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)
- lentils
Onion. It’s cheap, nutritious, acts as a low-key anti bacterial solution, can be served in a multitude of ways, or eaten raw.
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eaten raw
You, sir, are a monster.
Hmm time for a snack
Takes a bite from a raw onion like an apple
Listen for some of us that’s a delicacy.
Tony abbott is that you?
Great fashion accessory too
As was the style at the time
Followed. Don’t let me down!
Stop
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.
Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew…
That’s a good point, but even within potatoes there is perhaps still a trade-off between “delicious” and “healthy”. As in steamed potatoes without sauces or stuff is kind of meh, while french fries are not that healthy.
Oven-baked potatoes is where it’s at.
I don’t even like french fries that much. Steamed potates, or baked ones by the campfire, I’m all in.
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.
Vegetable soup. I know it sounds boring but you’d be surprised at just how nice vegetables in water with salt can taste.
…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? 🤔
Whatever the case, I think it’d be a solid idea for a community for exchanging recipes and tips!
I just made one! https://lemmy.world/c/cheaphealthyfood
Chick pea curry.
Thank you so much for the share! I love chickpeas so I’ll definitely be adding this to my recipes :)
So… Are you just unaware of fruits, vegetables, and legumes, haha? In my opinion there’s 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.
Yup. Mexican, Indian, a lot of cuisine from poorer countries figured this out long ago. Beans or lentils over rice with the right spices, incredible. The restaurant version will add a lot of fat and heavy cream but if you make it yourself you can adjust that so it’s not unhealthy.
Yeah! Exactly! A huge amount of the best food (imo) comes from these cultures. Plus many of these dishes are also really easy to make in bulk, which is a big win too.
My first thought was just just “Bananas?” Lol
And then there is mc Donald’s and similar chains. They managed to avoid all three of those things
I don’t know, they are pretty fucking cheap.
I could eat for a week in what I’d costs to buy one McD meal. It’s wouldn’t be a very varied diet for the week but it would probably be healthier than the one McD meal.
Not in Germany lol. A cheeseburger used to be 1€ now it’s at 2,29€ 💀. Cheeseburger menu costs 5,99€
I wonder if they are actually that unhealthy. After all a burger is just meat, bread, and some veggies. Doesn’t seem that unbalanced.
I assume the most unhealthy part there is the gallon of sugar soda that people also drink there ._.
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It’s all the additives to these otherwise quite wholesome ingredients that make them less healthy and not as nutritionally dense as they should be. McDonald’s burgers are not JUST meat, bread, and some veggies unfortunately.
Don’t forget that all of their ingredients are particularly low quality. Your beef was not a grass fed cow who lived a happy life before being killed. It was a cow who lived in misery eating awful food and producing low quality meat. And I’m sure everything else on the burger was low quality too.
in all honesty it’s probably soy
potato
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
Beans… on toast.
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.
Sardines are a pretty solid alternative to tuna as well. Depending, they may be cheaper, andnas a bonus they’re much more sustainable than tuna.
Oh man I’ve got a similar recipe for you:
- boil some bean sprouts for a few minutes, strain
- pan fry strained sprouts with a splash of sesame oil. add a dab of tobanjan. sprinke with salt & MSG
- add tuna from a can and pan fry for a few more minutes
serve. one of my favs.
Ah yes, a food that you can eat for three days without pooping while you stay in a tent?
Rice
