Poor vegan, cheap living

[scotch&dry]

By the way if you click on 'cheap living' in the 'tag cloud' on the forum home page there are a few more threads on this topic.

*sigh* smart people ...

[harpy]

If I was really smart I'd have figured out how to attach the 'cheap living' tag to this thread! Maybe the person who started the thread has to do it?

[karenann33]

I'm newly vegan and quite broke actually. I eat a lot of beans (if you use dried they are super cheap), rice, barley, potato's, bread, fruit and veggies (fresh, frozen or canned I don't care). My only treat is I buy one thing of soy ice cream a week and I've switched to soy milk (it's pricey but I only use it for cooking or to give to my kids).

[Kismet]

Cheers for that Harpy, lots of good ideas on the cheap living threads...mainly about dried beans lol.

Omg karenann - best vegan treat (only whn you're feeling indulgent and rich) is Green and Black's Maya Gold dark chocolate - organic, fairtrade, vegan and dam fine in general.

[xwitchymagicx]

I think it is quite cheap as long as you buy no ready made stuff because they seem to be the thing that make my food bill expensive!!

[karenann33]

Cheers for that Harpy, lots of good ideas on the cheap living threads...mainly about dried beans lol.

Omg karenann - best vegan treat (only whn you're feeling indulgent and rich) is Green and Black's Maya Gold dark chocolate - organic, fairtrade, vegan and dam fine in general.

I'll have to look for that the next time I'm at my health food stores. All I get at my local store is vanilla but I'm happy with that because I put it on fruit and make a HUGE treat out of it.

[XxsarahxX]

Um Australia has a few options in mock meat some places will of course have more or less, at our local coles we have a few different types of mock sausages and stuff like that they taste OK but you may just have to look in your local supermarket its usually in the cold section with the tofu, but I'm not sure about tazzie sorry.

but nothing has to be expensive we don't have alot to spend on food, so we just buy alot of veggies, tofu and rice and basic food. you don't really need to buy mock stuff unless you want to.
anything with rice is always going to be filling try making a casserole that way if you have left overs you can freeze it for another nights dinner so that one or two nights you don't have to think about.

good luck with it all.

[scotch&dry]

If I was really smart I'd have figured out how to attach the 'cheap living' tag to this thread! Maybe the person who started the thread has to do it?

I don't know how to do it >_<

[SarcasticCookie]

I feel the same way. I know what I eat isn't very healthy, but refuse to admit it. I'll find one thing I like and eat it like crasy. A lot of refined carbs. I grew up on white bread and hated the idea of anything else.

But after sticking with the whole wheat bread and pasta, it's really helped. More fiber and nutrients. Just little switches like that can add up.

A thing that has helped me is that I will work on it all week, and note cravings I have. And one day a week I have set aside that I allow myself to indulge a bit, assuming I still crave it. That way, even if I want a lot of stuff, I can't possibly eat it all because I'll be too full.

And I know it's been said, but beans. I love beans. I make myself chilli, with just kidney beans and hot sauce. Plus the hot sauce helps speed up your metabolism, or so I'm told.

Good luck.

[Twist Kick]

Soup. Soup. Soup.

I mean, like SERIOUSLY. Soup. You only need vegetable broth, vegetables, a little olive oil, and spices.

Put it in a pot. Cook. Instant soup. Really. And, like, if you want to, add some vegan 'beef' crumblies (Morningstar's 'Meal Starters' is vegan), and some cornstarch, bam, stew!

Also, beans. Beans on toast is like, awesome. +1 for fruit smoothies too. A little soy or rice milk, fruit, ice, toss em in a blender and you've got awesome. Mint leaves only make them awesomer.

And, re: excersise, let me tell you this story:

There was once a woman who weighed like 450 pounds. Like, so much people thought she could never lose the weight. And she could only take ten steps before she got tired and had to sit down.

So she took ten steps, and she sat down. She'd get up and take another ten steps, and sit down. Eventually, she could take twenty steps before she had to rest. Then, after a while she could take fifty steps. A hundred steps. Two hundred steps.

And she did this for about five years, and she lost the weight.

No matter how little you can do, it's better than nothing. If you can just hobble around the house for ten minutes, then do it.

Anyway, hope that helped, and good luck!

(Also, Harpy - the carrot-turns-you-orange thing is only true if you drink PURE carrot juice and eat LOTS of raw, fresh carrots, for a while, like 3-4 weeks. I mean, if carrots and carrot juice were 70% of your diet.)

[karenann33]

I just got thru reading the book Skinny Bitch (which got me to go vegan btw). I'm following their plan and not only have I lost a few pounds in a 2 weeks but I also lost 2 inches off my belly too. Yeah!!

Here are my rules: Nothing processed, no sugar, no white flour, no caffeine, no alcohol, etc.

I eat fruit, TONS of veggies, brown rice, whole wheat products (but I limit these to no more than 3 servings a day), beans, etc. I get one treat per day and it's 1/2 cup of soy ice cream. I make up brown rice ahead of time and I get veggies either already cup up or I have those ones you just microwave. I eat a ton of food. Bean burrito's are filling if you put lots of lettuce, tomato, etc. on them. Baked potato's are great too. And beans, oh beans really do the trick along with veggies. They are full of fiber and low in calories. I love hummus for dipping my carrot sticks in. Yum!

[Ames]

Have you considered going Weight Watchers or another diet plan with similar guidelines but that you can still eat vegan on?

