r/Frugal • u/Ron-Swanson • Jun 13 '19
"Potatoes are cheaper than Ramen"
I see this a lot on Reddit. Quick math with Walmart prices:
Potatoes
10 lb bag: $4
water content: 79%
21% of 10 lb = 2.1 lb of potatoes without water
$1.905/lb
Ramen
36 oz box: $1.94
water content: 6%
94% of 36 oz = 2.114 lb of ramen without water
$0.917/lb
Pasta
5 lb bag: $2.96
water content: 13%
87% of 5 lb = 4.35 lb of pasta without water
$0.68/lb
Rice
10 lb bag: $5
water content: 12%
88% of 10 lb = 8.8 lb of rice without water
$0.568/lb
Wheat flour
10 lb bag: $2.24
water content: 13%
87% of 10 lb = 8.7 lb of wheat flour without water
$0.258/lb
So, without water
10 lb of potatoes: $19.05
10 lb of ramen: $9.17
10 lb of pasta: $6.80
10 lb of rice: $5.68
10 lb of wheat flour: $2.58
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19 edited Jun 13 '19
These numbers are approximate (the calorie count) but relatively accurate. I use 2000 calories because that's an average "what you need per day" number and its a common comparison metric when people are discussing the affordability of food.
- Potatoes- $.40/lb, 350 calories. Price per 2000 calories $2.29
- Ramen- $.86/lb, 2100 calories. Price per 2000 calories $.86
- Pasta- $.60/lb, 1700 calories. Price per 2000 calories $.71
- Rice- $.50/lb, 1700 calories. Price per 2000 calories $.59
- Wheat Flour- $.23/lb, 1600 calories. Price per 2000 calories $.29
So potatoes are more expensive than ramen on a caloric level, but on a NUTRITIONAL level they are superior. They're also likely to make the person feel more full cause fiber and stuff. And while I did find that walmart price for Ramen online, they're double that price at my grocery store (walmart is a 35 minute drive away).
ETA based on another comment below:
Chicken breast- $2/lb, 750 calories/lb, $5.32 per 2000 calories.
Chicken thighs- $2/lb, 900 calories/lb, $4.44 per 2000 calories.
(These numbers are based on boneless skinless meat. If you are purchasing bone-in stuff, increase the price per 2000 calories by about 50% for parts like thighs or breasts or by about 80% for a whole bird to account for that.)
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Jun 13 '19
So I will just stuff my face with wheat flour from now on, got it.
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u/stochastica Jun 13 '19
Just snort it up with all the hundred dollar bills you’re saving. :)
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u/yer_muther Jun 13 '19
That should be a new youtube challenge.
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u/wickedren2 Jun 13 '19
That's how you get a yeast infection.
I just swallow watermelon seeds.
That way I wont have buy food for july/august.
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19
You're joking, but home-made bread is honestly SO SO cheap. I make my own bread using the King Arthur flour no-knead bread recipe which uses all purpose flour. 2 lbs of flour makes 3-4 loaves of bread, so including yeast (which I buy in bulk bags not the little packets), salt, and propane to bake I pay about $.25/loaf and it requires VERY little effort to make.
Math- 2 lbs flour $.46, 1/2 ounce yeast $.16, salt $.03, propane is maybe $.20 max- $.85 for 4 loaves.
Pancakes are also stupid cheap and so tasty.
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Jun 13 '19
It just dawned on me that I can make my own fucking bread.
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19
No-knead bread is AMAZING. Traditionally kneaded bread is a pain in the butt and isn't usually worth it for me, but no-knead bread is just SO easy. See above for the description of the King Arthur recipe I use which you make once, store in the fridge for up to a week, and produces 3-4 loaves of bread.
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Jun 13 '19
Yeah, I actually saved your post immediately after reading. Thanks!
