Is it actually possible to eat healthily on 50 euros a week?

Wanderer2010

There is so much information out there on what is good for our bodies and what foods we should and shouldn't eat but taking a single male adult who has a budget of 50 a week for food can all your nutritional requirements be met? There is so much advice on supplements, fancy and healthy foods which are expensive and sometimes hard to get. I have no problem with Aldi or Lidl, in fact thats where I purchase most of my foods.

Is 50euros a week enough to stay healthy and still slip in the odd treat?

stimpson

I've a wife and two kids. No way I spend €200 a week on food.

The Backwards Man

I'd imagine so.

I grow a fair whack of my own food, and it's questionable whether I'm the epitome of healthy eating apart from avoiding processed food as much as possible, but I wouldn't spend more than €35-€40 on grub per week, that's steak a couple of times a week and all.

RDM_83 again

In before a poster says they feed 2 people a week for 30 and then gives a detailed breakdown, the only problem being is it works out at about 1000 calories per day and no protein.

50 Euro for one person is well possible though, I'd say lowest for healthy would be about 35 ish and thats with effort.

Gordy6040

Have you been to aldi? They are pretty good for fruit and veg.

mengele

milk for the protein anyway

Sir Osis of Liver.

Aldi are doing a 6 pack of Rancheros for 2 euro at the moment.
Buy 25 packs of them,be grand.
Full of bacony goodness.

DiegoCosta

Yes, liver is one of the most nutrient dense foods you can eat, it costs about 80 cent to feed one person a generous portion.

Reebrock

Nuts, water, milk and veg. yes.

I got a load of meat on one of those family deals in a butcher for 20 quid which I think would do me for a week. Then throw in a load of veg and maybe some rice, bread, I don't know, whatever you want.
Close enough?

dmc17

DiegoCosta wrote: »

Yes, liver is one of the most nutrient dense foods you can eat, it costs about 80 cent to feed one person a generous portion.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to eat it too often though.

If it's a person on their own 50 quid is easily enough for food for a week.

4 litres of milk can be got for under €3.
4 chicken fillets €5
Stock up on Aldi meat offers, say €10
Few tins of kidney beans/chickpeas €3
Spend a fiver between Aldi and Lidl's weekly specials for fruit/veg. €5
Spend another fiver on fruit and veg. €5
Dozen eggs for €2.
Few spices/herbs work out at a euro a week or less. €1

There's €34 at fairly high prices for some items. :P Add in rice/pasta if you're into them, or some spuds, still under €40. Spend the rest on nice cheese, cured meats and the like.

Bam, healthy eating for €50 quid a week.

Dyr

It you go to aldi or lidl for fruit and veg and some of their processed foods you'd get a weeks of grub for about 50 squid.

Bear in mind the cost of energy for cooking though

Laois6556

You could do that easy. All you have to do is buy really healthy stuff for one week. Then for all the weeks after that just eat your own sh1t. It'll be full of healthy nutrients.

DiegoCosta

dmc17 wrote: »

I'm not sure it's a good idea to eat it too often though.

Once or twice a week is optimal. Then you have tinned sardines and mackerel, eggs, cheap beef. All relatively cheap and nutrient dense.

Talib Fiasco

Frozen veggies and fruit from lidl. Canned tuna and salmon. Whole chicken. Box of rice. Big bucket of yoghurt. Box of oats. That'd all fall under twenty euro easily.

GrumpyMe

Chef Paul Flynn has a 7 x Family Meal for €50, piece on Lidl.ie.

So a loner should be well able to exist on €50 for a week. Might be boring or repetative to follow his recipes blindly but possible yes!

One eyed Jack

DiegoCosta wrote: »

Yes, liver is one of the most nutrient dense foods you can eat, it costs about 80 cent to feed one person a generous portion.

It also tastes delicious warm or cold so there's your tasty snack right there, when you're not eating raw black pudding and cooker apples...