Good luck love, I know how hard it can be esp when you are injured - I have had many problems with my knee and had been on crutches for 9months at one point. I also put on a ton of weight and am working on getting it off at the mo. If you want a diet buddy . . . ames87@yahoo.com

:D

[alessenb]

This has all been super helpful to me. I have been having trouble with weight as well. You'd think you wouldn't when you're a vegan but I guess not! Plus I got on B.C. awhile ago and that just doesn't help.

Karenann- I was thinking about reading Skinny Bitch, I assume it'd be a handy read?

[JC]

i've been reading this thread for ways to spend less money on shopping (i usually manage to spend about £30 a week because i like to buy things like fake meats and soya products). alot of people recommended buying dried beans, but i've heard that if not cooked properly they can be poisonous (especially referring to kidney beans). how do you cook beans properly?

[Fungus]

wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_beans#Toxicity):
Before they are eaten, the raw bean seeds should be soaked in water several hours, boiled for at least ten minutes in new fresh water to degrade a toxic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxin) compound - the lectin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectin) phytohaemagglutinin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytohaemagglutinin) - found in the bean which would otherwise cause severe gastric upset. This compound is present in many varieties (and in some other species of bean), but is especially concentrated in red kidney beans and white kidney beans (Cannellini beans). Although in the case of dry beans the ten minutes required to degrade the toxin is much shorter than the hours required to fully cook the beans themselves, outbreaks of poisoning have been associated with the use of slow cookers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_cooker) whose low cooking temperatures may be unable to degrade the toxin. Sprouts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprouting) of pulses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulses) high in haemaglutins should not be eaten. Kidney beans, especially, should not be sprouted

[Korn]

how do you cook beans properly?
Basically you just need to cook them long enough. Some beans need to be pre-soaked. Cooking time varies depending on what kind of bean you are cooking - you'll often find cooking/soaking instructions on the package (or try Google).



Re. the price of healthy, vegan food: Here's an article I just found (from a non-vegan site) listing "The 20 Healthiest Foods for Under $1 (http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22145/52070-20-healthiest-foods--1)". 17 out of the 20 products on the list are vegan, and while the article isn't really scientific (and I don't agree with everything she writes), it somehow gives a hint about at least 15 types of food that's healthy, vegan and inexpensive.

[harpy]

What Wikipedia says is what I've always heard: it's a good idea when using dried beans to make sure you start the cooking process by boiling them fast, i.e. a rolling boil, for 10 minutes to deal with any toxins. This mainly applies to kidney beans but I'd do it anyway to be on the safe side.

ETA some more advice here: http://www.vegsoc.org/info/pulses.html

[JC]

maybe i'll just stick to canned, lol. but thanks for the advice, i'll bear it in mind should i ever decide to be brave and cook my own beans :)

[harpy]

I must admit I usually do use canned ones (apart from my mung bean sprouts) but IIRC it's not that much trouble to use dried ones, provided you plan ahead of course!

I think the recommended thing is to do a load at one go and then freeze some although I don't know how well this works out from the cost/environment point of view because of the electricity you use to keep them frozen, sigh.

[RubyDuby]

but the freezer would be plugged in either way. does it make a difference to have stuff in it?

I make beans every night for my dogs. Most are done in an hour or less.

[oldbones929]

Cooking dried beans is easy and I've never been poisoned by any of them! Plus, they taste much better than canned and I don't use any salt when I cook them. Right now I've got several gallon-size bags of cooked beans in the freezer, including kidney, navy, and black. I use the soaking/cooking directions on the back of the bag, although I've occasionally used my crockpot. When they've cooled off, I initially put them on a cookie sheet and then into the freezer so when I put them into the bag they aren't frozen into a clump.

[harpy]

but the freezer would be plugged in either way. does it make a difference to have stuff in it?

Actually this says a full freezer uses less energy than a less full one, as long as air can circulate

http://www.tiptheplanet.com/index.php?title=Refrigerator_and_Freezer_tips

I used to cook beans in a pressure cooker at one point. I think that's probably quite energy-efficient, if a bit scary :eek:

For both pressure cookers and crock pots the advice I've read is to boil them hard for ten minutes first because the cooking method doesn't get them hot enough to get rid of the lectins. http://www.professorshouse.com/food-beverage/food/kidney-beans.aspx

ETA ancient report of bean poisoning outbreak http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/318/7190/1023?ck=nck

[herbwormwood]

If you try to cook dried beans wih salt they won't cook properly, you have to leave the salt out until the end, it stops them absorbing the water.
Same with lentils, chick peas, etc. Pulses in general.
Just cook them without salt and then if you need salt add it when they are cooked, or to the dish you are using them in. For example if you using them in chilli, add the salt to the chilli near the end of the cookihg time.
I haven't got a car and carrying tins of beans from the shops would be too much for me. The dried ones are so much lighter... as well as cheaper and healthier., The only tinned beans I buy are baked beans! Co-op and Heinz.

[sugarmouse]

When they've cooled off, I initially put them on a cookie sheet and then into the freezer so when I put them into the bag they aren't frozen into a clump.

That's a good idea:)
I alwyas use dried beans...I jsut cant justify paying so much more for canned ones. And canned ones smell like cat food when you first open them:D

[Maisiepaisie]

If you try to cook dried beans wih salt they won't cook properly, you have to leave the salt out until the end, it stops them absorbing the water.
Same with lentils, chick peas, etc. Pulses in general.

That happened to me with rice once. I cooked the rice for an hour and it was still hard. Very strange. I leave the salt out now and just use herbs.