Touring - Teach me how to cook cheap food.

Don't mind me if I'm slightly ticked off but my mother always had this thing about thinking that I'll learn things on my own if she doesn't show me. I have to learn how to cook food by the end of December or I'll be in trouble financially. I'll stop receiving one of the checks I receive this month meaning I'll have to eat on $80 a month.

The problem is this, I was eating TV dinners because I knew that when I eat that food, I never have diarrhea. I just bought some patatoes, rice, peanuts, bread, eggs etc. I decided to cook some rice and patatoes and mix them together with a sauce I mixed with water. Well, this idea of combining the foods did not work. I still got diarrhea.

Can anyone tell me how to make sauces like gravy? I think that's the thing I could add that could stop me from having diarrhea. Does anyone have any stir-fry recipes with rice, patatoes, pasta and beans? Maybe I could add some meatballs in there if I don't have a choice. I don't even know how to cook beans. Could I add beans over rice, patatoes and pasta as a sort of sauce to stop me from me from well, you know I already said, don't want to gross you out too much.

I have to get out of this jam. :(

I wasn't eating enough vegetables until I discovered frozen vegetables.
From the freezer to the table in 6 minutes.
Fresh vegetables are even better for you, but I'm a lazy cook.

I'm not even sure about what I just read :twitchy:, but I eat a high protein diet based on meat, fish, milk, eggs, etc. Mainly I just stick with meat because it's cheaper thanks to government subsidies and I spend about $8 a day on food (2,400 cal diet and about 200g of protein), which comes to about $240 a month. I don't like cooking anything complicated so I just put it on the grill or whatever and cook it with some pam and I don't eat vegetables or fruits so I take a multi for it. Don't know how I would eat for $80 a month ($2.6 a day) but I'm guessing you'd have to go with some ramen noodles or mcdonalds value menu.

Main thing is to prioritize your budget. Food is #1 and everything else is second so take a look and see if you can drop some other things to raise the food budget. I'm guessing you shave so look into DE shaving since the blades cost around 10 cents each vs the expensive disposables.

edit try some charcoal for your stomach problem
http://www.amazon.com/Natures-Way-2070-Activated-Charcoal/dp/B00024D11Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292404551&sr=8-1

$80 a month is pretty tough to pull off.

Rice and potatoes mixed doesn't sound very tasty but I dunno what about rice and potatoes would cause diarrhea. Must've been the sauce you mentioned. Maybe you have a sensitive stomach.

I like potatoes fried in olive oil with some rosemary, oregano, salt and pepper. Add some minced garlic towards the end. Two eggs over easy and some grits.

Baked potato with cheese and chili on is a good bachelor meal.

Tons of stuff can be done with rice, arroz con pollo, steamed rice with salmon, stir fry, beans and rice, etc.

There are websites these days where you can type in the ingredients on hand and they'll spew forth a bunch of recipes for you.

The cheapest meal I typically make for myself is probably spaghetti. One quart can of sauce and a pound of spaghetti is almost 3 meals (2 proper meals + 1 half meal). Sketti's about a buck and sauce just recently shot up to $1.39. That's about a buck a meal, not including parm. Let's say a $1.50 a meal.

As for the diarrhea, I'd go for a GI checkup.

Its not that hard. I used to eat on about that much money every month. Read this blog about a young couple who eat for $1 a day or $30 a month NOT eating raman noodles. They eat really healthy food to so there is no reason that cheap has to mean unhealthy. http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/

Its not that hard. I used to eat on about that much money every month. Read this blog about a young couple who eat for $1 a day or $30 a month NOT eating raman noodles. They eat really healthy food to so there is no reason that cheap has to mean unhealthy. http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/It depends mostly on your nutritional needs, but very interesting link. Is there any section with nutritional information?

I wasn't eating enough vegetables until I discovered frozen vegetables.
From the freezer to the table in 6 minutes.
Fresh vegetables are even better for you, but I'm a lazy cook.
There is growing evidence that frozen vegetables may actually be better than fresh vegetables.

The frozen ones are taken virtually straight from the farm to the processing factory where they are snap frozen.

The factories take from the growers on pre-arranged contracts, and often a grower's yield doesn't go anywhere else except to processing.

