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)
- lentils
Onion. It’s cheap, nutritious, acts as a low-key anti bacterial solution, can be served in a multitude of ways, or eaten raw.
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eaten raw
You, sir, are a monster.
Hmm time for a snack
Takes a bite from a raw onion like an apple
Listen for some of us that’s a delicacy.
Tony abbott is that you?
Followed. Don’t let me down!
I thought your facts would lean more towards the lemon lifestyle.
Great fashion accessory too
As was the style at the time
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.
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.
My first thought was just just “Bananas?” Lol
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.
Yeah! Exactly! A huge amount of the best food (imo) comes from these cultures. Plus many of these dishes are also really easy to make in bulk, which is a big win too.
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.
That’s a good point, but even within potatoes there is perhaps still a trade-off between “delicious” and “healthy”. As in steamed potatoes without sauces or stuff is kind of meh, while french fries are not that healthy.
Oven-baked potatoes is where it’s at.
Or boil it in chunks and serve it with fried onions and mushrooms.
I don’t even like french fries that much. Steamed potates, or baked ones by the campfire, I’m all in.
The one thing missing from the trinity is “effort”. For instance, you could make any Dal, which would fit the trinity, but takes a lot of time. There are books with hundreds of Dal recipes that all taste different and work, too. And this is just one example. Less than a dollar a meal if made in bulk with rice.
so something like this?
You just made a food pyramid that isn’t stupid.
You know, thinking back, we should never have trusted that stupid infographic. It was a lie from the get go. It was a food triangle. This is a true pyramid.
Isn’t the true pyramid the one with a square base? I think this is called a tetrahedron.
I would consider Effort (time/energy) as a part of ‘Cost’.
I work a government job and a side-hustle. I earn a large amount per hour in my private business. If I cancel a client so I can cook a time intensive meal, then the food is getting more expensive.
Also, if I’m exhausted from working 1.5 jobs, an effort heavy meal isn’t cheap for me.
I cook Jamie Oliver’s “basic tarka dhal” all the time. It doesn’t take that much time in my experience, and being a basic recipe it lends itself to lots of variations. Highly recommend.
https://www.jamieoliver.com/features/lentils-and-basic-tarka-dhal-recipe/
With a multicooker dal is a pretty easy one pot meal, or at least basicish dal is
Lots of bean/lentil dishes are pretty magic for that.
There’s also an element of skill/experience in that category too. I can’t find the exact quote but David Chang said something to the effect of “anyone can cook a filet mignon well, but cooking with scraps takes skill”.
As i’ve gotten more competent in the kitchen i’ve absolutely gone from buying fancy cuts of meat to stew meat and will buy mutton any time i ever see it. I’ve also got much better at observing what fits well together, if there’s some left over potatoes in the fridge then I know that I can mash them, roll them into gnocchi and make a quick pesto with some wilty kale from the back of the fridge and basil from the garden. I’d totally have planned and made the same dish ten years ago, but i’d have started by going to the store and buying the ingredients. Being able to work with what I have and balance it is key.
Imo, natto fits all three, also a bean dish.
Oh, god no.
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.
classic
You can cut them in half and microwave them, then eat them with a spoon like an ice cream with its own cone.
are we allowed to add ingredients? A little soy sauce on that and you’ve basically got yourself a meal
I didn’t even know that you can add soy sauce to sweet potatoes!
You can add soy sauce to anything you want!
Ah yes, a food that you can eat for three days without pooping while you stay in a tent?
A legend has been born already for this network xD
humus
Only truly cheap if you make it yourself. That’s why I commented below on the missing item of “effort”.
granted
Honestly, I think most food can be found pretty cheap, except for proteins. The best bet I think is chicken drumsticks, but even those will add up. Beans are a cheap protein, but it’s about just as carby as it is proteiny.
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.
Whole grain pasta.
Chick pea curry.
Thank you so much for the share! I love chickpeas so I’ll definitely be adding this to my recipes :)
Lentils.
Are we talking about only the plain substance, not allowing for spices? Because I feel like every food isn’t delicious unless you season it in some way, or at least use an oil in cooking. If we’re just talking about baking everything then I’d say everything is “bland” Lol
For me it’s all about how you prepare the food. I eat chicken, canned beans, and mushrooms pretty much all the time because I try to buy cheap as much as I can, but just those few main items can be made so many different delicious ways with other “smaller/lesser” ingredients.
That’s a good point. I guess I was thinking more along the line of dishes. But then there is still some food which is delicious without seasoning - like (good) sashimi, or fruits as others suggested.
While it’s uncooked, there’s definitely a lot of effort in preparation. Also, people would usually eat it with soy sauce and wasabi, so not exactly unseasoned.
Vegetable soup. I know it sounds boring but you’d be surprised at just how nice vegetables in water with salt can taste.
