cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/8485106
Definitely has nothing to do with sky-rocketing food prices in our capitalist hellscape.
Looking for the original link still…
Edit, found it:
https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-gen-z-splurge-groceries-spending-inflation-gen-z-boomers-2024-4
People, learn from your ancestors.
I know this sucks, it really does, but our cooks from 100+ years ago had figured depression era cooking in a food scarce world and it does help to add those skills and recipes to your ammo against starvation.
Every country has truly poor cuisine too so there’s something for everyone. And potato flakes sold in the box should be your friend.
Mexican: try chilaquiles and enchiladas can be made with lots of different ingredients for cheap
European: Eggs tomatoes and cheese (it’s polish depression dish and one of my favorites), shepherds pie, and potato cakes (can stuff them or add chicken and peppers)
Pasta: imitation crab and veggies white wine pasta. Trust me it’s delicious and cheap as hell, I recommend as a splurge get raviolis to serve on.
Soups: egg drop, bean, heck a nice pumpkin stout stew can be cheap and let you use cheap beef.
Rice: I mean base staple by nature but cook it with broth or spices, fry an omelette for on top like in Japan and add garlic and carrot. Don’t be afraid of pokebowl type meals of just what you have in the fridge thrown on top like shredded chicken and cabbage but try to save some budget for nice soy sauce or garlic chili oil.
I am also a huge proponent of quick risotto since it also uses lots of cheap ingredients well. Mushroom and miso is amazing.
Good luck out there, and if you struggle with cooking it’s ok. We all do and we all ruin a dish eventually.
P.S. buy rotisserie chickens and use the whole thing by after cutting off the meat throw it in a pot with celery carrots and onion, salt pepper, bay leaf, cover with enough water to submerge it all and you have chicken broth for a week and meat for a couple days. My grocery store even sells the day old ones for half price in a cooler next to the fried chicken.
These have tripled in cost in the last 5 years here. I can cook (enjoy it as well) and I think a lot of people commenting can as well. The issue is the tips you are giving don’t change the base cost of ingredients. Rice and beans for example have doubled in price here, flour went from $2 to $12, Veg of any sort has at least doubled and eggs are no longer cheap. This year they are calling for a drought and I don’t know if I will be able to grow as much veg in my garden.
The example in the “article” is a bit over $10 a day, that is not eating out or over spending. The only food still cheap is junk.
Yup. It’s bad and you have to work with less ingredients. It doesn’t change my tips just makes it harder to buy then on a whim and you really need to stretch them.
Eggs are cheap compared to other ingredients still. Even if they are not dirt cheap. I don’t think I can get that much weight of protein for a similar price in anything else other than tofu. And I leave out telling people what veggies to use because honestly it’s whatever is in season and cheap cause it’s bad and gonna likely get worse.
They are suggestions of dishes that can be made with few ingredients for those that have to get calories and with the knowledge that unfortunately premade food is often even more outrageous. And even inflated costs comes out cheaper.
I’m aware of how much the price went up cause I have been making these dishes the whole time and what was once just general frugality has become necessary cost savings but it works.
The article is bullshit and from a stupid perspective, but also breaking down pricing from the whole dish to per person serving is very different. And you can stretch more filling foods into more servings.
Oh no. I provided thoughtful tips and recipe suggestions in a place where people are complaining about finding ways to afford dinners.
but people just want to be mad so downvote the also poor person trying to help.
Man I like Lemmy more than reddit but it’s still filled with some of the most irrational emotional people.
I know people just want to feel seen and seen as hurting but walk and talk. Do 2 things at once and stop punching each other because it feels good, you’ll end up alone.
Why are you replying to your own comment? Why are you upset people want a discourse anyway? I doubt not thanking you for your pandering tone deaf comments would be considered the actions of “irrational emotional people”.
Because no one else was replying. There isn’t discourse if people just down vote and walk away because they don’t like how a comment makes them feel.
I am trying to offer good faith suggestions for cheap meals to those that might end up here and aren’t you, and don’t brag about how well they cook. You say tone deaf but it’s deaf on your ears as you already feel you know things that others may not.
Sonder. Everyone is having a different experience than you even if we share reality. Help where you can and don’t be a dick to others. That’s the best we can hope for.
Also “pandering tone deaf comment” kinda implies you are being emotional, which is fine, people are but it does nothing to prove your point that you aren’t.
Oh odd, there was like 3 replies here.
Sorry this slipped past but the crux of this is that the article is blaming people for spending money on food, I will make no illusions to how that makes people feel. You giving “advice” on how to eat for less is pandering on almost the same level as the “article”. I am sick of people telling me and others to just “get gud” at life, when we did not ask and are doing as well as we can.
And imitation crab meat? Really I can’t afford butter and you expect me to spend a whole days budget on pressed minced fish?
Just saw your edit. Woah what??? Sorry the pack I buy is the expensive stuff and it’s still on like 2 bucks. The like stringed tofu soaked in fish juice you buy in the freezer section?
Damn if that is expensive where you live you absolutely have problems with cost.
But again not meant to be pandering just meant to be suggestions for things I make that are tastier than hotdogs and Mac and cheese for close to the same price even.
If you are absolutely poor and can’t afford shit finding a nice recipe that you can make for still cheap feels like heaven. I think I have just been poor longer than you.
You are projecting on me because you are upset and that’s fine. It’s hard to see others doing great and feel like you are missing out on the secret that is “just have more money”.
I’m saying, finding out you can make a nice dish using the bare bones of what you got can feel nice.
I like food, it’s one of the few things that helps me get through my shitty existence as well, so in the same vain that I suggest keeping green onions fresh by putting them in a jar on your windowsill I suggest to people that there is a dish called Chilaquiles that most don’t know of because it’s considered poor food but is really tasty and just salsa, chicken stock and tortillas, (heck I like to use the ones from my rare visit to a Mexican restaurant and ask if I can take extra home with me because they are thicker).
It’s because I hope they have a nice meal too.
Humans are supposed to share knowledge. It’s what got us here. I’m just trying to do that.
Hmmm maybe I’m not federated with those. Honestly I just see you replying.
There are comments of course but my comment looks like down votes and you and me.
And people tend to vote with the herd so I wanted to invite people to at least try and say something as to why they would so that it wasn’t just blind herd voting and I could see the discourse and learn if there was something to learn.
I don’t wish to be a dick but I don’t want to just be a blind punching bag either l, you know?
Ah, well it looked like you where unhappy down votes happen and it came off weird. Makes more sense that it is more odd lemmy stuff. No hard feelings from me.