The freezing process doesn't interfere significantly with the nutritional value of the vegetables.

On the other hand, "fresh" vegetables take some time to transport from farm to wholesaler to supermarket. Out of season, of course, the vegetables either have to come from thousands of miles away or from storage where they have been treated with antifungal agents or kept in controlled atmosphere. Then there is the time they are on the shelf before sale.

I know that when I worked on an apple orchard, a large proportion of the fruit we picked was a variety that supposedly kept well. It was picked in May and kept in controlled atmosphere until November or later, when it was proclaimed as "new season's fruit". Having eaten fruit straight off the tree, I have great difficulty buying fruit from the supermarket these days.

A $3 bag of mixed frozen vegetables will do two meals for Machka and me.

"Teach me how to cook cheap food."
That's a bit like "teach me how to ride a bicycle".

There are books that will teach you the basics of cooking. In the UK and Ireland we have Delia Smith and I'm sure her equivalent exists in other parts of the world.

How to make gravy? Gravy is served only with roast meat and it involves combining the fat from the roast meat with flour and browning the mixture over a hob, then adding meat stock (you'll probably use a stock cube mixed with boiling water) and reduce (meaning boil till some of the liquid evaporates)this over the hob till it's the desired consistency.

What you have been eating up to this isn't food, it's re-heated food-like substances. Your digestive problems probably stem from a poor diet due entirely to neglectfull parenting.

Have you considered bringing a case for 'parental neglect' as a means of raising some cash?

I have to learn how to cook food by the end of December or I'll be in trouble financially. I'll stop receiving one of the checks I receive this month meaning I'll have to eat on $80 a month.


What exactly does this have to do with touring? Are you going on a tour at the end of December? Or did you mean for this to go into Training and Nutrition?

I've lived on as low as about $15/week for groceries years ago ... mainly bread and eggs.

Cheapest foods that are highly nutritious:
1. Legumes with rice (lentils, chick peas, black beans) Small bag of beans costs $1.29 for 10 servings. Adding the rice makes this a complete protein (like meat).
2. Potatoes
3. Peanut butter (this is also a legume)
4. Oats (as in oatmeal) mix it with dried fruit or nuts for complete protein
5. Eggs

I'm not even sure about what I just read :twitchy:, but I eat a high protein diet based on meat, fish, milk, eggs, etc. Mainly I just stick with meat because it's cheaper thanks to government subsidies and I spend about $8 a day on food (2,400 cal diet and about 200g of protein), which comes to about $240 a month. I don't like cooking anything complicated so I just put it on the grill or whatever and cook it with some pam and I don't eat vegetables or fruits so I take a multi for it. Don't know how I would eat for $80 a month ($2.6 a day) but I'm guessing you'd have to go with some ramen noodles or mcdonalds value menu.

Main thing is to prioritize your budget. Food is #1 and everything else is second so take a look and see if you can drop some other things to raise the food budget. I'm guessing you shave so look into DE shaving since the blades cost around 10 cents each vs the expensive disposables.

edit try some charcoal for your stomach problem
http://www.amazon.com/Natures-Way-2070-Activated-Charcoal/dp/B00024D11Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292404551&sr=8-1

A diet of nearly all meat sounds like a recipe for diarrhea if you ask me. Not to mention the extremely high concentration of environmental toxins in meat and the increased risk of cardiovascular disease and colon cancer. There have been no studies that show that multi-vitamins are affective vegetable and fruit substitutes.

Just start with rice or pasta, throw in a can or bag of vegetables, some beans, maybe a little cheese & you're done.
A 20# bag of rice is like $5.

If you've got a few square feet to spare in your place, fresh cut lettuce or spinach contains almost all the veggie nutrients you need. Get a bag of leaf-lettuce seeds, it'll be ready in a few weeks and, with normal grazing (just trim little patches down to about 1/2in from the soil as you need for meals) a small bed of it will keep growing and last months.
Fresh food is the most nutritious. By the time it gets to the store, more that half the nutrients are lost. I used to work in produce distribution, and I gotta tell you, you're way better off nutritionally, as well as financially, growing a small garden yourself.
A tiny patch will produce plenty of fresh leaf lettuce for you, and honestly, it takes next to zero effort to attain a good bit of self-sufficiency.
A pack of seeds costs what? 50 cents?