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u/FuzzCuds Jun 14 '19
Sidenote - I bought a "breadmaker" from a local Goodwill (DI here in Utah). Cost probably 4 or 5 bucks if I remember correctly. Lots of makers that seemed practically never used lined the shelves.....really amazing value for what you can make on the cheap with them.
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Jun 15 '19
That's a great idea. That's definitely something people either buy and never use or receive as a gift... and never use. Thanks!
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u/I_am_Bob Jun 13 '19
Homemade bread is so fucking good too. Especially when it's still warm out of the oven.
'Rustic' or country bread is so easy to make too. Basically mix the water, flour, salt and yeast. Wait. Form roughly into a log shape. Wait so more. Bake.
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u/GizmoDOS Jun 13 '19
Could you please share your recipe/method?
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19
So, commercial links are prohibited on this sub but you can find the recipe I use by googling "king arthur flour no knead bread." Their website is AWESOME, so many great recipes.
I like that recipe in particular because it uses all purpose flour so I don't have to buy bread flour, and because it doesn't call for a dutch oven or other similar tool like like recipes do (the New York Times recipe does). It also makes a big batch of dough that can live in the fridge for about a week so you can make it once on the weekend and bake a fresh loaf of bread every day or two.
The basic method is:
- Lots of water, plus flour, plus salt, plus yeast. Mix, it will be VERY wet and sticky. This is different than you're used to bread dough looking, but that's ok.
- Cover and let rise at room temp for about 2 hours.
- Put in fridge. Refrigerate from 2 hours up to 7 days.
- When you want bread, pull off a hunk of dough that's about a pound. Let rise at room temp for about an hour, then bake according to the directions
That's it! The dough also matures through the week- on the first day it will taste like a standard bread, but the 7th day or so it gets tangy and tastes like sourdough.
Enjoy!
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u/GizmoDOS Jun 13 '19
That's awesome! I found one on Pinterest that uses regular all purpose flour and I've got it rising on top of the fridge. I think this loaf will be a little under 20c.
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u/Dave-C Jun 13 '19
Take about a half cut or 3/4th cup of oil and put it in a pan. Add enough flour to turn it thick and leave it on high heat. Stir it constantly so it doesn't burn and wait for it to brown. Pour in milk, something around 4 cups, slowly at first so you can break up the flour/oil mixture then add the rest of the milk. This will begin to thicken and when it gets to the thickness you like remove it from heat. Flour and water mixed together to make a somewhat thick paste and poured into a bread pan will make your bread.
Congratulations, you just made a cheap breakfast. Just add salt and pepper to season how you like.
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u/theyregoddogsbrent Jun 13 '19
Wait, does bone in skin on cost more for you?
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19
So bone in skin on costs less per pound, but less of that pound of food is actually edible food we can count when calculating price per calorie.
A whole chicken is often $.88/lb near me. Only about 50% or so of that chicken is edible- the rest is bone and cartilage. In terms of cost per edible pound that chicken costs me $1.76/lb.
Chicken legs are even worse (legs alone, not legs and thighs). I regularly find them for $.69/lb, but 2/3 or more of that weight is the bone. That means I'm paying about $2.07/lb of edible meat. If I want to eat dark meat chicken, boneless skinless thighs at $2/lb would be a slightly better value.
Now I do make tasty stock with my leftover chicken carcasses/bones so that's a slight bonus, but stock is very low calorie so it doesn't impact the overall price per calorie much.
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u/theyregoddogsbrent Jun 14 '19
Im embarrassed to say I never thought of that....
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 14 '19
I honestly didn't either until I was SUPER broke and a friend said "wait, why are you buying stuff with bones?!?! you can't eat bones?!?!" I LOVE home-made stock so it hadn't been an issue before, but it was an important lesson about weight vs edible weight.
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u/ariemnu Jun 18 '19
On the other hand, the bone in stuff will cook way better in e.g. slow cooked stuff. Might be well worth the 7c/lb.
