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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by nijntjefan@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

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!

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[-] LoafyLemon@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Onion. It's cheap, nutritious, acts as a low-key anti bacterial solution, can be served in a multitude of ways, or eaten raw.

Subscribe for more onion facts. 🧅

[-] WhiteHawk@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

eaten raw

You, sir, are a monster.

[-] BigPapaE@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Hmm time for a snack

Takes a bite from a raw onion like an apple

[-] derpysmilingcat@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Listen for some of us that's a delicacy.

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[-] skogens_ro@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Followed. Don't let me down!

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[-] iriyan@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Carters' peanuts :)

Nutritious is very relative to industrialized food production. The most nutritious natural products are perceived as wild and are not objects of agriculture. Basically the objects of agriculture were selected on the ease of reproduction, not their nutritious value, or their cost. It just so happened that those that were easy to plant and grow were the leanest in quantity and complexity of nutrients. Many of the most nutritious seeds, fruits, and vegetables are becoming extinct with the elimination of natural forests. Planted forests would take thousands of years to stabilize as ecosystems (if ever) and be concidered sustainable food sources.

Cheap means the industry hasn't been able to monopolize, but labor is very exploitable (see bannana republics, tea and coffee plantations). It also means the quantities produced have saturated the markets and the product is in abundance (wheat, corn, soy,..).

Delicious ... only N.Europeans (and their N.Am. Oceania descendants) would consider eating a single element alone and judge it by taste. The rest of the world eat what they can get, spice it up, mix it, and make taste a final product of a mixture of things with a labor intensive process of preparing it. The dairy industry (waste of nutritients and exponentially waste of land use) and the sugar industry (it should have been banned under substance abuse addictive product that is a health hazzard as well) have blurred what "delicious" really means. Take as an example banana split ice cream, there is little nutritious value, if not harmful as a whole, made of three industrial products that maximize labor exploitation. If it wasn't for capitalism nobody in their right mind would have come up with this one. It only exists because of capitalism.

Nutrition has been a dead end disaster since its early days of being industrialized.

[-] GTac@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[-] eduardm@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Chobbes@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] foggenbooty@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] z3n0x@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago
[-] Fmstrat@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

Only truly cheap if you make it yourself. That's why I commented below on the missing item of "effort".

[-] z3n0x@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago
[-] MesaCoast@infosec.pub 3 points 1 year ago

Ah yes, a food that you can eat for three days without pooping while you stay in a tent?

[-] iquanyin@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com 2 points 1 year ago

Well-seasoned, air-fried chicken is super healthy and cheap.

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[-] BendyLemmy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

It depends where you live (I'm in Bangkok, so grocery choices are quite limited).

I love Oats. I got massively back into them again this year... now I buy around 3kg every month (instant oats).

It's only this year, really, that I discovered that oats are still really good and creamy when not made with milk... and it's really easy to boil a single cup of water to dump on a cup of oats for a perfect breakfast (left standing for a minute - done... no need to 'microwave' oats).

Also, cheap staples include: carrots, potato, broccoli, spinach...

Frozen strawberries are dirt cheap here too.

Breakfast 1:

  • Instant Oats (1 cup, 1/4 tsp salt, 3tsp sugar, 3 tsp creamer)
  • pulsed to powder in the blender with a cup of boiling water poured over.
  • Blend 100ml milk with 3 strawberries and mix that in. The beauty of this is (as my son does NOT like stodgy/thick porridge) I can add an extra 100ml of milk to his breakfast, and it becomes a liquid smoothie.

Breakfast 2:

  • Weetbix are not too cheap, but ONE biscuit mixed with ONE cup of oats is a massive breakfast - and tastes of Weetbix... and is ridiculously cheap in comparison.

Breakfast 3

  • Oats work great with eggs...
  • 1 cup oats, some salt, some cumin (maybe a teaspoon)
  • 2/3 cup boiling water (soak a minute)
  • 2 duck eggs mixed in
  • butter up the frying pan and dump it in there, cover and cook gently for 3 minutes, flip and give them another 3 minutes.

DIsgusting poopy one

  • 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder mixed with 4 teaspoons of non-dairy creamer + 1 cup oats
  • pulse to powder, add a cup of hot water.

That's choccie heaven right there.

[-] hahattpro@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Buy raw material and cook yourself.

Most premade food is expensive because:

  • labor on cooking
  • restaurant profit
  • rent of the restaurant/owner of the place sell you food
  • service
[-] Nosherwan@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

🥑
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.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/avocados/

[-] kicksystem@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

It's so awesome with a bit of kala namak on it. Mjam!

[-] AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Everything from my garden!

Right now, lettuce, kale, dill, peas, strawberries, oregano... the lettuce is on its sixth year of re-seeding, same with the dill.

Dill & vinegar flavored kale chips are amazing.

[-] Antik@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Scrambled eggs.

[-] emhl@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago
[-] marswarrior@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Cashews. Benefits: heart-healthy fats, antioxidants, essential minerals.

[-] regex1883@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

This will be controversial. I'm going with Costco rotisserie chicken. $5. They taste good fresh but bad reheated. I don't eat the skin

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[-] b_mcschmee@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Chana masala is pretty delicious and I'm pretty sure it's healthy. I think it's mostly chickpeas and vegetables which are both pretty good for you.

[-] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[-] yunggwailo@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Rice and beans, just be a little creative with preparation. Also you can make lots of soups that are cheap and healthy and its super easy to make too.

[-] bananacles@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

My vote too.

If you expand the format to rice + dried bean/legume/grain (e.g. lentils, quinoa), you can really expand your possibilities without breaking the bank.

[-] lwuy9v5@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Mac n cheese.

Ratatouille.

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

[-] cumcum69@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

mac n cheese is not healthy

[-] JineteDeAbuelas47@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

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

[-] Cha0zz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Sorry for my ignorance but what’s an “empty calorie”?

[-] JineteDeAbuelas47@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Im not an expert but people argue that bread and esentially most products whose base is just flour aren't good. The reasoning is that those are carbohydrates that just add calories and nothing else (protein, vitamins etc...). So eating 200kcal of tuna is healthier than 200kcal of bread since those calories come with Proteins, phosphorus, omega 3 a bunch of vitamins etc. Whereas bread/tortillas are (basically) just carbohydrates which arent bad by themselves, but also arent good in excess

[-] B16_BR0TH3R@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

That's true for white bread, not the other kinds. Whole-grain bread is both delicious and healthy. I remember visiting the UK for the first time and being amazed that all the natives were eating white bread for breakfast and lunch. Here in Northern Europe, white bread is more on par with a dessert item.

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[-] OasisStorm@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

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.

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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
22 points (100.0% liked)

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