Vegans in Poverty - Cheap Tricks!

[colonyofcells]

I used to buy organic brown rice from costco. I would just soak it overnight and they simmer quickly in the morning while I take a bath. I can also soak both brown rice and beans overnight and simmer them together in the morning. Costco business center dry goods sells many kinds of beans and lentils in 20 lb or 25 lb bulk bags.

[Bougainvillea]

It's strange because I grew up poor--so poor. We ate beans and rice and macaroni (no one called it pasta then) with canned tomato paste (no spaghetti sauce), and oatmeal. We were so poor. But I loved the food! My Mother would cook it, and it was so delicious! Cornbread and biscuits, greens, and vegetables from the garden--carrots, radishes, corn on the cob, tomatoes! We were so poor, but we were so rich!

I didn't know how rich we were until years later! Years of eating the "rich" food that "rich" people ate--the food that said you had arrived--steaks, and pork chops, and hamburgers cooked rare, with white bread and white flour cakes, cookies, and pies in all fancy shapes with fancy toppings! We were rich, but our health was so poor!

Even though I had arrived and was eating "rich", I missed that "poor" food! I missed the beans and rice, and beans and cornbread, and oatmeal, and greens, and garden fresh vegetables!

Now that I have discovered McDougal's Starch Solutions--I am rich again by eating poor food! I don't have to have poor health! I get to be rich in so many ways--rich with energy, rich with joy, rich with good health, rich with laughter, rich with a youthful appearance, rich with the abundance of good, fresh food I get to eat every day with no guilt, no regret, no pain! So rich!

I grew up poor too. We had six kids in our family. About the only meat we ever has was spam or chipped beef gravy on toast (SOS). I remember eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a lot of grits. We ate a lot out of the garden too. We had many all vegetable meals, lots of beans and soups. I never had an oz. of extra fat on me until I grew up and started eating a lot more meat and processed food. I guess that's why eating a plant based diet is like going home---it's very familiar to me. You can have all the possessions in the world, but if you are unhealthy they don't matter. I would rather have health!

Amen! Isn't it interesting that your poor childhood ended up being a blessing, in that this diet/way of eating will be such a comfortable transition for you?

My favorite aunt was from Panama. My uncle (french side) met her in Panama when he was in the military. We used to ask her to make us enchiladas or something like that (grew up in California - and of course not understanding the difference between Panamanian and Mexican food LOL). But, she'd tell us nope, that's poor people food and she wasn't going to make that. She did always make a really delicious chickpea casserole every Thanksgiving, though, with a tomato sauce - and sausage. Her other specialty was ham. Sad thing, though, she ended up dying from heart disease - even though she was never very overweight. Ended up dying from becoming wealthier in a way.

[Bougainvillea]

Okay, this isn't necessarily so much about saving money, as it is just transitioning to healthier options.

I like to mix my brown rice 1/2 and 1/2 with white rice. One of the things I prefer about white rice, is that it absorbs flavors better than brown rice. So, I've discovered if I mix it half and half, it still actually absorbs flavors and sauces well enough that I don't notice the difference, and I'm getting whole rice in the mix without feeling like I'm gagging down dry brown rice. I definitely have a thing about dry food.

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[colonyofcells]

Since water is needed for fiber to work, I pretty much cook everything as cereals and soups to get plenty of water. When I was a kid, I used to eat street food like soupy rice congee (in the philippines they are prepared with cubes of blood and you choose one of the internal organs). For congee and soups, mushrooms are great substitutes for animal products since fungi are actually more closely related to animals than to plants. My favorite mushrooms are wild chanterelle (costco), wild morel (costco), organic maitake (hokto kinoko). Wild chanterelle and wild morel have vitamin d. Hokto kinoko mushrooms have vitamin d from uvb light treatment. When I was a kid, the healthiest street food was fresh vegetable spring rolls full of starchy vegetables as the main fillers plus other vegetables, and I did eat them regularly both near the market (I had lots of freedom when I was a kid and I walked to the market on my own) and from the walking street vendor who came near our home.