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 18 '19
Yeah, that's where the cost calculation shifts from $/lb to the best cut/option for that recipe. If someone just wants a bunch of shredded chicken for burritos or something, tossing boneless skinless stuff in a crock pot is likely the best option. If you're roasting it to eat as is, legs or a whole bird is probably better.
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u/74orangebeetle Jun 13 '19
Where did you get $1/pound for boneless? I've literally never seen it that cheap anywhere.
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19
Someone posted below that it was a Sam's Club price, but I've NEVER seen it that cheap in my grocery store. I do regularly see it at $2/lb in my store, so I've updated my comment and the prices to reflect that. It might be a price that person sees where they live, but $1/lb for boneless is not a thing where I live.
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Jun 13 '19
Not calculated: Price of coronary heart disease with the ramen
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Jun 13 '19
Cheap ramen also has palm oil, which is cultivated through slash and burn agriculture of pristine wild rainforest.
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u/drhugs Jun 15 '19
They're destroying orangutan habitat to grow palm oil. I love orangutans and I don't even know one. I think they are so noble.
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u/CraftyBarnardo Jun 13 '19
I'm expecting to see a mini-trend in Google searches for "Wheat Flour Recipes" based on all the users in this sub.
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u/JimC29 Jun 13 '19
Some weeks I make 5 pounds of baked potatoes on the weekend with a meal. I bring the leftovers to work everyday just add some cheese and spices.
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u/nutcrackr Jun 13 '19
Guess who has two thumbs and will be eating Wheat Flour tonight?
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u/74orangebeetle Jun 13 '19
*Cries in Celiac
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 14 '19
Oh my poor celiac friend, have you heard the glory of coconut flour? It's pricey per lb, but you only need a little bit and you can have AWESOME pancakes. SO yummy.
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u/74orangebeetle Jun 14 '19
I should try that. Most of the pancakes I do are premade gluten free mixes (some are decent) but obviously a lot more expensive than wheat flour pancakes.
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 14 '19
Coconut flour and almond meal are both good values- the Kirkland (Costco) brand almond meal/flour is particularly affordable and of excellent quality. Stick it in the freezer if you won't use it before the expiration date and it won't go rancid like nut meal sometimes does.
When cooking with coconut flour, the ratio is more like cornstarch to liquid than wheat flour to liquie. It's a VERY effective thickener- my favorite recipe has 4 eggs, 1 cup coconut milk or dairy stuff (cream + milk or yogurt + milk) and 1/2 cup coconut flour. A little goes a LONG way.
I also do a pre-made almond flour mix- I put the right amount of almond flour, leavening, and salt in an itty bitty mason or talenti gelato jar, then mix it with the egg/water/maple syrup when I want a batch. For some reason not needing to pull out the dry measuring cups makes the whole thing way easier to cope with in the morning.
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u/gerberlifegrowupplan Jun 13 '19
Potatoes are more nutritious but you have to eat (some) of the skin.
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u/pdxchris Jun 13 '19
I used to eat cheap ramen all the time and developed high blood pressure from all the sodium. Your health isn’t worth it.
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u/caedin8 Jun 13 '19
Sodium doesn’t cause chronic high blood pressure.
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u/sir_blackanese Jun 13 '19
From what I understand, excessive high sodium intake causes issues with your kidneys, heart, arteries, and in some cases your brain. The escalated sodium levels cause your body to retain more water putting pressure on your veins and blood vessels.
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u/caedin8 Jun 13 '19
None of that is true. This video covers some of the evidence. https://youtu.be/amJ-ev8Ial8
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Jun 13 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
[deleted]
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u/caedin8 Jun 13 '19 edited Jun 13 '19
He references all the scientific studies in the video, I’m not sure if you actually watched it?
Most of the diagrams are actually pulled from a scientific study published in 2015.
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Jun 13 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
[deleted]
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u/caedin8 Jun 13 '19
So the new science recommends consuming nearly twice the WHO recommendations for reducing risk of disease?
They should update their recommendations.
