Cheap healthy diet on £15 a week?

Starchy food	Fruit & vegetables		Dairy	High-protein food	Sugary/fatty food
SOURCE: RATIOS BROADLY BASED ON THE EATWELL PLATE(NHS). PRICES AS ADVERTISED ON ASDA, SAINSBURY'S AND TESCO WEBSITES
33% of intake	Five portions a day		15% of intake	12% of intake	8% of intake
250g rice 290kcal 10p**	Tomatoes 216kcal 93p for 3 tins	7 bananas 700kcal 68p for 1kg	Cheddar 410kcal 75p for 100g**	Six eggs 486kcal 95p	Jam 518kcal 15p for half jar**
800g bread 1880kcal 50p	Sweetcorn 1,100kcal 98p for 1kg (frozen)	4 apples 188kcal 87p	250g butter 611kcal 33p **	Tin sardines 214kcal 47p	Vegetable oil 620kcal 10p for 75ml**
330g oats 1,330kcal 30p**	1kg carrots 350kcal 90p	Fruit juice 550kcal 68p for litre	4 pints milk 1135kcal £1.29	Kidney beans 280kcal 21p for tin
250g pasta 735kcal 15p**	4 tins beans 824kcal £1	Satsumas 246kcal £1 for 600g		Chicken liver 345kcal 45p for 227g
1kg potatoes 720kcal 69p	3 onions 258kcal 57p			Chickpeas 357kcal 36p for 100g** (dried)
4,507kcal £1.94	4,432kcal £7.61		2,156kcal £2.37	1,682kcal £2.44	1,138kcal 25p
					TOTAL 13,915kcal £14.61
* Based on weekly diet for a woman of 14,000kcal - men need 25% more ** part-pack

I spotted the table above on the Beeb's new website and it caught my eye.  To be honest, previously I would have thought it was difficult to eat well on £15 a week - or just £2.14 a day in the UK.  And yet if the above table is to be believed, well it's possible.   Nevertheless, I have a few observations:

• It is not vegetarian but it's not far off.  Meat is an expensive food and this has little meat included.  The meat that is there is not processed i.e. pasties, ham, meatballs and so on.  Interestingly it has little meat anyway and I think that could be replaced by a handful of nuts or bean sprouts for some good protein (see below).
• There is no tea or coffee included.
• To keep things more palatable I would try and include some kind of sauce or gravy but that has to be paid for somehow.
• It does depend on being able to do some basic cooking and having the facilities - a gas or electric ring, perhaps an oven and/or a microwave.
• This gives sufficient calories for normal living.
• Taking care to look for bargains in supermarkets or towards the end of the day in open-air markets can be worthwhile.  I even remember when I used to do Court Duty, I would walk back past the market as it was packing up.  In spite of wearing my suit I would sometimes still look through the rubbish - I had some amazing finds!  Having a freezer helps when you get a glut of something.
• There is no alcohol or cigarettes - and quite right too!
• Care would be needed to vary the diet as much as possible by eating different foods.   Do this  week to week and ensure there is an intake of a wide variety of foods, if at all possible
• If possible buy fresh fruit and vegetables.
• I heard there are a Billion people in the World living off under a US$ a day anyway.  Two or three Billion living on under $2US a day puts this in perspective

I mentioned replacing the meat for bean sprouts and I was going to blog about this anyway.  Growing sprouts is like growing protein which doesn't have to be cooked and is extremely nutritious, plus it's cheaper than meat.

You can see in the above jars how easy it is to grow sprouts.  The first jar on the left has just started - we soak the beans overnight and then as they start to swell in the morning, we drain off the water, rinse once or twice and leave them with a little moisture around the.  Rinse twice a day thereafter in order to avoid any mould growing.  

After 4 or 5 days they are generally ready but it does depend on temperature, as you would expect.  Refrigerate one they're ready and they'll keep fresh for several more days.

The trouble is, we have a bit of a glut of sprouted Mung seeds right now so I am having them for breakfast, lunch and in the evening.  I can tell you, they add to the interest at breakfast time with my gravel muesli!

Related posts:

How to grow sprouts