I have a theory that there is a impossible trinity (like in economics), where a food cannot be delicious, cheap and healthy at the same time. At maximum 2 of the 3 can be achieved.
Is there any food that breaks this theory?
Edit: I was thinking more about dishes (or something you put in your mouth) than the raw substances
Some popular suggestions include
- fruits (in season) and vegetables
- lentils, beans, rice
- mushrooms
- chicken
- just eat in moderation
Edit 2: Thanks for the various answers. Now there are a lot of (mostly bean-based) recipes for everyone to try out!
Also someone made a community for cheap healthy food after seeing this topic!
I am making vegetarian lentil soup today.
Ingredients are cheap (you can add nearly any seasonal vegetables) and lentils can be grown locally (America, Europe, Asia, maybe elsewhere too) without too much environmental damage and dried lentils can be stored for long times, you do not need expensive spices and no industrial processed stuff.
Cooking it in a pressure cooker makes it energy effective and done very fast.
You can freeze it over longer periods, so you can make one big pot, but eat multiple times. It should stay perfectly fine for three month in a freezer* and we kept it for three days in a fridge just fine (could stay good longer but I haven’t tried it).
And we love it.
Why not salt it to taste before freezing?
When in frozen food “salt loses flavour, and causes fat to go rancid more quickly”. - source: my grandmother So depending on the food you put into the freezer much of its taste is gone anyway and it can harm the fat, especially if the food contains meat. Disclaimer: I am not a chemist or cook.
No offense to your grandmother, but she doesn’t sound like a chemist either. Fats go rancid because of heat, light, and oxygen. Properly storing in a freezer removes all three of these factors.
If anything, salt will make fats stay fresh longer - for instance, most generations prior to widespread refrigeration technology grew up on salted butter. Fresh butter was a special treat, only available during certain months. Salted butter was the norm, because the salt was used as a preservative, and would allow the butter to be kept at cellar temps for months and months, all the way through winter and into spring. Yes, the result was more salty (they used 10x the amount of salt we use in salted butter now), but the butter fat didn’t get the flavor of rancid fat (which, seriously, is so absolutely fucking vile that once you have it pointed out to you, you’ll never not notice it - no amount of salt, seasoning, or herbs can cover up the flavor of rancid fat).
If you’re freezing to 0, you’re fine, regardless of salt content.
Also, for the love of god, salt your food while cooking! The only cultural reason we add salt afterwards is because a French king hundreds of years ago did, or because we’re cooking for someone with strict sodium limits.