OP if you hadn't said 'eat healthy' on €50 a week, I would have been able to tell you how to survive on a lot less, I'm talking €5 a week, but it would mean employing some rather dubious means such as retrieving your meals from some very unsanitary places, and being up early enough in the morning to grab a few cartons of milk and a newspaper.

Can a single male live healthily on €50 a week? Absolutely.

Sweet Rose

Without a shadow of a doubt. Just become a more savvy shopper, look for the best deals, buy things in bulk when they're on special offer, buy lots if Tupperware and freeze meals.

Since I've had my daughter, I've become much more economical. She isn't eating full sized meals yet so when I cook, I usually make a big dinner that will last 2 days. I'd also have enough to freeze maybe 2 portions too. I load my meals with fresh vegetables so make sure I get nutrients and to make meals more filling. I try to cook meals for under €10 so things like chilli con carne, beef casserole, chicken curry, risotto, stews etc.

I think the trick to shopping is going with a meal plan for the week ahead in mind or a list in your hand. Planning ahead is key. Don't go shopping unprepared as you'll just buy a lot of nothing.

Last_Minute

Local farms are great places to pick up free vegetables. Just go in the dead of night and take what you want (Don't let the farmer see you though).

biko

Yes, I'm not going to make your shopping list for you but it's possible.
Focus on veg, fish and fruit and you should be able to do it.
Go to fish mongers and butchers rather than supermarkets.
Get food as close to raw as possible, no processed stuff, and clean and cook it yourself.

Tokyo

Definitely can. Plenty of fruit and veg places around the country that you can walk away from with a box of veg for under €10, as long as you are happy with it still caked in the dirt that it grew in, rather than waxed and polished and in a shiny plastic bag from the supermarket. Shop around for cheap cuts of meat, slowly build up a collection of stock, herbs and spices and yeah, you can eat healthily for under €50/week.

Throw into the mix a bit of self sufficiency, grow some veg, bake your own bread now and again, learn a few decent recipes, and you can eat VERY well for that money.

Micky Dolenz

Buy a lamb, fatten them up. Then slaughter them for the freezer. It is a bit of an investment but it will save you in the long run.

You'll have a deep freeze full of meat for the winter and a cuddly pet for a month or so.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Quality beef from the butcher, fresh fruit and veg from the greengrocer, everything else from Dunne's and the two of us eat a heathy balanced diet for 80 per week - including non food items in Dunnes . A single person willing to cook meals from scratch can certainly do so for 50 per week.

The Backwards Man

Last_Minute wrote: »

Local farms are great places to pick up free vegetables. Just go in the dead of night and take what you want (Don't let the farmer see you though).

They can also be a crucial source of essential trace elements . . .such as zinc, copper and iron, and not forgetting lead . . up your hole if you're caught.

biko

Learn one pot cooking. Root veg, meat and rice.

anncoates

Of course it is.

Roquentin

i could survive on 50 euro for three weeks

ceadaoin.

If you have a well stocked cupboard then it is possible. You'd have to spend more than €50 though first to get it stocked but buy stuff like tinned tomatoes, tomato purée,chickpeas,kidney beans, stock cubes, dried herbs and spices,curry paste, coconut milk, pasta and rice in bulk. Then buy the fresh veg and meat weekly and you have the basis for loads of meals without having to buy all the ingredients at once.

Remmy

dunno tbh a 50 euro note is an awfully small surface area. You are also dealing with the hygiene levels of the note being handled by so many people etc

Neyite

I've a slow cooker on at the moment. Beef was under a fiver, carrots mushrooms and onions, under €3, soy sauce €1, tin of kidney beans from the back of the cupboard, garlic and ginger left over from a curry recipe. There's about 6-8 portions in it, freezable so don't have to eat the same thing every day. Its under 1.50 per portion including rice.

Spaghetti is another one you can do in bulk and save. I got 10 portions spaghetti sauce and 8 portions of lasange and the lot worked out at 1.20 each.