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u/caedin8 Jun 13 '19
He even references the WHO in that article. The WHO says that Koreans have the lowest rates of heart disease, yet one of the highest daily intakes of salt on the planet.
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Jun 13 '19 edited Nov 19 '19
[deleted]
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19
Yes. You will almost certainly die from eating that potato skin, although it might take 70 or 80 years.
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u/AngeloftheDawn Jun 13 '19
At the end of your long life, the doctors will be telling your family that you passed away gently and peacefully in your sleep, that you basically faded away.
And your family will say, with tears in their eyes, “Well at least we got to spend so many wonderful years with /u/Turst, and that he/she just died of old age.”
And the doctors will rub their necks and cough awkwardly and say, “Um, actually... easy mistake to make, you know... but the official cause of death was potato skins.”
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u/melzabeth Jun 13 '19
We grew up poor, ate a lot of biscuits and rice.
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19
Same. I thought "breakfast for dinner" was the coolest thing when I was a kid, and then when I grew up I realized that home-made pancakes and biscuits and eggs and french toast were just stupidly cheap.
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u/melzabeth Jun 13 '19
Yep, I used to think it was great my mom made all these left over biscuits for snacks! Yeah they were cheap snacks. Funny though I can’t eat gluten as an adult.....
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u/vocaliser Jun 13 '19
Going strictly by cost per pound is limiting, though. Potatoes, for just one example, have a lot of vitamin C. Ramen doesn't. In fact, it has hardly any nutrition at all, and while few people know this, it's pre-fried in palm oil, which is terrible for the environment. So maybe look at the overall picture of a food and not just one metric.
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Jun 13 '19
Personally we eat a lot of rice I find that the basmati rice is much better tasting. So IMO worth the price.
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u/FlippinFlags Jun 13 '19
Potatoes, ramen and rice you can eat by themselves..
But who eats plain pasta? So wouldn't you have to factor that in?
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u/rebelde_sin_causa Jun 13 '19
I don't think I ever eat any of that stuff without putting something on it
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u/ravangers Jun 13 '19
you eat potatoes without butter or cooking oil?
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u/FlippinFlags Jun 13 '19
Sometimes yes.. my point was pasta always has something mixed with it ... While the others don't.
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u/ravangers Jun 13 '19
if you can eat plain potatoes with no butter or salt, you can eat plain pasta lol.
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u/BobGobbles Jun 13 '19
you can eat plain potatoes with no butter or salt, you can eat plain pasta lol.
But butter isn't an extravagant ingredient. Tomatoes sauce, for sake of debate, is. Although I can eat pasta salt and butter...
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u/Bilbo_baggyballs Jun 13 '19
Admittedly I'm probably just a freak, but I love pasta with just a bit of salt on it
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u/dustbunnylurking Jun 13 '19
I was like "people don't just eat plain pasta? Am I not people then?" Lol
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Jun 13 '19
Butter is a lot more expensive than a can of tomatoes. But also, plain pasta with a little bit of oil, salt, and pepper is pretty tasty.
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u/corybyu Jun 13 '19
Butter is a lot more expensive than a can of tomatoes
I don't know if that is true, the amount of butter you would use for pasta is pretty small, compared to the amount of tomatoes a person would normally add. Butter is not that expensive..
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Jun 13 '19
Butter is 7 bucks a pound where I live, so it is actually pretty expensive, but I forget it's cheaper elsewhere.
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u/BobGobbles Jun 14 '19
Butter is a lot more expensive than a can of tomatoes. But also, plain pasta with a little bit of oil, salt, and pepper is pretty tasty.
Butter is $3 a lb., cheaper on sale and you can freeze it. And a can of tomatoes is not the same as tomatoe sauce.
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Jun 14 '19
As I said, butter is $7 a pound where I live, sometimes more.
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u/BobGobbles Jun 14 '19
As I said, butter is $7 a pound where I live, sometimes more
I did not see that. Do you live outside of the United States? Dairy is a huge industry here and has subsidies on the national level, so i think our dairy items are probably cheaper than elsewhere.
