Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Cool.
I remember a moment in my early 20's when I thought "if I eat mostly lentils, beans, and rice, that's $20 a month!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXi998JX8YM
If you replace ---
the small ready boil grains with big 25 pound bags

the cans of beans with ditto

the frozen vegetables with loss leader produce

the mixes with your own spicing
Then you have what we've been eating for the past 12 years, so approximately the same, but cheaper.
We're currently trying to increase the vegetable/grain ratio, mostly through green smoothies.
For "my" plan, you're better off at (larger) produce stores and ethnic stores, but walmart is not completely hopeless.

Here's the theory behind that way of eating for anyone interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XVf36nwraw
I'm switching to this right now. It takes some getting used to, but the food is filling and there's a lot of variety and it's consistently cheap. Also, I find the way he says puhtaydurs funny.

The thing I took out of it is that at least it's not unhealthy. It's the usual "all the other ways of eating will kill you" stuff that they all say. From gluten-avoidance to paleo to high-fat-low-carb to high-protein to raw vegan. This seems as good/wonky as all the other options and it's the cheapest one.

I like it and people could do a lot worse. Like Jacob I am about 1 Wheaton-scale unit away from this (http://earlyretirementextreme.com/wiki/ ... _and_sales ). I use dry bulk beans and fresh produce instead of canned beans and frozen prepped vegetables. And Jacob convinced me to use a pressure cooker instead of parboiled rice or vegetables. But cooking from scratch with simple ingredients is so much cheaper and healthier than prepared and processed food that I can overlook a few concessions to convenience if that's what it takes to get people to actually do this.
His system seems about the best you can do without requiring cooks to plan days ahead. Rehydrating beans and making your own bread, yogurt, sprouts, and stuff like that all requires planning multiple days ahead. Which is really not a big deal when you're used to it, but seems to be a big obstacle for a lot of folks.

> [Planning days in advance] seems to be a big obstacle

> for a lot of folks.
And that's why a lot of folks will never succeed unless they win the lottery.

You're lucky to live in a place where food is cheap.
When I lived in central London, most of the grocery stores charged ridiculous amounts for vegetables.
It annoyed me a great deal.

New blog post:
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/food- ... costs.html

Just read the post, I have been trying the paleo diet and was directed to this forum discussion. The diet presented in the video seems a bit contradict with what paleo diet is teaching.
My choice of protein is mostly egg and chicken, I get my starch from sweet potato (my favorite), various vegetable and fruit (apple, pear, banana, watermelon and pineapple). I guess I am kind of in the middle between this 2 diets.

Yesterday my wife volunteered at a vegan festival. We have about a dozen vegan restaurants in town and most donated food. There was so much food it was incredible. Overwhelming. Several hundred people came over the course of the day and every single one left full.
For a while I stood by the door talking with people as they entered. Those who were obviously vegan (t-shirts, buttons...) were quick to scoff at the "processed" foods being offered for free. What I thought of as good gateway-foods that help people make the positive transition, many derided as the consumerization of what they see as a pure ethic.
It made me think about how we tend to fragment even more at the fringes. The further from the norm we travel, the further we need to differentiate ourselves from others. I wonder why that is.
One of the things I like most about Jeff Novick is the fact that he is doing an excellent job of finding ways to include as many people as possible.

How in the world do people figure out diet with all the confusing diet advice out there?
It seems to me it should not be this complicated.
The human being needs certain nutritional needs to be met. It needs certain amounts of protein, fats, carbs, etc. Why is there so much variation in diet advice?
How do I find out what I need to eat, from a scientific point of view, not an ideological point of view?

So it seems like the second video above was made private since this was posted years ago, but it looks like the speaker posted the same thing (or something similar) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaNDDuqmCs