I've eaten a meal replacement shake twice a day for two years (2019)
vox.com
vox.com
Am I totally out of touch with reality or is this a completely ridiculous remark? Only 1 procent of people is able to afford the most basic food?
In the UK (where I grew up) and Germany (where I live), you should be able to get the recommended 5-a-day for less than £/€ 2 per day if you need to keep costs down, and £/€ 8/day if you're being lazy and getting fairly fancy stuff.
Sure, the income here is lower than in the USA, but even at the higher end that's not so much as to make that "significant".
Apples last how long, two weeks? Meanwhile pasteurized apple juice can sit for months at room temperature.
I eat apples up to a month after buying them. They're still edible even then but I don't like them when they start to get soft.
Apples last months as they contain pectin.
IIRC they tend to be quite a bit more sour so probably not to popular just because of that.
Most components can be prepped for the whole week (millet in the fridge, onions and herbs in the freezer etc), so net cooking time (where I actively need to do anything) is maybe 5 minutes - 2 minutes loading and starting the instant pot, and 3 minutes assembly of the bowl ingredients.
The worst thing about is prep time and requirement to have a big freezer and potentially need to shop fresh vegetables (but that can be skipped, depending on the frozen veggie mix).
Bananas: £0.9/kg
Potatoes: £0.8/kg
Chickpeas in water 400g: £0.49 (£2.09/kg)
Black beans in water 400g: £0.49 (£2.09/kg)
Apples/Pears: £0.35-£0.45 each (£1-2/kg, depends)
London median salary: £44400/year
Fruits and vegetables are always cheap or very cheap, the actual cost is time (and knowing how to cook from scratch and having a kitchen)
> focusing less on meal replacements and more on whole fruits and vegetables from local farmers, in addition to occasional animal products from farms where those animals were “raised with sustainable practices.”
Which does strike me as advice for relatively affluent people (although "for the 1%" is a bit of a stretch....). It is indeed not that easy to buy fresh, locally grown fruits and veggies for many people. But I do take your point. I don't think money is really the barrier to people eating a nutritious diet of whole foods. The limiting factor is probably time and discipline. You need to shop for fresh foods every few days (real foods spoil!) and actually prepare meals, when the alternative of cheap, prepared foods that are mostly junk are readily available.
Around 19 million people in the US live in "food deserts", which are low-income places with poor access to transportation and no supermarkets within a mile (for urban and suburban food deserts) or within 10 miles (for rural food deserts).
Their choices for affordable day to day food tend to be fast food places and convenience stores. When the closest you've got to a grocery store is 7-11 your fruit and vegetable options are limited.
Whole Foods (and the co-op in one of the towns I visited) is priced like Harrods, KaDeWe, or Galeries Lafayette:
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrods
If there was anything else to add, then I guess the headline might be different.
Meal prepping rice bowls with beans (bought dried and in bulk, cooked in an Instant Pot), tofu/seitan, veggies, and whatever sauce I felt like for the week is cheap, fast, easy, healthy, etc. and doesn’t make me feel suicidal. The latter point might be because I was taking time to enjoy being alive rather than hyperfocusing on being a good little cog in economic machine trying to spin as fast as I could.
Huel, more like Gruel.
I do keep some of the meal bags in the pantry for emergencies. I've also replaced lunch with them at times to count calories and lose weight. I think these are good tools to have in your kitchen. They have characteristics that no other food option has, and that makes them valuable.
On my end, having never really cooked, everything is an effort. I have no inspiration on what to buy, no inspiration on what to cook from what I bought, and whenever I actually do the cooking, everything has to be a mental focus. I can't just "bake" stuff, because I have to focus on checking it's baking okay, turning it, shaking it.
Now I have no doubt all of this can be much smoother and enjoyable, but only if you invest enough time that each step is no requiring you to spend hours checking recipes ideas, baking tutorials, etc.
I was lucky(?) to grow up with a great cook and gardener for a mum, so I'm not even really sure how you exist without doing this at least. Pardon my naivety, but what do you eat...? Is everything unwrapped from plastic or from the local takeaway joint?
As a student, money was always a struggle, so I would mainly eat stupid simple meals. [Pasta|potatoes puree|green beans] with [olive oil|tomato sauce|frozen steaks].
Once I started working, yes, a lot of pre-made meals. That eventually gave me some deficiencies and led to teeth issues.