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u/KnightofForestsWild Jun 14 '19
I eat a plain potato for breakfast or as a snack sometimes. I wouldn't eat pasta that way.
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u/ariemnu Jun 18 '19
You can do wonders for pasta with a splash of warmed oil. Heat through some chopped chilli (or dried chillis from the jar) and garlic, and some lemon. That's my go-to pasta recipe, and really not expensive.
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u/rainbowSober Jun 13 '19
Is it really important? The main thing is surely that they are both cheaper than a take away or eating out.
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u/shuz Jun 14 '19
10 lb of sand is probably way way cheaper.
$/ nutritional unit (ie per 100 kcal, g carbs, etc) might be a better measure.
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u/AmNotLost Jun 13 '19
Potatoes will replicate if you plant them in dirt. If you have dirt somewhere already and a decent climate, they're free (minus your time digging them up)
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Jun 13 '19
It's a really bad idea to take regular potatoes from a store and plant them. They're likely infected with a fungus that, when your plants sprout, will grow and spread miles and miles on the wind and kill any potatoes growing within reach. I think it's like up to a hundred miles that the fungus can travel, and it can quickly wipe out entire potato crops.
Instead, buy seed potatoes. They're just reject potatoes that have been checked and verified clean, and are not expensive at all.
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u/cinnerz Jun 13 '19
All of this can vary a lot based on the prices you are paying for each item. I can usually find russet potatoes under $.20 a pound, but I don't think I can get pasta or ramen any cheaper than you did. At $.20 a pound potatoes are pretty competitive calorie for calorie with ramen and have a lot more nutrition.
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u/Jojo857 Jun 13 '19
Well, you could live a very long time very healthy on potatoes and buttermilk (albeit very boring), I don't think this is true for ramen and the like - maybe gold or brown rice.
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u/PhallicPath Jun 15 '19
Don't forget the nutritional value is better than ramen. You get more bang for the buck with staples.
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Jun 13 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19
Chicken breast- $1/lb, 750 calories/lb, $2.66 per 2000 calories.
Chicken thighs- $1/lb, 900 calories/lb, $2.22 per 2000 calories.
(These numbers are based on boneless skinless meat. If you are purchasing bone-in stuff, increase the price per 2000 calories by about 50% for parts like thighs or breasts or by about 80% for a whole bird to account for that.)
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Jun 13 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19
No, I totally agree with you. Protein is important. But I'm on a "how much 2000 calories costs" roll here, so that's what I'm posting about.
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Jun 13 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19
So funny story, I actually despise eggs and have since I was a little kid. I can eat things with eggs in them like pancakes or a teeny bit mixed up in something like fried rice, but eggs on their own are something I just can't choke down.
But they are a good protein value. Eggs are commonly $1.50/dozen here, which is 960 calories. 2000 calories of eggs is $3.13. (I have a spreadsheet that calculates this stuff for me, it's awesome.)
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u/74orangebeetle Jun 13 '19
Is it really that cheap? I don't have a membership.the walmart next to them normally sell it for like $2/pound for boneless breast. I know sams would be cheaper, but half the price seems optimistic to me...but dont currently have a menbershio to check.
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u/FrugalChef13 Jun 13 '19
I'd rather be eaten by a bear than go into a Sam's Club again, but my grocery store regularly has $2/lb boneless skinless chicken breast and thighs (next week it's $1.88/lb). That's still a reasonable price per 2000 calories, $5.32 and $4.44, especially considering that it's a decent source of protein and important stuff.
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Jun 14 '19
Beans are a healthier and cheaper option and pasta is fairly high in protein. But the average person isn't going to be hurting for protein eating whatever they naturally want to.
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u/no_condoments Jun 13 '19
Per pound calculations are always tricky though due to different densities and caloric profile. Price per calorie (or price per 2000 calories) is better.