Poor vegan, cheap living

[whalespace]

My tummy:satisfied:. These are both 'salad' vegetable, and protein source ...and some carbohydrates aswell...so they nearly always fit the bill. They also kick the toughened 'but' of snack because they are [I]right there on hand.

I am still getting gaps in supply. If I start a kilo on day one, then I might be boiling some on day two and three, before I can eat them with minimum parasite control [steam or blanche or don't worry]. They swell two or three times in size when soaked, but then grow to fill maybe ten times their original volume [I might measure].

[LaceytheCrazy]

Heehee this thread made me giggle.
I felt I had to respond, because my fridge is almost COMPLETELY empty save for condiments and unvegan food (I live at home).
I won't go so far as to say I ate hot dog buns and BBQ sauce, but I did create the most interesting mish mash of leftover veggie "ground beef", pasta noodles, my last bit of nutritional yeast, some really nasty vegan cheese and onions. Kind of like an "unbeef" stroganoff.
Yesterday was toasted pb and j for dinner, followed by handfuls of plain tortilla chips.
*sigh* Vegan on the cheap can get a bit unusual.


EDIT:
HAHAHAHA I felt the need to add this, my mom just came home all ravenous like and ate all of my concoction. (After smothering it in ketcuhp and poking gingerly at it with a spoon). I guess it cuoldn't have been *that* bad.

[RubyDuby]

sounds good to me!

[Roxy]

Me too. Mishmashing leftovers together saves wasting and I hate wasting food!

[kookooforkarma]

Wow - Walmart sells vegan things?

They exploit everything else under the sun, so I would've expected that they would be very generous with their animal exploitation as well.

I hate Walmart.


Wow I read the quote just above this one that said "so-and-so does all his vegan shopping at walmart", and I was like :eek:. Whew, glad someones said something! Nice save Roxy!

[Celest]

I am a pretty poor vegan and once had a whole week on mashed potatoes and nothing else...not even soy butter 0_o

I have been managing better now but still only spend 80 - 90 Euros a month on food.

[kookooforkarma]

I spend a LOT on food.... I just go the store and grab whatever I want... I don't even look at the price.... I'd say I probably spend about 300-400 a month on foodies!!! Yum!!! :)

[kookooforkarma]

Canadian dollars that is.... lol

[patientia]

Nutritiondata has a graph for every food item, showing how nutritious and filling it is:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2461/2

[adl]

What are some good spices for a frugal vegan? I don't want to get too many, but I don't want to get too few, either.

[twinkle]

Cayenne pepper, cumin and coriander will cover spices for a lot of things. Ginger is good too because it can be sweet or savoury. Mixes can be good, depending on what kind of food you like to cook.

[RubyDuby]

basil, oregano and thyme. mmm

[psychocandy]

What are some good spices for a frugal vegan? I don't want to get too many, but I don't want to get too few, either.

you could go to a friend or relatives house and take a spoonful of each of their spices if they have lots before buying some ha. i would :)

[missbettie]

I keep gaining weight!!! I don't know what to do! Its frustrating because the healthy dinners I want to make my SO doesn't really like...

But i'm at the point where i'm either going to need to lose some weight or buy new clothes, which i really don't want to do.

UGH!

Anyone have any new ideas for their favorite cheap weight loss foods? Whats working for everyone else?

[patientia]

How about this: cook potatoes for yourself, fry them for your SO. Make non fat sauces, add oil or soy cream for your SO. Eat those sauces with grated courgettes, but for your SO cook pasta.

[RubyDuby]

soup

[Marrers]

I second soup. I saw a programme where they gave some people a dinner with a glass of water and others the exact same thing but pureed into a soup - the soup people felt fuller for longer.

[patientia]

That was BBC, The Truth About Food, or something like that.

[DiaShel]

but... I never feel full from soup. I think it's psychological. I don't think of something you don't chew as food.

MissB- my advice, cook what you want and tell your boyfriend to fend for himself :wink_ani:

[RubyDuby]

really? soup fills me right up. esp if it's pureed beans and hearty veg, like carrots, potato and sweet potato. mmmmm I want soup.

[cobweb]

i'm back on this quest again at the moment, have just ordered a load of brown rice and various dried beans..............it means i will have to cook 2 seperate meals most days (the others won't eat this stuff!) but i need to stop buying so much 'fun foods' - the sort of crap that encourages me to over-indulge!.

[xrodolfox]

Oatmeal, while not my favorite food, is generally considered the best, cheapest food to loose calories with. This is not a statement made by veg*ns, but rather by dominant omnivore fitness professionals.

Oatmeal is like the wonder-food for loosing weight. It's cheap and very filling by all metrics. It fills for hours and hours, especially if you mill it at home from scratch instead of the instant stuff... but even the worst oatmeal (instant), is still very filling.

The reason is that people feel full based on the VOLUME that a food takes up. The more volume, the more full people feel. Second, that the LONGER that volume is maintained, the longer a person feels full. Third, the less calories that food has, the more likely to loose weight. Oatmeal is a high volume, slow digesting food that is not calorie dense. As long as a person doesn't add a bunch of high density, quick digesting calories to oatmeal (such as a lot of sugars/syrups or margarine), then Oatmeal is a real winner for cheap weight loss.

[cookey]

I would agree that porridge for breakfast is the only thing that keeps me feeling full until near lunch time. I make mine with just water and have agave or date syrup on it.
Weight loss is simply a matter of calories in and calories out. You need to eat a few less calories and use up a few more. It doen't matter from a weight loss point of view what these calories are made up of, but if you eat foods that make you feel more full, it's likely to be easier to eat less.
If you've been struggling with weight loss for a long time then I would encourage you to look more at the mental side of things and motivation to change rather than the minutiae of what you eat.

[cobweb]

^ i agree with that, Cookey, obsessing about food makes me worse, keeping busy and not having too much 'fun food' around is the only method that seems to work in my case, anyway.

[cookey]

Cobweb - food should always be fun!
I use motivational interview techniques with clients to get them to think about why they want to change and what will be different if they do. NLP may also be useful, although I know less about it. My point is, you already now about healthy food, if you are not actually doing what you need to to keep yourself a healthy weight, you need to think about why that is and /or how to change your behaviour.