I’m sad that this is worth mentioning. But if you are dealing with hunger amid threats to SNAP benefits, rice and beans are very cheap per meal and can be bought in bulk. Here’s some tricks I’ve learned:
If you get dried beans, make sure you follow the directions to pre-soak them. Canned beans are easier to prepare, just dump in near the end of cooking to heat them up. Dried lentils don’t need to be pre-soaked, but I prefer to cook them separately and drain the water they boil in.
Brown rice, barley, or other whole grains have much more protein than white rice and I find them more filling. Whole grains take longer to cook than white grains.
Frying diced onions in the pot before adding the grains and water is an easy way to kick the flavor up a notch. Use a generous amount of cooking oil (light olive oil is healthiest) for cost effective calories and help making the meal more filling.
Big carrots or celery in bulk are pretty cheap too. I like to dice carrots by partially cutting length wise into quarters, but leave the small end intact to keep the carrot together to make it easier to dice down the side. Add them to the same pot as the grains after the grains start to soften. Beets are also great; skin and cube then boil separately until soft. Change up your veggie to get a mix of vitamins
Get some bulk garlic powder, hot sauce, paprika, cumin, crushed red pepper, black pepper, etc. Season and salt the pot to taste.
You’ll only need 1-2 pots and a cutting knife/board for veggies.
I recommend Harvard’s Nutrition Source for science-based nutrition information and they have some recipes too
Edit: discussing big changes in diet with a primary care doctor or registered dietician is generally a good idea.
Probiotic supplements may help with gas.
As a bonus this sort of meal has a very small environmental footprint.
fuck the rice, nice mixed bean salad with olive oil, some salt and pepper, that shit will fill you and make you fart like crazy.
That’s fine in the short term. Whole grains have essential amino acids that beans lack
well i don’t only eat that so of course im not eating beans 24/7
so add rice and then you arrive back to the post :)
This is untrue. Virtually all plants have all essential amino acids. The only difference is that the main plant-based sources of proteins that people rely on - legumes and grains - have relatively lower levels of one or another amino acid than some other sources. But no studies have found those differences to have any negative impact on people’s health, or even their ability to gain muscle, whether they combine proteins or not.
Here’s an interview with Christopher Gardner - a specialist who goes into detail on this topic.
What we really need is for people to worry more about where they’re getting their fiber, than protein.
Edit: although it should be noted that it is still good to eat both grains and beans for other reasons. Diversity of foods is important for the gut microbiome for a start.
A quick point to add. Adding fat to your meal makes it more filling and for longer. The worst fats are trans fats, second worse are polyunsaturated fats, and mono seem to be fairly good along with most saturated fats. In terms of cost some of the vegetable fats are much cheaper but they often have trans fats which are essentially toxic and they also go rancid very easily.
Saturated fats are generally solid at room temperature and don’t absolutely need to be refrigerated on cool to moderate weather days. If you would sweat the butter would too, so put it in the fridge.
If you add a small amount of mince to your beans it will stretch really far and add tonnes of flavour and protein without breaking the bank. Cheaper mince comes with more fat but if you are making beans you want that, so get the cheaper mince, lean is not helpful.
Beans on rice freezes well for weeks. Beans without rice is good for months frozen. Beans with rice and any cheese or sour cream is not OK frozen. Beans with cheese microwaves well, but add sour cream after heating.
To make it more satisfying you can add a little bit of some chilli sauce. Hotter sauces go further, but the best is fermented sauces. The cheapest chilli sauces are full of sugar and water, so they just sweeten and dilute rather than flavour your dish.
If your beans tastes sour add a small amount of sugar, stir for a minute, and test again. Sugar fixes the sourness quite well.
For extra flavour a stock cube can be added. I would recommend beef stock for beans, but it will work with chicken or fish too. Most stocks are now vegan because they re synthetic, but they add a lot of flavour and are perfectly fine to eat.
The best option if you can manage it is to learn how to make a beef broth from bones. You boil the bones for hours, around 8 or so should do, and the bones will start to soften and become translucent. At this point all the nutritional goodness of the bones is in the broth. You can then use this as a base for making stew, beans, soup, etc, or you can reduce it by open top heating it and letting the steam leave. This will make a strong stock you can use to add flavour and nutrition to other meals for the cost of some energy and cheap bones.
A slow cooker can make cooking all of this much easier and safer. Electric slow cookers are able to be set up in the morning and have dinner most of the way ready by dinner time. The slow steady heat is great for bones and for softening meat and the easy of use is just fantastic.
