SUPER FRUGAL DIET
I am not going to talk about food storage today. I would like to talk about an unemployment diet. The grocery stores are still open, the economy is humming along fine on government stimulus and wishful thinking. But for whatever reason you are unemployed, broke and have nothing in your cupboard. Having been there a couple of times myself and suffered from taste fatigue due to lack of planning or good sense I thought I would pass along a few pointers.
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Not having a nickel to my name and few places to go, once after losing my job I decided to live on potatoes for a month. You really can live on potatoes and some grease for awhile. Of course it effected my judgment since I re-enlisted for the Army after being out almost two years. I should have just kept eating potatoes. I fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes. I baked them in different shapes. I tried different condiments. At the end of a month I was so tired of potatoes I didn’t eat any, including French Fries, for years. I think it cost me about $3 a week filling up on taters and a tub of margarine.
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Another time I moved on greyhound to Cheyenne WY and paid $150 for a months rent at an old hotel. I then had about ten dollars to my name. I bought an electric hot water pot at the thrift store for $3 and a big bag of rice for two bucks and some soy sauce and a tub of margarine for another two. Then I was broke. I went looking for a job the next day. I had very little to pick from but settled as a host for a restaurant since I got a free kids meal every day I worked ( it was a tease more than a meal ). I lived on just rice for about a week and then rice with that kids meal each day for another week. Then a week after that I switched jobs with one of the waitresses so she got more per hour and I got tips right away. So then I ate rice, the kids meal and after work a big sausage dog at 7-11. I didn’t touch rice for awhile after that.
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The next fiasco was waiting for the first bi-weekly check and mostly living on Top Ramen to bulk up the little I had in the cupboards- extremely gross!
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Do not just eat one kind of food. I know I preach a wheat only storage for poor people but a survival, end-of-the-world diet is a lot different than an unemployment diet. You will basically just be eating starch and grease but you can choose from different types. If it lasts any length of time you will need to worry about taking vitamins and/or getting a source of protein, but this should keep you alive in reasonably good health.
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You want fresh potatoes. They do have almost all the vitamins you need to stay alive and healthy. They might lack a bit in those vitamins found in dark green veggies but if that is a concern grow some sprouts ( if you hate the taste put a bit of tomato juice in the blender and puree the sprouts in it so it’s a fresh V-8 juice- a generic can of juice for a buck should last a week and veggies are pennies a pound ). Potatoes will give you the vitamin C you need. But they need to be fresh. The instant type is just paste. Pay about 35-55 cents a pound. Well worth the cost. Make mashed ( and the next morning potato pancakes ), baked, fried. I am willing to bet you can get a library book on potato recipes that will boggle your mind.
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Next is white flour if you can’t stand whole wheat. If you can stand a bit of the healthy stuff mix them half and half. Lots more nutrients than straight white. White flour is twenty cents a pound. Forty cents a pound for store bought whole wheat. If you grind it yourself it is about the same but much healthier. Make flat bread, pancakes ( have sugar on hand and make your own “syrup” ), biscuits, sourdough, etc. Buy pasta dishes for fifty cents a pound. Spaghetti, top ramen, mac and cheese.
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I never have really liked rice and usually just served it plain as a side dish or with some meat mixed in for a one dish meal. The old farts like it with milk, sugar and raisons for breakfast. Some throwback to treasured memories from childhood. I’d rather eat top ramen for breakfast. The main advantage of rice is it gives you a break from potatoes and pasta.
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Cheap canned foods are usually under fifty cents a pound. Corn, pork and beans, baked beans. These are a “treat” to break up the main starches. Your mainstays are rice, potatoes and flour. You can get a few extra cheap foods such as oatmeal and corn meal ( get that from the Mexican section- most regular corn meal is degerminated ). But they won’t really be good meal after meal. They are rarely used in most folks diets.
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Now, the whole idea here is to live on a few bucks a week. A five pound sack of white flour is a dollar. Three pounds of rice is the same. Potatoes are usually no more than fifty cents a pound for a small bag out of season. So call it about three bucks for a good size bag of potatoes. A three pound tub of margarine is a buck fifty. Seven bucks will feed you for awhile, at least the week. Try to eat a different food each meal ( if you don’t do more than one ) and a different recipe for that food every day. In other words, breakfast for several days is pancakes, biscuits, flat bread, waffles. Lunch is cooked rice, fried rice, rice with soy sauce, rice and hot sauce. Dinner is potatoes fried, baked, mashed, wedges with flour coating baked or fried.
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Yes, it will be boring. But much better than eating all of one food. To this day I can’t eat top ramen more than about once a month. Don’t suffer taste fatigue to go along with stress from being unemployed.
Original: http://bisonsurvivalblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/unemployement-diet-1-day.html
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