[AlwaysAgnes]

Congee can be very economical and has multiple variations. You can make it in a pot on the stovetop, in a rice cooker, in the instant pot, or in a slow cooker. You can make it with raw or cooked brown or white rice or other rice, or with mixed grains. You can make it plain or gussy it up. You can wander through these recipe links to get some ideas if you're interested or have nothing better to do:

https://www.chowhound.com/recipes/brown ... idge-29368
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Q7Qa5AAjE
http://karicooks.blogspot.com/2011/09/v ... ongee.html
http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-congee- ... -for-69098
https://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/co ... -porridge/
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/ging ... ble-congee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XECLFdtji7I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0bdQJq3IFM (I think you could omit the oil in this Filipino version and use baked tofu)
http://jennymustard.com/recipe-green-co ... iso-sauce/
http://jessicaseinfeld.com/recipes/savo ... s-porridge
http://veganepicurean.blogspot.com/2010 ... ongee.html

[Grammy Ginger]

Cabbage, onions, and carrots are usually inexpensive and go a long way. If my husband is out of town, I can eat off a couple onions, a bag of carrots and head of cabbage in many different ways during the week: stir-fried (well really steamed) over rice, roasted with potatoes, minced and mixed into a pot of lentils or beans or potatoes for soup, and grated and dressed in white vinegar and pepper (and a jalapeno if you dare) for no-mayo cole slaw.

[Reni]

Just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying all of the tips coming out of this thread!

-Reni

[verde]

Loving this thread as I'm on a very tight budget as well!
I got one tip: I make vegetable soups every week and eat a cup before all my meals, it not only is an inexpensive way to get veggies in (carrots, cabbage, etc), but it's also very comforting and helps move things along, if you get what I'm saying
Also, if you blend the some of your soup you can use it as a sauce for your starches (rice, mashed potatoes, pasta), and this way you always have sauce available in the fridge, and a different sauce every week at that!
I tend to buy the most inexpensive vegetables at the store (really simple stuff), and for greens I only buy frozen, since like someone already said, they're cheaper and there's less waste.

Keep 'em tips coming guys, I'm loving this!

[verde]

I have tried pouring hot cereal or hot soup over frozen vegetables and they turn out ok for me.

Brilliant!

I second this! Frozen vegetables are always blanched prior to being bagged and sold, so if you just leave them in the counter defrosting for a few hours (sometimes I leave just an hour), they're good to eat. I do this with frozen broccoli a lot...so tasty!

[Dougalling]

Tomato rice soup

one 13 oz can tomato paste
use can for measuring
3 cans water
1 to 2 cans cooked rice
sweet basil

stir and heat

[colonyofcells]

At trader joes, to save money, I concentrate on the healthy vegetables like greens, leeks, cabbages, broccoli, broccoli slaw, cruciferous mix of kale, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbages. I check the labels for calcium content. To get calcium, I eat a mix of low oxalate and high oxalate greens. I noticed beans are also a great source of calcium. To save money, I buy a mix of organic and non organic. I used to attend skeptic meetings regularly when I was younger. I have watched a lot of skeptic youtube videos. My impression is the skeptic movement as a whole sees 0 evidence for the health advantages of organic and also sees 0 evidence for the dangers of GMO. I highly respect the people in the skeptic movement and I do take their opinions very seriously.
Trader joes sells lots of staple foods like murasaki imo (it is actually the japanese white flesh or yellow flesh sweet potato with purple skin or red skin. The real japan murasaki imo or hawaii murasaki imo or okinawa murasaki imo has white skin and purple inside), and parsnips, sunchokes in the cold section.

[colonyofcells]

Hard to find cheap food at whole foods market. The salad cosmo organic mung sprout (has protein and vitamin c) does not seem too expensive. Bought Bob's Red Mill flax meal from whole foods market bec costco stopped selling the bob's red mill organic flax meal (costco still sells organic chia seed). I also bought roasted carob powder I will try in my cereal. They sell tamarind pulp from Fiji and wasabi powder from china.