Thanks for contributing. Some of your content on fat is not supported by evidence. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are the healthiest fats, and saturated fats increase risks of heart disease.
Here’s a great article from the Nutrition Source discussing these concerns head on. TL;DR
Given the above information, is commercially processed canola oil harmful?
Although care must be taken in handling and processing of canola oil and other vegetable oils, canola oil is a safe and healthy form of fat that will reduce blood LDL cholesterol levels and heart disease risk compared to carbohydrates or saturated fats such as found in beef tallow or butter. Indeed, in a randomized trial that showed one of the most striking reductions in risk of heart disease, canola oil was used as the primary form of fat. [8] Whether using cold-pressed canola oil provides some small additional benefit is not clear.
In general, variety is a good strategy in nutrition, and thus consuming a variety of oils is desirable, for example using extra virgin oil when the special flavor is desired and canola oil or soybean oil for other uses. Both canola and soybean oils provide ω-3 fatty acids that are important to include in an overall diet. Of course, avoiding overheating and burning of oils is important to provide the best taste and to avoid damaging the healthy-promoting fatty acids that they contain.
Frozen peas are great for that too. Goes with a lot of different dishes. just throw in a handful, or make a side-dish.
Don’t “skin” beets with a vegetable peeler. Blanch them and slide them out of their skins. It sounds like more work, but it’s so much less work.
Pro-tip: If you have an Instant Pot, you throw the beets in there and pressure cook them for 20 minutes. Slow release and then let them cool a bit. The peels come right off and they are cooked perfectly. No need for any spices at all.
Great if you want steamed beets. You can just blanch them if you want them roasted.
Casserole’s and tuna sandwiches
We also do the sauté onions (which is just onions cooked slooooowly). They caramelise and become sweet, add some generic chicken seasoning to them (I use a salt/paprika mix from the general store), tinned baked beans in tomato sauce, rice, and that’s all. Spice it up with some jar jalapeños and its a damn fine meal for nearly no prep or cost.
I eat this almost daily and I’m not ashamed to say it.
Red beans and rice didn’t miss her!
It’s the return of depression meals, 1930s style
Can anyone recommend an economical and tasty gruel brand?
Unlike my dumbass family back then I’m not afraid of spicing my rice and beans like people with melanin
I can’t imagine spices were exactly cheap. When you’re at the point of making water pie I’m gunna guess that spices are an easy enough thing to let go of.
I’m not talking spices from around the globe or some shit. I’m talking jalapenos, serranos, chipotles…
Ya know, cheap staple crops from my region of the world that grow like weeds and add flavor for cheap.
Ok, with as little intended rudeness as possible: Spicing is a weird word, and usualy for clarity anything to do with heat would be “spicing” or “making spicy”.
And yea those are definitely not too expensive at all. I really enjoy using spiciness as a way to add a a lot of depth basically for free. Everything is better with some red pepper flakes.
Frankly I disagree, chili powder and paprika are spices commonly sold as spices and are just dried then crushed chilies. It’s just a preservation method and in Asia chilies are preserved in chili oils so not technically a spice but is used for flavor like a spice.
Really the only problem here is that the language we are using is so fucking bad at describing flavor and cooking.
I mean, a little yes but if you’re specifically talking hot peppers, and you said that you were, then the bulk of what they bring to the table is heat. Flavour for sure a little, but I wouldn’t consider them spices.
I can agree that the language is a little vague. Like at what point does ginger become a spice and not a normal ingredient? Only when it’s dried and powdered?
I’m sorry but if you think chilies only add a little flavor there’s no point continuing this. Have a good one.
Also, for what it’s worth, hot sauce also makes you feel way more full/less hungry. If you need an addition.
If there’s science for this you have I’d love to see it. I’m the exact opposite. Some good hot sauce on beans and rice and I eat twice as much it’s so good.
To reduce gas with beans:
- soak with baking soda (1tsp per cup of beans)
- before cooking boil some water and in a bowl cover the beans with the boiled water, after 5 minutes drain and wash them and throw them in to whatever you are cooking
- ferment the beans, best results but more work
Also remember that as your body gets used to it, the gas is reduced.
And NGL everyone farts, you’re fine. Just use common etiquette.
Good post. Will try it out.
Core memory triggered.
If you have an instant pot or pressure cooker to cook rice, I find that adding a small handful of cumin seeds (specifically, not the powder) into the rice adds a huge amount of flavor to plain rice compared to the effort involved in doing so.
Vaush?
