One of the best damn resources, against all odds, for recipes and such turns out to be about.com. (I have no financial interest in them -- I just enjoy their fine offerings.)

There's one recipe section on "home cooking" that has a boatload of low-effort-yet-tasty-nutricious-and-affordable recipes, another on southern cooking that has many of the same, and then there's the one on japanese cuisine which is, outside the foofy sushi shack, pretty much built on such principles. People in the US could also benefit from learning the basics of Indian cuisine as adapted to the purposes of ordinary working-class home-life, too.

Our dinner tonight was a little cholestoral heavy but it was essentially left-over night (that's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it.) Leftover spinich, onion, zuc. meatloaf, and a tasty but cheap mexican-style local cheese went into a quick-to-assemble quiche. Leftover lettuce, tomato, and parmesan went into a simple salad. The pantry featured enablers like some wine-based vinegar, a decent olive oil bought on sale, some herb from the garden, and a boatload of garlic and pepper.

That kind of thing.

(More of the meatloaf is now in the freezer to turn into breakfast down the road, plus there's left-over quiche. My friend for whom I pack a work-day lunch had a meat-loaf sandwich today and, tomorrow, gets some frozen pasta left-overs out of our very inexpensive, 8th year of service, apartment-sized deep-freeze. The fried rice of a few days ago rocked and cost very little (and, with a little knife skills and the benefit of a going-on-7-years rice cooker) very little effort. A few days prior we absolutely gorged on a nice brisket, rice, and veggies -- also yielding sandwhiches and there's *still* a little brisket in the freezer (gotta get to that soon!)...... I can't quite process raw fruit as food (I'm amazed people think of it as such) but my friend enjoys snacking on such quite a bit. Another great recent breakfast was black-beans, rice, and plantains. ----- point is, you can eat like an f'en king without much work and for under $10/day per person *if* you're armed with a little bit of practical knowledge.)

-t

I've eaten on less than a buck a day, though I didn't enjoy it, and with inflation I'd say that's $2/day now. Certainly at $5 a day I never found it hard to have good meals, though it did require knowing how to stretch food - stews, soups, stir fries etc... make a little of the expensive stuff (meat) go a long way.

But it's about time, really. Eating well for little money requires time to cook. Not a hell of a lot of time, but not none. And stretching poor quality fresh food generally requires preparations that are time consuming (although many of them can be done in ways that don't require you to be around or can be sped up. Every person who lives alone and works away from home should have both a slow cooker and a pressure cooker, imo.)

And it seems like a lot of people don't really know how to do even simple cooking these days. (Not that I did when I was first out on my own, but I learned.)

When you get down to a "buck" or two a day you can still do pretty well even if quite primitively. Canned meat, a fresh tomato, an onion, some rice --- you can rock. If yr down that low, aim for as much meat as you can, even if you don't ever quite fill up. Beans/rice and other complementary combinations work, too. Bah... realistically, I'm really talking about closer to your $5 figure.

About cooking time -- I take yr point but you shouldn't exaggerate it quite that much. Going out or heck, even ordering in or microwaving takes time too. There's no time saving compared to what you can do on your own. And, that reminds me, if you don't mind the carbs -- an insta-food that's not too terrible for ya --- microwave a tater, adding some veggies from a bag of frozen veggies towards the end. Toss in some beans from a can. Top with some sour cream or cheese or some other source of that "ooh, tasty" fat. We're stretching the definition of healthy here but there's still harm reduction there and its cheap and fast and low effort.

But, yeah, "it seems like a lot of people don't really know how to do even simple cooking these days." I forget.... why exactly are we having this loud discussion in a public forum?

Cheers,
-t

My lovely wife and I subscribe to the local farm-supported community-sponsored agriculture operation. For about $10, we get a box full of fresh produce every week. We eat meat perhaps 3 times a year--and it's always poultry.

Our diet gets varies by the time of year. Right now, we're getting lots of green leafy vegetables, radishes, onions and leeks. Last night, I made a spinach-rice casserole with cheese and mushrooms and fresh spinach. It was wonderful.

Later on in the summer, we'll get more fruit (local strawberries are exceptional) and more vegetables like zucchini and potatoes and fresh herbs, so our diet will change again.

During the winter, when fresh produce is scarce, we do well on soups and stews that use beans, peas, lentils, beets and potatoes. Stick-to-your-ribs food that keeps you warm.

I bake our bread (it's easy even without a machine) and even brew my own ginger ale.

We can easily afford to eat the "American" diet of prepared food, but the store-bought stuff never tastes as good to me as home-cooked--and it's probably much less healthy. I can usually whip up dinner in less time than it takes to order and pick up a pizza.

It's really surprising to find how many young adults don't know how to cook. I suppose that it shouldn't be a surprise that they don't know how to eat, either.

but gradually over the years, the amount of meat we eat has lessened dramatically and we have become more selective in the types and cuts I serve. I do not restrict what I buy to the most expensive meats and use a variety just like the menus I prepare are diverse. Tonight we had roast pork tendeloin with a small portion size of herb & garlic roasted potatoes, 1/2 pound each of asparagus cooked in vegetable bullion and Haydn's dessert was low-calorie strawberry jello, low fat black cherry ice cream, with two fresh strawberries and a dollop of light CoolWhip with a sprinkling of walnuts and topped with a maraschino cherry. (I do not make desserts ahead of time--it takes 2 minutes to make that dessert.)

