I would also be looking at the energy cost of cooking dried beans everyone recommends because they are cheap. A decent refrigerator is incredibly efficient thanks to operating on a heat pump, but cooking is certainly not energy efficient, and many cheap dried beans require hours to properly cook. I wouldn't be surprised if the cooking of cheap beans ended up costing more than the beans themself.
It's kinda hearing this when the most impoverished people in other parts of the world just make a fire. Yet the only socially acceptable place for me to harvest wood + make a fire where I live in Texas is to drive out into the woods. I can't even walk there from where I am.
In the US, it's hard to be on such a budget that the energy cost of refrigeration is a major factor in food costs unless you have a really old fridge. A modern fridge probably costs less than $5 a month to operate. There are places with cheaper food and more expensive electricity though.
If your budget is $2.50 per day for food then you are probably looking for much cheaper options for a refrigerator. I understand it's possible to buy small chest freezers and convert them to run at fridge temperatures and they're very efficient that way.
Of course, if you were trying to save money, you would get a chest-style fridge where all of the cold air doesn't fall out every time you open the door.
I saw an interview with a poor Brit a year or two ago, who had an electricity meter which took coins. He said the main reason to eat microwave meals is the energy cost: a few minutes of microwave is far cheaper than half an hour of cooking plate or an hour of oven.
I didn't realize microwaves were so energy efficient. I wonder how rice cookers compare bc on a budget, that'd be my cooking implement since they also require no supervision.
A microwave meal is prepared, it just needs to be warmed up.
Cooking usually requires one to transform matter somehow, which takes longer or requires a few steps. Plus, as said, much energy is lost one the stove or oven. E.g. boiling a pot of rice (most energy lost on evaporating water) on gas (more than half of all energy shoots out from under the pot directly into the extractor) is, apart from not just heating the rice but also speeding up the absorption of water, wasting a lot.
I actually make it a low key sport to use my stovetop efficiently (switching to induction is one!).
in the winter, the heat from a stove is valuable to help heat your house and boiling water works to humidify... in the summer or in a warm climate- not so valuable
Heating a house through a stove is also inefficient. In terms of heat generation (no heat recapture from the water generated in combustion, let alone the increased effiency when heating with heat pumps) and in terms of distribution (single point emissions, instead of radiators in every (corner of the) room.
It's more efficient to not generate and emit that heat at all but use the energy in your regular home heating system.
> Refrigeration can be costly if you are on a budget, and can be a non marginal factor in the total expenditures.
> Other ways to save are:
> - buy large bags of rice, flour, lentils, which last for a long time.
If you’re living in a place where the general weather is quite cold, you may be able to manage this. But in all other places, buying large bags of rice, flour and lentils is a recipe for infestation by insects (rice would have rice weevil eggs in it).
Buy large enough bags that you’re sure you can consume within a month, and you may probably be able to avoid infestation. The other option would be to get foods that are heavily sprayed with insecticides, which is likely to be bad for one’s health.
Grain pests (worms, moths, etc.) are often in the packaged goods at the store, and once introduced to your home are all but impossible to exterminate.
Airtight jars will only contain the pests within a single jar, not avoid them entirely.
If you're buying grain in large quantities, you can freeze it (in batches if necessary) for a day or so, after which you can keep it in those airtight jars. Large-scale de-pesting can be done with dry ice (floods the container with CO2 gas, asphixiating pests.
US-domestic / EU-domestic goods are generally fairly reliably moth-free. I've had issues with imported products from elsewhere.
On the flip side, they are absolute flavour bombs, and often on a budget you are short on flavour-enhancing ingredients.
Forage them (safely!) in the fall, dry them out (I stick them on a wire rack over a radiator for a few days), then into an airtight jar. Toss a few into soups/sauces the rest of the year.
I'm assuming the mushrooms are for micronutrients not calories. A couple of cremini (just the mushroom I buy most and speak to) have all your copper needs for the day
It's not something I've ever seen, but I certainly believe it given their incredible noses. And of course pigs are often used for truffle hunting. If you are gathering mushrooms to eat, it's not too hard to learn which are toxic anyway.
Once you know where patches are (at least for mycorrhizal fungi which are some of the best) it is easy to go back and get them each year. But, it still takes time to find all the locations and there is competition from other foragers, humans as well as other animals.
> And of course pigs are often used for truffle hunting.
Actually this is a bit of a myth. Pigs aren't very good truffle hunters. Dogs are used to find truffles. I suspect this is what the GP was thinking of.
Refrigeration can be costly if you are on a budget, and can be a non marginal factor in the total expenditures.
Other ways to save are:
- buy large bags of rice, flour, lentils, which last for a long time.
- forage mushrooms (they're online communities for this), or grow.
- grow vegetables and fruit. Lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries are easy to grow.
- hunt or buy an animal, get it butchered and store it in a freezer.
- farm animals.