For $80/month, you'll need to treat meat as an occasional treat, rather than a primary meal component.

Stock up on grains such as whole (or steel cut) oats, brown rice, quinoa, etc. Single servings of these grains are about 1/4 cup, so a bulk package (which is cheap) will last a long time. That will be your primary calorie source. Then keep a stock of frozen vegetables such as spinach, carrots, brocolli, etc. Buy these in large generic packages and use liberally in all meals. Eliminate all liquids except water. Buy fresh onions, peppers, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Finally a dozen eggs a week will provide whole proteins and replace meat as your complete protein source.

Finally legumes (beans) are your friend. Learn to cook batches of dried beans (lentils, chick peas, pinto beans, etc...) and add them to other dishes.

Go to the library and get a couple of books on vegetarian cooking/lifestyle and start learning to cook using those recipes as a guide. Spend a little of your food budget each month to buy spices which will help you add flavor and variety to your food dishes.

Foods high in soluble fiber (whole grains and vegetables) should help alleviate diarrhea problems, but if you've been eating frozen bricks for meals it will likely take a little while to adjust, so you may have to grin and bear it! Just remember to drink plenty of water (6-8 glasses a day at least), since the fiber can cause constipation if not accompanied by enough water.

I'm not even sure about what I just read :twitchy:,
+1

If you learn how to season oatmeal to your liking, it is a good, nutritious, cheap food. You can make loaves of bread out of oatmeal in a microwave. It's great once you learn how to do it, and a large loaf will last for many meals. Raisins, honey, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, pumpkin pie spice all go well together when making these sorts of breads. There are many other ways to season them as well.

Google is your friend. There are tons of recipes and ideas if you do some searches.

Quick breads are also cheap and easy to cook. You can buy (high-protein) bread flour in bulk from a food co-op. Bulk prices are often better.

If you can get an inexpensive rice cooker somewhere (or for Christmas), it makes rice cooking very easy. If you buy rice in large bags (20, 25, 50 pounds) you can often get a better price.

Watch for sales, and loss leaders, at your local stores.

You can do quite well nutritionally with 5 minute oatmeal, peanut butter, pinto beans, eggs, rice, potatoes, pasta and a couple of glasses of vegetable juice a day. Seasonings are a relatively cheap way to liven up this diet. I'd think $80/month would be reasonable buying store brands in bulk. Maybe even less.

There's usually a soup kitchen somewhere that would feed you a meal a day. I ate at one on a recent tour just for
fun. Good food, good company. I left a nice donation.

Don't forget dumpster diving. Now that is an art form.

First off, reading the OP post, makes me curious on what is going on. My suggestion would to be to go to your church if you attend one, and ask the pastor for some help on your situation. Hopefully they can help find someone to teach you. People telling you how to cook, is not going to teach you how to cook. Your going to need someone to show you, help you, be there to answer your questions.
Second, if you are only going to eat off of $80 a month, you are going to be hungry most of the time. Why are you limited to $80 for food?

First off, reading the OP post, makes me curious on what is going on.

I suspect it was an accident to put this thread in the Touring forum. The OP mostly likely meant it to go into the Training and Nutrition forum, and is probably wondering why the thread he posted doesn't show up.

As for what else is going on, perhaps the OP is a student returning to school in January. If so ... there are always oriental noodles!! Can be served alone or with tins of tuna or chicken. Quick and easy ... and inexpensive. Carrots are also usually fairly inexpensive, so serve up the oriental noodles with a carrot for some fresh veg content.

I have to get out of this jam. :(

My advice would be to get a part-time job at a smaller independent restaurant - do anything they want and ask for leftover food at the end of your shift. If you work hard and are polite you can get a lot of your food needs there plus add $$ to your $80 budget.

They may even show you how to cook if you ask nicely.

Homeless people are also good at budget eating. You may want to spend 72hrs on the street with one and learn some skills.

