Let's get some protein in the mix
Last post I walked about starches. Namely Flour, Rice, Potato and Corn. All inexpensive ways to get your daily daily calories and all somewhat lacking in protein.
If you would like to check out the post you can find it here
However, the quick version is this :
If you calculate how expensive it would be to feed yourself on each of those carbs for a day it would break down like this: *All prices in Canadian Dollars
Flour: $0.44/day
Rice : $1.11/day
Potato : $2.27/day
Corn Meal : $1.03/ day
Now when I mentioned eating on $1/day in a post a long time ago I was told "People don't just eat all flour or rice...or whatever in a day". That is absolutely true.
I just standardize the cost for 2000 calories so there is a guage on if it is expensive or cheap. A big bag of potatoes for $6.00 may look cheap but when you see how expensive that works out daily you can tell that it really isn't that cheap to add those potatoes to your daily diet.
Alternatively when you see how many calories you get for so little money with flour it can be encouragement to add more breads, cookies, or even just breading to your daily foods.
But today I'm going to take a look at Soy Beans
Soy Beans
Originally I was going to make a post about all the different types of protein. Beans, Milk, Eggs, Pork, Beef, Chicken, Fish and so on. I am getting lazy though and I'll just keep a running list and add one item to it per post.
I chose Soy Beans for a reason: They are packed with protein!
Now all the items I looked at last time were weak on protein and almost non-existent on fat. To get enough protein to satisfy your daily needs from staple grains would mean you would ether become fat from too many calories or malnourished from not enough protein. In addition being short on protein means you will always feel hungry.
Protein helps you feel full
and it also helps keep your body strong!
In addition to not having enough protein, basic grains are also missing essential amino acids. How to think of amino acids? Imagine needing to type a Hive post ... and missing keys on your keyboard. It would be pretty hard to string together all the words you wanted if you didn't have all the letters. The body uses protein to build itself but there are a number of different "letters" in the protein alphabet. Grains are missing some of the letters! That's why its important to get meats (which have all the protein "letters") or Soy Beans...which also has all the protein letters!
Now I'm quite certain that most people (excepting Vegans and Vegetarians) are could to want to get their protein from something other than beans. Between a steak and bowl of beans? Most will choose the steak. That gets expensive though.
Soy Beans are a complete protein and have more protein gram per gram than even meats do. At least when they are dried. Even better, they are cheap. Not quite as cheap as flour but pretty close to rice and corn price.
Here is how the numbers stack up:
$ 2.67 for 900g of dried soy beans.
Each gram has about 4.57 calories so you need 437.50g of beans for 2000 calories
That means that soy beans are
$1.30 for 2000 calories
Very cheap for a complete protein source! Even better while soy beans have 37% of their weight in protein, they also have 20% of their weight in oils (something the body actually does need) and an additional 31% in carbs. Why doesn't it add up to 100%? Fiber takes up some space too. Take home message is that if you ate nothing but soy beans you could actually be getting a decent blend of all the macronutrients : Protein, Fat and Carbohydrates. Sure there would be a huge number of vitamins and minerals missing as well as essential fatty acids but still, its more complete than eating just rice or noodles.
Looking at the cost for protein
Now ignoring the fact that grains are not complete protein while Soybeans are lets do a quick list of how our staple food list looks if you are getting it as "Price for a days worth of protein". Making an assumption of an 80kg male who is moderately active. In generally a person would need 1g of protein for 1kg of body weight (very roughly). In short our test subject needs 80g of protein a day.
If we look at our foods:
Food ---------- Cost for 80g of protein|
Flour ---------$0.62
Soy Bean --$1.19
Rice ----------$1.89
Corn Meal --$2.11
Potato--------$3.49
What will I look at next
There is still so much to look at going forward. As I continue looking at staple foods I want to look at other good sources of protein and oils. Additional grains. Then as I continue I'm going to look at the different vitamins and minerals that are needed every day.
Hopefully in a years time I'll have a "top 10" list of least expensive and most nutritious foods for each item you need. Top 10 carboydrates. Top 10 Proteins. Top 10 Fats. Top 10 for each vitamin and mineral. Rated on cost to get your daily requirement.
Once you know the best and least expensive sources then its much easier to try and figure out recipe's that give you what you need at the least cost.
Hope you stick around while I go through what is likely to be a very long list of different food products. Sure I'm starting small but at least I'm starting.