It was easy to cook nutritious foods once I set my mind to it. We diet when we gain weight and lose the same ten pounds multiple times. The things we eat when we diet don't change, just the portion sizes. I grow my own vegetables in raised beds and will soon begin to harvest the fruits I have planted. It's exciting when the garden starts to produce its vegetables and fruits because there is no comparable taste in supermarkets. Soon the market garden in the village will open again and I'll be able to get fresh produce from them. I too bake my own bread and that's worth doing just to fill the house with the aroma of it. When we're not on diets, we enjoy the pizzas I make from scratch.

I figure we've saved a small fortune in clothes by maintaining a consistent weight. Haydn has a sweet tooth and it's more difficult for him to control his weight than it is for me.

it's funny and fascinating -- the phenom behind yr heuristic that the "middle aisles" are the danger zone.

how can i convey the essence in just a few words....

shelf space in supermarkets is kind of a rental market. it's real estate. often the aisles are stocked only perfunctorally by actual staff at the store. The main arrangement is done by the wholesalers, directly by hand in the small chains/mom-n-pops and only slightly indirectly in the bigger chains. You know, there's a niche f'n software market for programs that help you plan shelf space allocations and evaluate their success. If you get to certain stores at the right, off-peak times of day you can observe the wholesalers wanderng "their" aisles, entering data into their computers, straightening the wares, etc. The modern supermarket is essentially a shopping-mall/bazaar. Each regional wholesaler rep is essentially operating a small number of separate tiny-tiny stores. It's not all that different in the "corner store/liquor store" space -- you'll find plenty of places that are 0wn3red by Frito-Lay, Budweiser, and R.J. Renolds, fr example.

The common layout -- perishables around the edges, other stuff in the middle -- is partly functional (e.g., dairy cases are often designed to be stocked from behind) and partly just marketing (they layout consumers expect).

It's a fascinating study in microeconomics to examine these places in detail. Oh, and don't get me started on the end-of-the-aisle product positions because, well, it's pretty common knowledge what *that's* all about.

Start penciling out their labor costs and margins, for fun. It's pretty amazing any of this stuff works, at all.

-t

Another key to standard supermarket layout is that milk, bread, and toilet paper are placed the furthest from the entrance, so when you run in to get those staple items, you have to walk past all this other stuff, which they hope you'll buy on impulse. Very often the produce is near the entrance now, so that the store looks all fresh and good as soon as you walk in.

...they re-arrange the store so you'll have to search everywhere for your normal purchases which increases impulse buying. And they put toddler-attractive packages right at eye level for your cart-riding external impulse purchasing unit.

'Marketing and advertising to children has become a specialty unto itself,' agrees David Walsh, a psychologist and president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a nonprofit group based in Minneapolis.

Trade conventions are held across the country to develop strategies to entice children to certain products and then get them to cajole their parents into buying the products. Those in the industry call it the 'nag factor' or 'pester power.'

Children between the ages of 12 and 17 typically will ask nine times for an advertised product in the hope their parents will give in, according to a recent survey conducted by The Center for a New American Dream, a consumer and environmental group based near Washington. More than half the parents surveyed said they do, ultimately, buy the product.
—Jenny Deam, "Targeting kid consumers," The Denver Post, July 23, 2002

( ... Link ... )

A completely new circle of Hell has been constructed specifically for its creators.

When I discovered this concept being deployed against me as a parent long ago I trained myself into an aversion response that's now ingrained. In the (now very rare) cases where my son goes into "nag mode" my determination hardens to deny the sale to any vendors and manufacturers who would profit from directly attacking me as a parent; the reason the nagging's now dropped off to near nil is probably because my son now understands that the nagging directly denies him his objective.

...my kids started watching the shows on TV, instead of the ads. Before then, they would get upset if we talked during the ads, but would promptly turn around and start blabbing during the show. The mute button was strictly forbidden.

Hieronymus Bosch on bad acid couldn't even design the entryway.

"commercial free" kids' channel (although I note that the camel's nose is beginning to poke under the tentflap).

One of the Bosch characters that might best symbolize this to me is the little guy bent over with the trumpet sticking out his *coughcough*.

"By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. No, this is not a joke: kill yourself . . . I know what the marketing people are thinking now too: 'Oh. He's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market.' Oh man, I am not doing that, you fucking evil scumbags."
- Bill Hicks

Around here, the homeless go one of two routes. Some fail to function and wind up in jail (if they *really* f up) or the mental health system (a goal, for some). The regulars, though, do ok on hand-outs, eating variously from convenience stores, take-out, restaurant back doors, etc. It ain't a life I can imagine choosing and there are societal problems that make me want to find ways to better serve these fine neighbors but... *around here* ... they eat pretty well. (Oh, I forgot to mentino the "Food not Bombs" crowd who are also good for a quite square meal a day in historic People's Park, on days when their psychodrama with cops and/or the weather doesn't shut them down.) We are, of course, blessed by climate, making the bum's life easier -- perhaps a bit too much easier.

"The City" (SF) is a bit of a different story. A lot more rough and tumble there, word is.

"Eliminate the homeless!!!!" -- "Er... in the good sense of that!"
-t