If you learn better with videos, there are plenty of cooking videos on the web. Video.google.com seems to pull up more than youtube.com, especially when you follow the suggested (or linked) side-videos for a few generations.

If you learn the ropes with coupons, you can often save some money that way. They often appear in local papers, and there is often one day of the week when they are especially plentiful. Online coupons can also be good. Some stores let you double-up with the coupons, and you can even get things for free this way (and occasionally even get some money back with rebates).

If you are not a good cook, there are some devices that chimp-proof the cooking process. Microwaves are extremely convenient and easy to use. Rice cookers and slow cookers and other devices pretty much do the cooking for you. They can be purchased for surprisingly little money if you shop around a bit.

There are easy, user-friendly video tutorials online.

Someone please tell me this is a joke.

Patatoes (sic) and diarrhea ain't no joke!

A bag of potatoes and a bag of onions go along way. So does a bag of rice.
Fresh veggies are easy. Get a steamer insert and they'll taste great steamed.
Some frozen veggies are better than others, Corn, Green beans, Lima beans. Mix em' up.
Meat. Chicken with the bone on is cheaper and I think it tastes better.
Buy some pork chops, or cut up chicken, pack them separately each and freeze them.
Hamburger has a lot of uses, Burgers, chopped steaks, chili, tacos, etc.
Bookstores have cookbooks full of recipes that have four ingredients of less. Usually easy too. Helps you keep variety going...

Also ask girls to help you cook. There's a lead-in that I wish I thought of when I was single.

Uh, what? If this is actually serious, apply for food stamps.

Foods high in soluble fiber (whole grains and vegetables) should help alleviate diarrhea problems

Well, thanks everyone for the information. I thought I should post this here since I thought people who do touring might be able to make cheap, nutritious meals while on the road. I'm in Canada so I can't apply for food stamps. My financial situation MAY last only for several months but maybe not. I know I WILL have to eat on $80 a month for a while though.

ramen noodles are cheap, you can get multiple packs for a $1. canned vegies are cheap, mix half a can with rice or ramen noodles.

as for sauces 'n gravies, you can get dry mix's that you just add water to.

also you can find things at dollar stores, such as dollar tree... everything is a dollar.

There is growing evidence that frozen vegetables may actually be better than fresh vegetables.

The frozen ones are taken virtually straight from the farm to the processing factory where they are snap frozen.

The factories take from the growers on pre-arranged contracts, and often a grower's yield doesn't go anywhere else except to processing.

The freezing process doesn't interfere significantly with the nutritional value of the vegetables.

On the other hand, "fresh" vegetables take some time to transport from farm to wholesaler to supermarket. Out of season, of course, the vegetables either have to come from thousands of miles away or from storage where they have been treated with antifungal agents or kept in controlled atmosphere. Then there is the time they are on the shelf before sale.

I know that when I worked on an apple orchard, a large proportion of the fruit we picked was a variety that supposedly kept well. It was picked in May and kept in controlled atmosphere until November or later, when it was proclaimed as "new season's fruit". Having eaten fruit straight off the tree, I have great difficulty buying fruit from the supermarket these days.

A $3 bag of mixed frozen vegetables will do two meals for Machka and me.

I know a guy who worked in a food plant when he was younger. He said they had giant refrigerators outside where they had produce that was twenty five years old. When an order came in, they went and dragged a load out, bagged it up and off it went.
That was the 90s, though.

On a secondary note, back to the OP's question - when I was younger and broke, I used to cook a big pot of, well, I don;t know what you'd call it. it had a couple of cans of rattatoui to give bulk, some soy mince, seasoning, and each day, I'd cook it up with fresh veg and rice. It was dirt cheap, but filling, and, I like to think, nutritious. To give it some variation, I'd add different beans instead of soy, or sometimes with the soy - canalini, green lentils, kidney beans - sometimes baked beans if I was really broke.

Well, thanks everyone for the information. I thought I should post this here since I thought people who do touring might be able to make cheap, nutritious meals while on the road. I'm in Canada so I can't apply for food stamps. My financial situation MAY last only for several months but maybe not. I know I WILL have to eat on $80 a month for a while though.

You may want to post this in Training and Nutrition.

