Chef shows how he eats for less than $25 a week

I remember a drug addict telling me that their addiction took a turn for the worse when they realized they could survive on a big container of oatmeal and didn’t have to work for food.

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The time spent is worthwhile, the food is better because you made it. Being cheap gets easier and more fun as you learn planning/prep. Get it into practice, then you have enough to share (skills AND food).

BB linked a similar idea in the past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjeY6Bzg6jw

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Many organic certifications give broad leeway to pesticide use. The regulations are usually industry designed, so they bend toward profit. There are studies every year that reveal as much or in some cases more residues on organically labelled produce.

Even eating local can sometimes mean greater CO2 emissions/kg of produce, because those local producers can’t take advantage of scale economies or invest their capital into energy efficiency.

People don’t always want to hear these things, not because they care for the environment, but because they really care about status and exclusivity.

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Assuming … a place to store the bulk and cooking facilities, the time to do this level of planning and cooking, and a market to shop at.

However, that’s not always available.

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This. The organic industry has spent years projecting a false image. Organic growers use all kinds of pesticides (and at high rates). They just use nebulously defined “natural” ones. They also use fertilizers, just not the ones they arbitrarily label as “chemical”. what was once a moderately charming, if wasteful indulgence of hippies has become a cynical scaremongering tactic aimed at removing money from consumer’s wallets while convincing them that they are “doing something” for the environment.

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You might not want to hear this: but some organic farmers aren’t corrupt assholes.

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How much for the keto version?

The secret? Eating gross sounding shit.

Urgh… I will no longer complain about curry lentils with rice.

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Aw, dammit…another website to put in the bookmarks.

I gave the video a ‘like’ at the first scene just for having a unique & individual kitchen decor.

Edit: I wish I could ‘like’ that post twice for pointing me in his direction. Episode 4: ‘Hail Seitan’

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Thank you, and the vegan black metal chef.

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Some family friends were heavily involved in the “organic wars” that preceded the current regulatory scheme. Let’s just say they have nothing nice to say about John Mackey and Co.

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Sounds a bit like my style - rice or barley as the base, add beans or eggs or tofu for protein, and top with chopped fresh veggies (usually peppers, onion, celery). Alternate with things like potato soup and cornbread or chili for variety. Filling, nutritious, cheap, easy, and with a good mix of spices quite tasty.

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My understanding is that the organic industry allows the use of pesticides.

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Not true. The definition of “organic”, as used by the industry and the USDA, can include pesticides. The pesticides they use are usually “natural” pesticides, which again, doesn’t mean safe. Thanks, Naturalistic Fallacy! And again, they have to use more, because non-synthetic pesticides are less effective.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/06/18/137249264/organic-pesticides-not-an-oxymoron

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This book is fantastic, was going to recommend it myself but you beat me to it :wink:

Nice book although the recipes are too american for my taste. But yes, it is possible to eat for that kind of money and it is even easier if you don’t live alone.

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Saying ‘everything is organic, otherwise it would be soil’ is a non argument in this discussion. Yes ‘organic’ is a stupid label, and it’s a shame the 60s hippies who coined it (or whoever did) didn’t pick something a bit less confusing. However saying ‘everything is organic’ misses the point completely.

There are of course real problems with the organic marketing concept. It conflates a few different (sometimes mutually exclusive) concepts:

1: Grown sustainable
2: Grown without ‘artificial’ pest controls
3: Fair trade, better working conditions (when importing from poor countries).
4. Health/wellness
5. Keeping to certain new-age beliefs considering when to plant your cops etc.

Not all organic food has all these properties. And lot of of organic food only ‘technically’ has these properties if you use some create bookkeeping.

I’d love if there were ‘sustainable’ food shops instead of organic ones. Because I don’t really care for point 4 (and it’s mostly bullshit anyway) and 5 and I’d love if people were more rational about point 2. The conventional (non-organic) farming is imho using way too much pesticides, which already bites us in the ass (insects dying off all over the planet will lead to big problems in the near future), but otoh I would really like more rigid science in the alternative scene.

So yes, there are big problems in the ‘organic’ world.
However, the mainstream industrial farming is really killing the ecosystems all over the planet (the amazon for example) and pushing an enormous debt to our (grand) children. And the main reason for this is that normal food (especially meat) is ridiculously cheap. Much too cheap if you would add all the costs in. It’s simply impossible to grow food sustainable for the current price people are willing to pay.

As I can afford it, I buy my food organic after researching if it truly has been grown more sustainable.

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I guess I needed to specify “non-incredibly-poisonous” pesticides? I mean, I know organic farmers that use things like ladybugs and vinegar to keep bugs away, so they’re clearly using pesticides – anti-bug countermeasures – but aren’t spraying their vegetables with chemicals that are possibly deadly.

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