I then increasingly had more income, so I switched to food delivery (deliveroo|foodpanda|uber eat), which is close to "eating at a restaurant every day". Not really healthy though since most restaurant food, at least in Europe, is tailored for occasional meals, not everyday meals, so it's often fatty and not well balanced.
I'm married since then, and luckily my partner took on her to do the cooking, while I do the prep/cleaning. I don't mind doing the grunt work, it's definitely not a pleasure, but at least it's not stressful, and the food is much healthier.
Like heat, seasoning (salt, pepper), fats etc
There really is the same notions at the base of every recipe. There is a lot of books and videos that cover those basics. In a month of time through observation you can start to develop a skill that will be useful literally for the rest of your life in a most direct and enjoyable way.
Given we are exactly what we eat, it can be so rewarding that it’s really worth the effort. The challenge of learning how all those chemical notions fit together is almost on par on the challenges of learning in IT in some way.
Please take the time to learn the roots, you will be able to cook without thinking really simple and amazing things in a small amount of time, you will never regret it.
Melt some butter in a skillet, whisk some eggs in a bowl, drop them in the melted butter, wait for them to become hard, throw some cheese, bacon / ham / mushrooms and onions on top, fold in two. Voilà: yummy omelet.
Plenty of variations to be had with eggs: scramble them, boil them, try different kinds of cheeses, maybe add some peppers.
I especially recommend it for anyone who suffers from depression. The ability to just make a nutritionally complete meal that isn't full of complete shit in less than a minute is a godsend for maintaining your physical health on bad mental health days.
Another tip for healthy meals in under 5 minutes. Buy the following:
- A bag of mixed salad leaves
- A bag of pre-shredded coleslaw veg
- Microwave rice, cous cous or grain blend
- Cooked chicken breast (or get a whole chicken from the shop and strip it all)
- Some ready made sauce or dressing like peri-peri mayo, pesto mayo, honey-soy-garlic dressing etc
- A seed blend (optional)
- Some fried shallots/onions (optional)
- Wasabi peas (optional)
Put the salad and coleslaw veg in a bowl. Put the rice in the microwave for 90s, and the chicken in the microwave for 60s. Add the rice and chicken to bowl, add the optional toppings if desired and drizzle a bit of sauce (don't go overboard) on it.
You've now made an exceptionally healthy meal in under 5 minutes. For some reason the added carbs and the heat in the chicken and grains really makes the it way more palatable than a cold salad. Poke bowls for the win.
I second this recommendation.
edit: to be clear, I mean their "ready to eat" or "just microwave" meals. Their shakes are good too; but the microwavable meals are where they really shine, in my opinion.
Use a high quality blender (I have my old roommates vitamix) and add:
Frozen blueberries (for the antioxidants), frozen other fruits (to taste). One banana. Add enough oat milk to cover all the fruits. I like Oatly full fat. Blend thoroughly, adding a little more oat milk if needed. Then add a few heaping tablespoons of pea or soy protein and blend in thoroughly. I add it at the end as it is less likely to stick to the walls of my blender this way, but probably depends on your blender.
With the vitamix you can fill it about 2/3 or 3/4 full at most but it might overheat if it’s too full, needing to cool for 5 mins before you finish blending. I’ve done that too many times to count and the blender still works, tho I try to avoid it.
Pour it in to several mason jars with wide lids. I tend to end up with three jars. I drink one right away (in the morning after my oatmeal when I am getting ready for my day), put one in the fridge as an easy meal later, and take one with me wherever I am going. They keep all day, and if you don’t finish it you can put it in the fridge at night and it’s still good the next day. Vegan stuff keeps really well usually. And it’s super tasty!
I noticed today that I like the vanilla soy milk Jamba uses in their shakes, so I may try that some time for a little extra flavor, but honestly fruit blends have loads of flavor so maybe not.
Don’t skip the protein powder! It really gives it a satisfying body.
> The best recommendation for timing with relation to hunger and fullness is to eat four to eight evenly spaced meals of similar calorie content per day and avoid extremes outside of those boundaries.
TLDR: while meal replacements were technically effective, they did come at a cost to her mental health. Shifting to a well balanced diet appeared more sustainable in the long run.
Also keep in mind there are various flavors. Vanilla is common default but there is also “original” which is less sweet, and even “unsweetened”!
Those who usually cook for themselves healthy food will stay away from this highly processed crap.