When I've been on tour, I've generally spent about $10/day ... sometimes more. That's $300/month. I would find it very difficult to tour on less than that because of the quanity I eat; because many of the places I buy food are small, out-of-the way places, or tourist places, that charge higher prices than a city; and because I like trying out a lot of the food I come across along the way.

Of course, if you're looking for a bit of free protien, then there's always slingshot squirrel. And rabbit. And if you're touring, don't forget roadkill. So long as it's fresh, should be okay. Never tried it myself on the road, but been known to pick fresh pheasant up when in the car.

Get a big pot and a 20-30 yr old copy of Joy of Cooking. Read the Know Your Ingredients sections.

When I was poor I would buy a pound of lentils, a pound of meat, and some veggies and a grain.

Put some water in the pot with a bay leaf and cook the lentils. Don't drain after cooking.
If you are using barley or brown rice, cook them with the lentils.
Put in the veggies after chopping them. Onions are better if you fry them up a bit first.

You can get fancy and brown the meat, but you can also just cube it and put it in the pot.

Add something like Trader Joe's mushroom soup concentrate.

Put the pot in the fridge, when you take some out for dinner add some spices,
and something for variety. It could be can of tomato soup, a little bacon
a sausage.

It can be pretty much anything, you just need to mix things up so they taste different.

Serve with fresh bread. The bakery down the street made great Russian pumpernickel.
My 'luxury' with my survival stew was fresh bread and real butter.

Eating cheap starts with buying cheap. Double coupon days, and coupons! If you are in a place with several grocery stores nearby, you can shop the specials and just buy what's on sale. This will make real food affordable, but you can even buy "convenience" foods cheaper this way. People save serious money this way, not just pennies.
As far as how to prepare the food, or how to avoid diarrhea...my expertise runs out past the Imodium.

You can get more for your money if you do some calculations like this:

Wondering which is better, potatoes at thirty-nine cents a pound, or (bulk) rolled oats for ninety-nine cents a pound? Which will give you more food value -- more calories, more protein, for example? Which is better, a five-pound bag of potatoes for a dollar ninety-eight, or two pounds of rolled oats for the same price?

A pound of potatoes will give you about 268 calories and 7.1 grams of protein.

A pound of oats will give you about 1744 calories and 72 grams of protein.

The oats are a much better deal.

Even if the cost per pound were three times as high for the oats (or even four, or five times as high), you would still be getting much more food value per pound and per dollar with the oats.

You can do these sorts of calculations with all kinds of foods, and find out which ones will work best for you.

Quick oats are very easy to cook, and have essentially the same food value as traditional rolled oats.

Brown sugar goes great with them.

They can also be used for savory dishes -- similar to rice dishes --, in addition to the more familiar sweet breakfast dishes that most people know about. And they can be very good this way too. You use a lot less water, and just get the hang of it with a few experiments.

Oats also cook well in a microwave, and if you mix them with enough liquid to make a loose batter-like consistency, they can be used to make a variety of easy and nutritious breads.

If you search youtube.com or video.google.com for 'how to make bannock', you can learn one approach to quickbreads. Scottish oat cakes are cooked in a similar way.

Pancakes are good to learn, and inexpensive, especially if you make them from flour. You can add all kinds of good things to the mix. They are easy to learn if you find a decent tutorial.

Oats are even easier, though, once you learn the basics. If you cook them in a pot, over a burner, just turn the heat way, way, way down after they come to boil, to prevent scorching. And stir them. With quick oats, you can even turn the burner completely off, and just let them sit for a while until done (which doesn't take long).

OK, up to now I have some ideas. Like, maybe I can use some "fillers" just to add calories. Like eating a cup of peanuts every day, egg sandwiches, maybe some pancakes etc.

But, once a day, I was thinking perhaps I could eat a heathly soup that I prepare maybe once every week or once every two weeks. My idea is to buy a bunch of rubbermaid plastic containers, fill them up with the soup and freeze them. Then I could take them out, dump the frozen soup in a large bowl, cover with a plate and microwave it. So, I could still have "TV dinners".

