To feed oneself for a week.
The question is: how little can I spend to feed myself for one week? I ought to eat 2000 calories/day, so I’ll need to purchase 14,000 calories/week.
Here’s a “healthy” option: just eat apples. One ounce of apple has 15 calories, so I’ll need to eat 58 pounds of apples per week; I might be able to get this many apples for 29 dollars.
But I can do better! One “Take 5” candy bar is delicious and contains 210 calories, so I’ll need to eat 66 candy bars per week; in the best of all possible worlds, I might be able to purchase this many candy bars for 22 dollars.
I could buy a pound of mayonnaise for two dollars. Apparently a pound of mayonnaise has 3200 calories, so I could get more than enough calories for just ten dollars a week.
Presumably I could do significantly better with potatoes or with rice?
Posted: March 27th, 2007 under Personal.
Comments: 2
Comments
Comment from Michael Stiber
Time: March 29, 2007, 11:36 am
I found some information at the USA Rice Federation’s web site and elsewhere. A cup of cooked rice has something like 200 calories, a cup of dry rice makes about 3 cups cooked, and there are about 2.25 cups of dry rice in a pound. So, that’s 1350 calories per pound of dry rice, and you need a bit over 10 pounds of rice per week.
If you buy your rice someplace that sells it in 25 or 50 pound bags, as opposed to the tiny bags in most supermarkets, it’s almost free. 50 pounds of very good calrose rice is around $15 at Costco. So, let’s call it $3/week, and it’s healthier than the mayo diet.
Comment from Andy
Time: July 27, 2008, 12:17 pm
Vegetable oil is another good bet (mayo is oil plus more costly ingredients and processing). A half-gallon is 15360 Calories, more than enough for a week. You can get these for $6-7, and it’s ready to eat (i.e. no cooking cost, which you’d have with rice).
If we buy in bulk, it looks like we can get 35 lbs for $26.79. A pound is 3968 Calories according to nutritiondata.com so this is $2.70 per week.
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