But you need to buy to bulk-cook and you'd really need freezer space. Each week I try to cook a different bulk meal so I keep a stash built up in the freezer of various stews, curries, spaghetti, lasange, jambalaya, and a few others to vary it day to day.

Porridge for breakfast will fill you more than cereal.

Lia_lia

I don't know why one person would need to spend more than €50 per week.

If I didn't get most of my food for feck all at work, I'd spend about €30 per week I'd say. At the very most. I am vegetarian though!

Mrs Garth Brooks

I can manage ok on about €30 a week, buying porridge, eggs, tuna, beans, I steam my dinner which is great, cheap frozen veg and meat. Its doable when shopping in aldi.

One good thing living cheaply, you learn to make your own food. Those pre packed, microwavable dinners are a rip off. I also love making soup from scratch.

This thread is making me hungry.

RDM_83 again

Lia_lia wrote: »

I don't know why one person would need to spend more than €50 per week.

If I didn't get most of my food for feck all at work, I'd spend about €30 per week I'd say. At the very most. I am vegetarian though!

There is a fairly big difference between how much you actually have to spend depending on Gender and activity level, at the minute I would be happy enough at if I am getting 3000 calories a day (I could probably cut it but my BMI is 21.5 at the minute so I am not too worried), herself if she'd dieting will be on 1500 cal, thats literally half the food I'l be going through each day.
That said I agree that 50 is more than "needs" to be spent.

My money saving method is to buy whole chickens rather than chicken breasts, its far cheaper, you can debreast it and stick those in the freezer (you will normally get an equivalent weight of breast from a chicken as you would buying them seperate), the rest of the chicken can be roasted for sandwich or stir fry meat, the bones used for soup using something like red lentils.

Chunners

I can feed 2 people very healthy for less, get all your fruit and veg on moore street on Friday afternoon, they don't want anything laying over the weekend in whatever shed they store their cart in so after 2pm start selling things off in bulk for €1, you could get like 8 apples, 8 oranges, 8 tomatoes, 8 onions, 5 or 6 peppers, bunch of bananas, bag of spuds, a cabbage (or caulliflower or sprouts), head of lettuce, lb of mushrooms all for €10, 10 chicken breasts €10 which I use to make salads to store for snacking on, my butchers does 5 massive chicken thighs for €3.50 that can be roasted then used for curry, stir fry, chicken soup. Round steak is pretty much dirt cheap too or even better ask your butcher for brisket, it's the cheek muscles of a cow and looks and tastes exactly like steak it's just a bit tougher and a lot leaner so you have to cook it slower to make it tender but it is so cheap they practically give it away (it surprises me more Irish people don't use it or even know of it), 2lb of mince is like €4 and you can make anything with that really, 6 pepper steaks €5 and thats meat and veg for 2 people for a week for under €25, the other €25 would easily cover the basics (milk, bread, tuna, eggs, cheese, butter etc) and still leave enough left over for treats, I'd even have enough left for cat food for my 2 cats too. Honestly if you are spending more than €50 euro a week for 2 people let alone 1 person then you are doing it wrong lol

Clockwork Owl

RDM_83 again wrote: »

My money saving method is to buy whole chickens rather than chicken breasts, its far cheaper

Good tip, although I'd usually roast the chicken whole for a couple of hours. One Aldi 1.9kg chicken gets the fella and I two generous meals each, and he'll get a chicken sandwich or two from the leftovers. Meals could be several different curries (onion, garlic, ginger, a couple of spices), several different pies, jambalaya or chicken with different flavourings, like garlic breadcrumbs or honey mustard.

Add to that maybe a meal with stewing beef - a curry, a pie or a casserole - or minced lamb for kofta, or minced beef for lasagne, or a slab of bacon offcuts for seriously cheap spaghetti carbonara or pasta in a homemade tomato sauce. Bit of money for potatoes, carrots, kidney beans, some salad, cereal, milk and extras. That's our usual weekly menu, and we'd spend about €70 a week for the two of us.

PizzamanIRL

No. Think of all those germs on that €50.

