Okay I don’t live in America but I routinely make healthy meals for the local equivalent of under 5 bucks, which should be equivalent to about 10 in America according to a quick Google. And for the record I mean proper meals, not beans and rice. For example Walmart sells a pound of lentils online for two bucks, an onion for about one buck and half a dozen carrots (actual carrots, not baby carrots) for less than three bucks, or about 50 cents per carrot. A pound of lentils, an onion and a carrot will make enough lentil soup for five days*, or about a $0.75 per dinner. For the full experience you can add half a disk of pita bread for $0.5 per meal, or you can substitute with tortillas for less than 15 cents per meal. We’re still a full order of magnitude below the ten bucks limit. And this isn’t poverty food; where I’m from people actually eat this because they want to. It’s not labor-intensive either, but it does need a food processor (cheapest I could find was 6 bucks on Amazon, but I didn’t look very hard).
Point being: Maybe I’m missing something, but even with recent price increases there’s plenty of good food one could have without getting any close to the 10 bucks limit.
*There’s no need to make the five days’ worth all at once; lentils will last for months outside the fridge.
Ow, admittedly I hadn’t considered allergies. In that case I suspect you’d find something like pasta with bechamel (100 grams of chicken stir fried, 100mL of bechamel sauce*, served with pasta) to be similarly affordable. Basic fried rice with stir fried chicken is also dirt cheap. Really chicken in general is the load-bearing pillar of non-vegetarian cheap cooking, though since you say “our house” I suspect you already know that.
*I like mine on the juicier side, adjust for taste.
Where could you even find healthy ingredients for under $10 that will last a few days?
It can’t be beans and rice again, all the time.
Ok… Onions and potatoes it is. 🤷♂️
Okay I don’t live in America but I routinely make healthy meals for the local equivalent of under 5 bucks, which should be equivalent to about 10 in America according to a quick Google. And for the record I mean proper meals, not beans and rice. For example Walmart sells a pound of lentils online for two bucks, an onion for about one buck and half a dozen carrots (actual carrots, not baby carrots) for less than three bucks, or about 50 cents per carrot. A pound of lentils, an onion and a carrot will make enough lentil soup for five days*, or about a $0.75 per dinner. For the full experience you can add half a disk of pita bread for $0.5 per meal, or you can substitute with tortillas for less than 15 cents per meal. We’re still a full order of magnitude below the ten bucks limit. And this isn’t poverty food; where I’m from people actually eat this because they want to. It’s not labor-intensive either, but it does need a food processor (cheapest I could find was 6 bucks on Amazon, but I didn’t look very hard).
Point being: Maybe I’m missing something, but even with recent price increases there’s plenty of good food one could have without getting any close to the 10 bucks limit.
*There’s no need to make the five days’ worth all at once; lentils will last for months outside the fridge.
Beans, peas, lentils, peanuts, they’re all off the menu at our house because allergy.
Ow, admittedly I hadn’t considered allergies. In that case I suspect you’d find something like pasta with bechamel (100 grams of chicken stir fried, 100mL of bechamel sauce*, served with pasta) to be similarly affordable. Basic fried rice with stir fried chicken is also dirt cheap. Really chicken in general is the load-bearing pillar of non-vegetarian cheap cooking, though since you say “our house” I suspect you already know that.
*I like mine on the juicier side, adjust for taste.