sorry this will be a long post, many things to cover!
First I have to say, what I regard as healthy for me personally is generally Keto friendly foods. This is because, for an unknown, diagnosed (not for the lack of trying) reason I have muscle and joint pains that go away if I get to a very low carb intake such that it has an anti-inflammatory effect. Other than working around the reason I have pain, it also remove redness of Seborrheic dermatitis which I have. For me it also reduces quite a bit, but not stops dandruff. It has other health benifits as well, it is not a cure all, I've never said it has cured any of the symptoms above, just reduce or remove the symptoms. For me the symptoms come back when I eat carbs, even if I stay away from sugar. Well it can cure some things like fatty liver or insulin insensitivity. But its not a cure all, again my symptoms (except I was insulin sensitive which is cured) are not cured, but it does work in a palliative manner.
Keto doesn't work for everyone. Well if losing weight is a goal, and then you actually do a keto diet, it will work. People who say it doesn't work for losing weight are either knowingly (lying to them selves) or more often unknowingly eating carbs they don't count. Also by count I don't mean actually keeping track of, because literally counting carbs, nope, I don't believe in that. Too much work, and doesn't give a benefit over adhering to just what ingredients you can use.
What I actually meant for keto doesn't work for everyone, I mean work as in being healthy. It should work for the vast majority of people. But example my wife, she has Ulcerative Colitis, pre-diabetes, and she is underweight. Ulcerative Colitis in regards to keto mainly makes it so certain types of fiber is not good for her. And being slightly medically underweight, she can't eat enough, she needs the carbs. For Diabetes type 2 keto diet is super effective at palliative helping, especially if it's just pre-diabetes. But alas, she can't hit her calorie needs without carbs.
Before talking about the foods, I wan't to mention that Keto diet goes very well together with intermittent fasting. This is mainly due to how the liver works. Making ketons! Keton's isn't mumbo jumbo, simplified its what your liver makes when breaking down fat. Ketons is a very good fuel source for your body. If break down fat, you get much more energy than if eat carbs. So you want to stay in ketosis for more of the 24 hour day, than is easy without intermittent fasting. Ketosis is just when you produce ketons. So to get there, very grossly simplified, fast, don't eat carbs or eat very low amounts, and eat lots of healthy fats. Again grossly simplified, eat almost any fats, but not trans-satiated fats, those are poison to you anyway. When it comes to proteins, I just try to eat lots, and if I get a tummy ache due to eating too much proteins, then I eat less proteins. I don't worry so much about eating enough proteins if I don't workout. I lied above, by omission. I eat lots of carbs, because there are some carbs I don't count. By count I mean I don't regard them as being calories. What calories do I not count then? Mostly vegetables! Some veggies I do count though, like potatoes.
I need to have a short paragraph about eating fats. Its super important in a keto diet. Fat makes you feel satiated. It is no surprise since fats are much more energy dense than carbs including sugar. Feeling satiated is hormonal. Your body does send out hormones, or inhibit hormones, and Ghrelin hormone makes you feel hungry, and Ghrelin production is suppressed when you are digesting fats. Terms to google in regards to this is "fat adapted" which means that the body can more easily use fat as a fuel source throughout the day. And "insulin resistance", not directly related, but very important.
One more thing, when cutting out sweets, everything else starts tasting much better. Everything that has a hint of sweetness gets amplified. Even cold brew coffee. I often cold brew at home, and then heat it (pour some concentrated cold brew in a cup and add hot water), and its so sweet I almost dream about it.
Lastly, and shortly. What supplements do I recommend? Generally assuming you don't have any deficits due to your diet. If I want to eat as much protein as I can tolerate (like because of working out) then whey protein, without added sugar is great! Creatine is also great I could write 3 paragraphs about creatine, and lastly(assuming you get enough vitamins, minerals, and omega3) I also recommend, psyllium husk. Psyllium husk is a great source of amazing fiber, and it really helps me stabilize my gut. Especially together with a keto diet, I go from having close to IBS to feeling like I got a very healthy gut.
Next the foods: I'll reply to my own comment because there is a character limit
Late to the party, but lately I've been addicted to microwavable broccoli florets (just the leafy part, not the stalks) covered in sharp cheddar cheese.
My brain has learned to think it's cheese fries. But it's broccoli.
My very Italian answer is "pizza bianca" . I guess "healthy" depends, but it's generally OK carbs, it's delicious and with few Euros you can buy quite a lot (enough for a lunch).
Beans! Especially stew with them, you can throw in pretty much anything (veggies, meat, adjust your spice levels...) and once you learn the correct balance it's very tasty and filling.
I'd say sandwiches, depending on what you want to put in them. A loaf of healthy (low sugar) bread isn't going to be the cheapest option on the shelf, but if you're dividing the cost by the number of sandwiches you can make out of it, it still ends up amounting to a large number of really inexpensive meals. I normally just add some meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomato, and it's very nutritional and also delicious.
The Instant Pot or equivalent is the best invention for this. Throw in whatever ingredients (beans, veg) were previously too much hassle to cook. Add water, press button, wait for beep, open pot, eat. Well better find some recipes first, but it's almost that simple.
Here's a favorite of mine: 1 cup dry beans, 1/2 cup tomato powder (yes that is a thing), 2 cups water, cook on high pressure for 35 minutes, stir in a can of corn kernels from trader joe. Done and delicious and nourishing, due to the protein combination from the corn and beans mixing. Or use rice instead of corn, except that's more hassle since it's best to make that separately.
Purple asparagus! You can grow it and it grows in incredible quantity quite quickly. Then you can toss it in the air fryer each day for ten minutes with some seasonings and it's phenomenal.
Look into Indian foods and even traditional japanese. Really hearty and nutrient dense foods there. Plus there's a book on Depression era cooking that has a lot of great recipes for low cost and self sustaining.
Yes but it's kind of a cheat... The food must be free somehow for one reason or another... This, in and of itself, makes it more delicious even if it was delectable to begin with. Also, obviously the healthy part is important first if it's important to you at all.
Jimmy Joy. Cheap (under 2 euros per meal), delicious and you can't really get any more nutritious than that. It has all the recommended nutrients in one go.
I find brussel sprouts to be delicious when roasted in the oven with olive oil, salt, and pepper. They're fairly inexpensive at Costco, are great for you, and tasty. My mother used to make brussel sprouts out of cans or boiled when I was a kid and I thought for a long time that I hated them. Turns out I just was having them prepared wrong.