I've watched a few videos on Youtube on minestrone soup. So, I figure the ingredients could go like this:

olive oil,
garlic, onions,
salt, pepper, curry, parsley, bay leaves, paprika, rosemary, basil, oregano,
sausage, bacon or hamburg,
green peas, spinash, red bell peppers (instead of carrots), mushrooms, tomatoes, green peppers,
zuchini, eggplant, corn,
beans, pasta, patatoes, rice, lentils, chick peas

So, what do you think? I could use water instead on chicken or vegetable broth. Now, all I have to do is learn how to cook these and in which order.

One of the things I'm wondering about is which of these seasonings go together and which are incompatible. I mean is curry compatible with rosemary etc? I don't know yet.

EDIT: lol, I found a recipe here. It doesn't have all the ingredients I'd like to use but here it is if you want to watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwdypoLpMW4
Of course, I'm still looking for recipes... :)

You are on the right track. Stick to the least processed foods you can get. They have the most nutrition at the lowest price. And consider Church pantries. You are exactly the type of person they are designed to help. Most offer subsidized basic foods at good prices once a week or every other week. You don't have to be a member to participate, at least not where I live. And check out your local coops and farmers markets - you can often negotiate for cheaper produce that is not in prime aesthetic shape but is perfect for soups, stews, rice dishes, etc.

Curry and Rosemary is generally a no. Think of spices in groups. Mediterranean, Indian, Chinese, etc. and then experiment. A very good and cheap resource online is Allrecipes.com

http://allrecipes.com//HowTo/cooking-on-a-budget/Detail.aspx

+1 -- sounds like you are on the right track. Just be sure you are getting enough calories, protein, etc. It's not hard to keep track, and come close enough, so you know if you are doing well in that department -- and maybe weigh yourself every week or two, to see how it's going.

www.freegan.info

Good information that you may be able to use to help offset some of your financial difficulties.

Don't mind me if I'm slightly ticked off but my mother always had this thing about thinking that I'll learn things on my own if she doesn't show me. I have to learn how to cook food by the end of December or I'll be in trouble financially. I'll stop receiving one of the checks I receive this month meaning I'll have to eat on $80 a month.

The problem is this, I was eating TV dinners because I knew that when I eat that food, I never have diarrhea. I just bought some patatoes, rice, peanuts, bread, eggs etc. I decided to cook some rice and patatoes and mix them together with a sauce I mixed with water. Well, this idea of combining the foods did not work. I still got diarrhea.

Can anyone tell me how to make sauces like gravy? I think that's the thing I could add that could stop me from having diarrhea. Does anyone have any stir-fry recipes with rice, patatoes, pasta and beans? Maybe I could add some meatballs in there if I don't have a choice. I don't even know how to cook beans. Could I add beans over rice, patatoes and pasta as a sort of sauce to stop me from me from well, you know I already said, don't want to gross you out too much.

I have to get out of this jam. :(

Boil beans and rice. There's all kinds of varieties. You can buy it in bulk for cheap at organic market like Sprouts and Henry's. Add in spices. To be safe, start with salt, pepper, and garlic. Cut up any produce you think will go good in your soup. Tada! It's a trial and error method. Just remember what ingredients you use, how much, and so on and repeat anything that tastes good to you and doesn't make you sick.

But what does this have to do with bike touring?

OK, still searching for ideas. But, for now, I checked the list for the soup and decided to eliminate some foods because of vitamin A. I was told by a dermatologist that vitamin A dries your skin. I only have a light case of eczema so I think it's OK if some of these have a little vitamin A in them. Also, some herbs/spices, I wasn't sure so this is the list so far...

basil, oregano,
olive oil, garlic, onions,
salt, pepper,
potatoes, eggplant, beans, lentils, rice, pasta, chickpeas,
ground beef,
tomatoes, corn, mushrooms

I might add the ground beef later when I'm putting them in plastic containers before freezing them so I can have an equal amount in each. Then I might learn how to make dough boys to put some in there as well. So, served with a slice of bread, it might be fairly nutritious.