[VeggieSue]

Bought Bob's Red Mill flax meal from whole foods market bec costco stopped selling the bob's red mill organic flax meal (costco still sells organic chia seed).

My local Stop and Shop grocery store carries a lot of Bob's Red Mill items, some even cheaper than Amazon vendors. They always have plenty of the flax - whole and ground, regular and organic, brown and golden.

Big Lots used to carry a lot of items, too, but the last few times we were there they've had less and less. When we were there yesterday, we found a few bags of oatmeal only. But maybe Big Lots elsewhere still carry them, so try there if you live near one.

[colonyofcells]

At Mollie Stone, they sell some sprouts like organic radish sprouts (bannermountainsprouts com) that are not too expensive. They have the Lewis Labs Brewer's Yeast (it is nutritional yeast grown on beet molasses and is not a byproduct of making beer, not fortified). The Lewis Labs Brewer's Yeast has b vitamins, zinc and chromium. Mollie Stone no longer sells the Twinlab Brewers Yeast (byproduct of making beer, not fortified) which also has b vitamins, zinc and chromium.
At Safeway, they have the salad cosmo organic mung sprouts. They sell the mushrooms with vitamin d (they shine uvb light on the mushrooms) using safeway's signature farms brand betterlivingbrandsllc.com. Costco no longer sells the monterey mushrooms with vitamin d (they now sell organic monterey mushrooms with no vitamin d). Safeway has lots of frozen vegetables. Albertsons bought Safeway a few years ago. Safeway sells flax meal.
For cheap greens, I buy some dried greens in bulk from mountainroseherbs com such as dried spinach flakes, dried dandelion leaf, dried moringa leaf, dried basil leaf, dried chive rings, dried parsley leaf, dried mugwort, dried hibiscus flower, etc. Mustard powder, Horseradish powder and wasabi powder are in the cruciferous family same as with radish, turnip and rutabaga. Rutabaga has enough calories to be a staple food.

[Bougainvillea]

Loving this thread as I'm on a very tight budget as well!
I got one tip: I make vegetable soups every week and eat a cup before all my meals, it not only is an inexpensive way to get veggies in (carrots, cabbage, etc), but it's also very comforting and helps move things along, if you get what I'm saying
Also, if you blend the some of your soup you can use it as a sauce for your starches (rice, mashed potatoes, pasta), and this way you always have sauce available in the fridge, and a different sauce every week at that!
I tend to buy the most inexpensive vegetables at the store (really simple stuff), and for greens I only buy frozen, since like someone already said, they're cheaper and there's less waste.

Keep 'em tips coming guys, I'm loving this!

Awesome idea! I don't like dry food, so I'm always looking for sauces. It's hard to find cheap ones that also aren't super salty. I'm getting better at making my own, but it's hit and miss. But, I also usually have soup around and have a bunch canned up - soup is something I'm pretty good at, since it's something I can make that's cheap, and I can use whatever is in the cupboard to make some kind of soup normally. But, I hadn't thought of blending it! That's brilliant.

So, many great new posts. Love the tomato rice soup recipe and the other tips.

My Bob's Red Mill organic masa flour was a failure, so I'm leery of their products now. I was new at making my own tortillas, but I got to where I could press out nice, uniform tortillas - but no matter how I mixed them, or tried heating them, they were still really heavy and wouldn't puff up when cooking them. After watching a zillion youtube videos, my conclusion was that it was the flour and not me. That it was probably milled too coarse. So, I actually asked for a refund and they gave me one, and sent me an envelope to send them a sample of the flour so they could see if it met their standard/specs, etc.

Also regarding the skeptics - yeah, I'm going to try the regular masa flour that is in the Mexican stores here, which is not non-GMO and just not worry about it. Haven't tried it yet. Wouldn't it be embarrassing if I can't get that flour to puff up either? LOL. I'll let you know.