Seriously though, for one person, it is very achievable to eat healthily on that.

Chunners

Seriously OP if you don't know how to already then learn to cook, it would be the best thing you could ever do for yourself. People who spend a fortune on food usually haven't got a clue how to cook so go for the convenient option like take away's or pre cooked meals which, even if they say "healthy" on the packet, are usually loaded with sugar and salt because they would taste like cardboard without it. Spaghetti bolognese is surprisingly easy to cook as is a chicken stir fry or a curry. You don't have to be Gordon Ramsey or anything but there are lots of simple meals out there that take little or no effort to make and would be a lot healthier (and tastier) than any pre cooked version you'd find in a supermarket freezer with the added bonus that it will save you a fortune

Bubbaclaus

I don't think I've ever spent €50 in a week on food (except when on holidays when you'd be eating out).

Mint Aero

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Is 50euros a week enough to stay healthy and still slip in the odd treat?

If you're looking for a delicious & healthy cost effective treat, I found this thread from a very sexy poster with a big penis. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=92763203

DoYouEvenLift

mengele wrote: »

milk for the protein anyway

You'd want to be drinking quite a lot of milk to get enough protein from it each day.

Vandango

Eating well/healthy on €50 a week is easily achievable.

corkgsxr

For 45 Euro tonight I made

6 portions of cottage pie
4 of lasagne
6 of pasta bake. (2 prawn 4 ham)

And 4 litres of chicken and veg thick soup.

bismuth

For two of us it's <300/month and the only thing we do to save on food, I think, is price comparison (when we moved to Ireland I've done some research ) and going to Aldi/Lidl to get most of the stuff. We could cut it down quite a bit while still keeping it healty if we had to, hell, we could cut it if we just stopped buying biscuits and icecreams and...

challengemaster

I think people focus far too much on fruit intake, buy loads then that always ends up being chucked in the bin anyway. Most fruit is loaded with (natural) sugars, you'd be better off drinking a bottle of coke.

And actually the potted herb plants are €1.49 each

ShadowHearth

50eu is very easy to live with for a week. If you are living alone, you could push chemicals in that bill too.
I spend about 30eu on food per week right now, but I do get a benefit of having a dinner at work depending on shift. One of the perks of being chef.

--LOS--

yep easy peasy, not eating meat saves me a lot of money though. Tins of chickpeas/kidney beans/mixed beans are for nothing in lidl/aldi. It's really not hard to get cheap fruit and veg. Packets of lentils/quinoa/rice etc all fairly inexpensive in any supermarket.

ted1

RDM_83 again wrote: »

In before a poster says they feed 2 people a week for 30 and then gives a detailed breakdown, the only problem being is it works out at about 1000 calories per day and no protein.

50 Euro for one person is well possible though, I'd say lowest for healthy would be about 35 ish and thats with effort.

You can buy a whole chicken for 5 euro. Butchers wil do good deals for 20 euros andVeg isn't to much more, so it's very doable

catallus

5 loaves of white bread, butter, marmalade. 14 litres of milk.

All sorted.

Chunners

ted1 wrote: »

You can buy a whole chicken for 5 euro. Butchers wil do good deals for 20 euros andVeg isn't to much more, so it's very doable

Actually there is a butchers on the junction between North Circular Road and Phibsboro road that does a special of 3 chicken breasts, 3 pork chops, 3 peppered steaks and 1lb mince for €10, thats meat for a week for a single person

Iwasfrozen

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

There is so much information out there on what is good for our bodies and what foods we should and shouldn't eat but taking a single male adult who has a budget of 50 a week for food can all your nutritional requirements be met? There is so much advice on supplements, fancy and healthy foods which are expensive and sometimes hard to get. I have no problem with Aldi or Lidl, in fact thats where I purchase most of my foods.

Is 50euros a week enough to stay healthy and still slip in the odd treat?

Probably not healthy but I used to live on 20 euro a week so 50 is definitely do-able.