Vitamin A is hard to overdose on so I would not worry about it. The common foods to not overdo are liver and carrots, but the best way to deal with nutrition is to eat a wide variety. All the crazy stuff you read online about nutrition is mostly hype. Humans are omnivores, and have been around for 5 million years, give or take. We do well as a species under all sorts of diets. I think avoiding chemicals and processing is the key, otherwise, listen to your body and don't worry. In my travels I have met people who ate only rice and beans and the occasional piece of fruit or leafy vegetable. They did just fine and often had fewer Western type problems like heart disease and diabetes.

Things that will help:
Freegan websites for ideas
Dumpster diving
Your own herb garden, can be in small pots in the window
bulk foods like beans, rice, grains
Frozen and canned veggies are cheaper than fresh
buy meat on sale with coupons, buy in bulk, then repackage and freeze.
Soups are easy to make, healthy, and cheap.
part time work at a restaurant or market
In college I was a hasher at a sorority, great food and benefits, and there are always leftovers to take home.
Markets throw away an astounding amount of good food, especially bread that can be frozen. I worked in a market and was the guy who put it all out every night. You will find a great deal about this on the freegan sites.
Learn to fish

gravy = cook meat. remove meat. toss about a tablespoon of flour into the pan with oil and juices from the meat. stir until flour is fully blended with the wet stuff. keep cooking until it begins to brown a little. that mess is now called a roux. add about a cupful or two of water or milk a little a time as too blend with the roux. stir while cooking until it begins thicken. add more liquid if needed. remove from heat just before it looks think enough. it will continue to thicken. salt and pepper to taste.

Heres my recipe for a lentil soup very similar to "Late's" posted above that I more or less survive on at home.

1.5 litre water
2 dl red lentils
2 cubes veg broth
dash of soj sauce
2 carrots chopped
3 potatoes diced
2 bay leaves
1/2 leek, chopped and fried in olive oil

(optional: diced and fried tofu or TVP, (soja meat)

Throw everything into a big pot and cook for 20 minutes. Serve rice on the side.

Enjoy! :)

Most of the suggestions sound just sooooo.... boring.

Most of the suggestions sound just sooooo.... boring.

Never really understand why food had entertainment value hihi, so shut up and eat your peanut butter sandwich :D

Thanks for the responses. Woo! This video on eating cheaply is good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULLSKPoPYLc&feature=related

Thanks for that video.

This one's good too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQNj7BSkhAc&feature=related

Also, in one of Heinz Stücke's videos he describes his oat drinks. I've tried these, and it's hard to convey how good they can be. They don't sound good, but they are good. He does a better job than I can of conveying that.

Brown sugar is also good in these drinks. Quick oats, brown sugar, raisins, ripe bananas, a bit of salt, some milk, nuts (or pureed nuts, or nut butters, or peanut butter), and maybe some optional seasonings or other ingredients (cinnamon, honey, dried fruits, fruit juices, nutmeg, molasses, etc.)(but these drinks are also quite good just with the first six or seven ingredients; and you can do variations). Just let them soak for a while.

A little bit of experimenting, or refining the ingredients and proportions to your taste, will make them even better.

They are also good when prepared in a blender, but this is optional.

He isn't kidding -- these sorts of drinks are great, nutritious, and easy to prepare.

Thanks for that video.

This one's good too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQNj7BSkhAc&feature=related

Keep in mind coupon hunting can take a lot of time and get you something other than what you want [if you don'ty have a coupon for what you want]. Keep an eye on the time you spend on the task and compare it to working at a part time job for same # of hours. You may end up saving more $$ at the job than hunting coupons - especially if the job involves food and you get an employee discount out of the deal.

Where in Canada do you live? Many towns and cities have food banks for those who are not able to afford the food they need.

If you can find a food cooperative, you may be able to get fruits and vegetables cheaper than in the store. We have such a program in place in the south Okanagan in B.C. For $20, I can get a lot of fruit and vegetables. I don't have the same control of which fruits and vegetables I'm getting and I have to work on their schedule which is once a month in winter and one to four times a month in the warmer months.

Get down to your bulk food store and get dried beans and dried lentils. Those foods give you phenomenal food value and they're quite inexpensive.

At the grocery store, get the largest bag of rice you can find. Your price per serving will be cheap.

By the way, rice won't give you diarrhea . If anything, it would have the opposite effect. See a doctor. Seriously.