The Healthiest Foods for Under $1 | Hacker News Reader

The Healthiest Foods for Under $1

divinecaroline.com

34 pointsjwilliams39 comments

I don't agree with putting Potatoes on the list. To the body glycemically they are no different than sugar. They shouldn't count as a vegetable serving - they have none of the micronutrients usually found in vegetables, they are mainly semi-complex sugars (short starches), which digest almost as fast as regular sugar.

Lentils and Beans (of any kind) should have been 1 and 2.

Unlike sugar-rich foods, though, potatoes don't contain many calories for how filling they are.

That's the problem with nutrition science as it is currently practiced (or rather, as it is currently used by non-scientists). Its conclusions are valuable to specialists, but it's not good enough (yet) to give much valuable advice regarding how people should actually eat. For example, according to the glycemic index, ice cream is better for you than potatoes, which is absurd.

Here's a good essay about this: http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=87

Very nice essay :) I'm an immigrant and looking back at how my mother always frowned when I wanted biscuits, or chips or fruit bars - it was because she didn't have any of that when she grew up and for the better.

Actually, potatoes aren't as bad as people make them out to be. Some of the starches in potatoes are very similar to fiber, and they do contain quite a few vitamins and minerals (the article doesn't mention B6, thiamin, riboflavin, folate, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, or zinc that potatoes have). The important thing is to leave the skin on and not fry them.

Sweet potatoes are known to help stabilize blood sugar levels.

Sweet potatoes and potatoes are quite different.

They do have fiber, and other vitamins. I'm not trying to say they are as empty as sugar candy. But compared to the other foods on the list they just don't fare as well. There are many other foods that should have taken their spot.

If you're on a low-carb diet, potatoes are verbotten, but for most people, a nice baked potato eaten with skin, and a very small amount of fat, is quite healthy. http://nutrition.about.com/od/askyournutritionist/f/potatoes...

I've never seen anyone eat potatoes as is. Sour cream, bacon, cheese, and chili: a proper baked potato.

Americans ;)

Verboten!

Alas, no German spellcheck on my firefox! :)

Strangely enough, sweet potatoes/yams break down much slower. Yummier too.

Some other healthy, high protein grains:

Quinoa - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa

Teff - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teff

Pumpkin seeds are mentioned, but pumpkins themselves are fantastic as well -- they make for some really great soups.

Also, I'm certainly not one to knock coffee, but tea is much better in terms of bang for the buck. I buy loose-leaf jasmine tea from an Asian grocery store, and get a month worth of tasty drinks for less than two bucks. It's healthier than coffee to boot.

I will fully agree that tea is better for you than coffee and I am an avid tea drinker, having several varieties in my pantry but nothing, and I mean _nothing_ beats a nice home-brewed french pressed cup of coffee.

But maybe I'm bias because that's my morning routine. One wonderful cup of that gets me going. The aroma is what wins me over mostly.

Agreed re: tea - I get mine shipped from the other side of Australia (because I cant get what I want locally), but even factoring in postage costs its still significantly cheaper than other drinks (except tap water)

If you want tea, you can make some out of barley or brown rice. The stuff is pretty popular in Japan and Korea. I don't usually like most teas, but barley tea can be good.

I love toasted rice tea.

If you're in the US and want to get some good tea, I highly recommend the Upton Tea Company (http://www.uptontea.com), they have excellent teas at a wide range of price points.

What is it you want. I used to ship in tea from Ireland to Another country, but what Australian tea can't you get everywhere?

I drink gyokuro and unfortunately I've been unable to find anything local here in Perth that is decent.

I know it can be expensive when compared to other teas, but I'm able to get about 4 infusions out of every serving so the price is much less than originally thought, plus its still significantly cheaper than other options (eg soda drinks)

Borderline, no?

That stuff's about $1 p/g isn't it?

It can be, theres varying grades in gyokuro depending on the region its from.

I generally go for a lower to middle grade of gyokuro, My palette isn't developed enough to tell the difference (heh) but I pay about $22 Aus for 50g (inc postage) which does me around 120-130 cups of tea.

I have found it can be cheaper to buy it directly from Japan, but I'm not entirely sure if I want to go through the hassles of importing it as I've always had troubles with Australian customs.

Customs shouldn't be an issue. Quarantine's the kick. But they should be making trouble going West too.

I'm glad to see oats at number 1, but lentils should have been number 2.

I would be careful about eggs, yolks are full of cholesterol. Having few eggs per week seems to be ok, but don't base your "healthy diet" primarily on eggs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_(food)#Health_issues_of_eat...

It's funny how little we know (or at least agree) on nutrition. Even what you would think of as very simple issue, "does eating cholesterol raise you cholesterol?" doesn't really have a unanimous answer.

Yup - it's also different for every person. Genetic variations make a big difference, particularly for things like Cholesterol.

Well that falls under nutrition being complex, which it certainly is. But what I mean is that even with the basics, areas like weight loss or various common health issues, we can't get agreement.

I mean really basics. What causes the production of fat (sugar related hormones or caloric surplus) what causes heightened cholesterol, etc. Experiments & papers seem to be constantly contradicting. Even if we have observational evidence of one thing or another, the theory behind it never really fits.

Anyway, I think it's strange. Such a basic, obvious area of science where we seem to be so behind. Not knowing what makes cholesterol levels go up is like not knowing about entropy or Newtons Laws for physics or not knowing about plate tectonics for geology, evolution or genetics for biology.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=414298

Here's another one: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=311740

  Ask HN: Hack a healthy, yet not expensive, meal. 
  37 points by rokhayakebe 117 days ago | 115 comments

That was a very useful thread with very tangible effects on my cooking. It started me on the whole "1000 variations of rice and beans" thing :).

Oh dear. I read that as:

'The healthiest foods for under dollar one'

Damn you argv. Damn you to hell.

please make those eggs free range !

Why? There is no difference, not in the egg, and not for the chicken.

It depends on whether you are talking about "free range" as defined by the ag department or "free range" eggs from chickens that are raised on open pasture. For the ag department definition it counts if there is a door in the coop to some outside area, even if the chickens never go outside and that outside area is just a fenced in bit of bare earth. Real pasture raised eggs both taste better and have more vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, omega-3 fatty acids and beta-carotene. They also have less cholesterol.

Depending on where you are at a good farmer's market is probably your best source. If you want to understand the difference just crack one pasture raised egg and one egg labeled as "free range" at the supermarket to compare the color of the yolk...

Real pasture raised eggs both taste better and have more vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, omega-3 fatty acids and beta-carotene. They also have less cholesterol.

According to the American Egg Board, that is not true: http://www.aeb.org/LearnMore/EggFacts.htm#freerange

True free-range eggs are those produced by hens raised outdoors or that have daily access to the outdoors. Due to seasonal conditions, however, few hens are actually raised outdoors. Some egg farms are indoor floor operations and these are sometimes erroneously referred to as free-range operations. [...] The nutrient content of eggs is not affected by whether hens are raised free-range or in floor or cage operations, but rather by the breed of chickens laying the eggs, and what those chickens are fed in their diet.

If one wanted more of certain lipids, and lipid-soluble nutrients, in his eggs, why would he not simply adjust the chicken-feed accordingly?

> According to the American Egg Board, that is not true

Did you actually read the whole bit there? They are talking about large commercial egg operations (which is the sort of "free range" eggs I said were merely overpriced gimmicks.) A pasture-raised chicken appears to produce better eggs according to tests referenced here: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2007-10-01/Tests-Re... or you could examine the facts at nutritiondata (compare http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c200_S0000o180j0... to http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/11...)

There is a difference, it is quantifiable, and the claims made by the commercial egg producers is both incorrect and deceptive (big surprise there...)

If one wanted more of certain lipids, and lipid-soluble nutrients, in his eggs, why would he not simply adjust the chicken-feed accordingly?

And that's exactly what I do (err, buy). I buy egglands best eggs, and that's what they do, they adjust the feed to have less fat and cholesterol. It's costs a bit more, but you notice it in the egg, and it's commercially available.

That was sort of my point: eggs from chickens raised on open pasture are not commercially available. If you get a box labeled "free range" it's meaningless. So why bother getting it.

The color of the yolk has nothing to do with free range, but rather if they eat beta carotene. You could simply add that to the feed and it would also change the color.

The color of the yolk has [..] to do with [...] if they eat beta carotene.

Lutein. http://www.google.com/search?q=egg+yolk+color+lutein

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