A kid in my dorm in college did this same thing. His parents moved right after his senior year of high school so, after our first year, he decided it wasn’t worth going to the state had moved to for the summer, he’d just stay on campus. Only, he made this decision last minute and wasn’t able to line up a summer job. No problem, he thought, there’s always plenty of paid studies.
And he made it work, barely. The whole summer funded just by filing out psych studies (note: this is a reason to be skeptical of small N, non-representative psych studies, especially if their subjects are all college students, it doesn’t matter if it got written up in the Independent). His biggest cost was rent, and after that beer. He was a math major and had calculated the price per unit of alcohol (including the cost of mixers where applicable) and it's hard to beat the price of $10.99 for a thirty rack of local Midwestern beers, even with rubbing alcohol quality vodka. After rent and beer came food. This kid couldn’t cook. Like at all. But so, good math major that he was, he went through the whole supermarket and calculated the calories per dollar of all the instant foods. He lived off of instant Easy Mac and instant rice and beans and the charity of his friends.
Until his hair started falling out. And his gums were bleeding all the time for no reason. He eventually decided to go to the doctor. The doctor recognized the problem quickly. Scurvy. An acute lack of Vitamin C. The plight of pre-modern sailors, but, you know, in the 21st century and at an elite college. It’s apparenlty a (relatively) common problem on college campuses, common enough that the doctor actually gave him a pamphlet called “So You Have Scurvy” and just told him to take a multivitamin and occasionally splurge on a fucking grapefruit for chrissike.
In sum, don’t try to live the absolutely most efficient calorie per dollar foods, especially if you can’t cook, especially if you sort of look like a 19th century waif to begin with. And if you do, for God’s sake buy a bag of oranges so you don’t end up falling ill to some antiquated disease.
![image showing Trader Joe's Food Analysis. Calorie and Protein Cost Efficiency [OC]](75372de6-7ddd-5ef2-8abd-fdb00b27530d.jpg)
QuadrumanousCuddler on February 6th, 2018 at 23:46 UTC »
Here I was thinking "rice jasmine brownie?! That's a monster of a protein bar, I'm going to get a whole case!"
Melkovar on February 7th, 2018 at 00:40 UTC »
Hm. I don't shop at Trader Joes, but this might explain why 50% of my diet is rice, pasta, or peanut butter (the other 50% is veggies and alcohol)
yodatsracist on February 7th, 2018 at 01:30 UTC »
A kid in my dorm in college did this same thing. His parents moved right after his senior year of high school so, after our first year, he decided it wasn’t worth going to the state had moved to for the summer, he’d just stay on campus. Only, he made this decision last minute and wasn’t able to line up a summer job. No problem, he thought, there’s always plenty of paid studies.
And he made it work, barely. The whole summer funded just by filing out psych studies (note: this is a reason to be skeptical of small N, non-representative psych studies, especially if their subjects are all college students, it doesn’t matter if it got written up in the Independent). His biggest cost was rent, and after that beer. He was a math major and had calculated the price per unit of alcohol (including the cost of mixers where applicable) and it's hard to beat the price of $10.99 for a thirty rack of local Midwestern beers, even with rubbing alcohol quality vodka. After rent and beer came food. This kid couldn’t cook. Like at all. But so, good math major that he was, he went through the whole supermarket and calculated the calories per dollar of all the instant foods. He lived off of instant Easy Mac and instant rice and beans and the charity of his friends.
Until his hair started falling out. And his gums were bleeding all the time for no reason. He eventually decided to go to the doctor. The doctor recognized the problem quickly. Scurvy. An acute lack of Vitamin C. The plight of pre-modern sailors, but, you know, in the 21st century and at an elite college. It’s apparenlty a (relatively) common problem on college campuses, common enough that the doctor actually gave him a pamphlet called “So You Have Scurvy” and just told him to take a multivitamin and occasionally splurge on a fucking grapefruit for chrissike.
In sum, don’t try to live the absolutely most efficient calorie per dollar foods, especially if you can’t cook, especially if you sort of look like a 19th century waif to begin with. And if you do, for God’s sake buy a bag of oranges so you don’t end up falling ill to some antiquated disease.