what to eat when you're really poor? lol

You can lose weight while eating fast food if you want it's all about the calories you're consuming and to lose weight you need a deficit, so start tracking the food you eat, and see if you notice any changes it could take a few weeeks. However, if you do want to change your eating plan eggs are normally kinda cheap (cheap is a relative word though), and my favorite place to shop is at Aldi if you have one nearby they have stuff at great prices, if not consider looking at other shops.

fitoverfortymom wrote: »

dry beans and lentils. frozen and canned veggies. becoming a savvy shopper helps.

ditto on the dried beans, lentils, and frozen/canned vegetables. Also (at least if you are in the northeastern US) some apples for snack/dessert ('tis the season when they are dirt cheap). If you need to cook for minimal time and money, things like soup/stew/chili are your friend (basically throw a bunch of generally cheap stuff in slow cooker/instapot and leave for a bit - and you can live on the resulting 5kg of food substance for almost a week). Depending on your local stores, you may find lean ground poultry and/or lean ham quarters for the $2.50ish/lb range (which will work well in soups, chili to supply some protein). If needed, calories per serving can be upped by adding cheap starch courses (rice, rolls, potatoes). And hard-boiled eggs (you can add some honey dijon mustard or some other sauce to make them tastier) & cottage cheese & greek yogurt make for good snacks with a decent amount of protein (not dirt cheap, but not expensive and is cheaper than fast food). Eggs are pretty cheap, you can get more protein for your calories by tossing out the yolks in some of them (whole eggs have close to 50/50 protein-fat, so not particularly efficient if attempting to use as a cheap primary protein source, but cheap enough to not mind using a few extra and tossing the yolks out).

Rice 'n' beans are the stereotypes for a reason, y'know That and ramen. And dumpster diving, though I wouldn't recommend that one unless you're truly starving.

Eggs are always a good option! And yes, I second all the canned veggies, dry beans, dry rice & pasta comments.

If you have a dollar tree near you,go in and check them out. Ours always has different things, I even found a big bag of flax seed in there once.

We have a Save-A-Lot which is kinda like Aldi? They sell older produce for ridiculously cheap, never had issues with it. Another one in the next town over sells meat packages for like $25. That lasts me and my husband 3 to 4 weeks and this includes breakfast and dinner stuff. Grocery stores will sometimes mark down soon to expire meats, buy it and freeze it. You can get some really cheap frozen veggies, canned veggies. I eat a lot of canned soup (not sodium friendly) and it is pretty cheap. Tuna is cheap and you can do a lot with that. Flavored pouches are my thing. I stock up on eggs too. Check clearance sections in the stores

Gracie12311 wrote: »

Do you cook? If so, you can always, always find meat on sale at your local grocery store. Just ask for the day they mark their meat down. I could never exist on beans, pasta and rice. Or ramen noodles. I don’t find them filling at all and I don’t especially like any of them! I can get a pound of chicken for $2 on sale at my local Food Lion. Ditto at my local Aldi. You can buy super cheap hamburger meat as well. Our Aldo buns are $1.00 and their packs of tortillas here are $0.64 each. So hamburgers and tacos. A pack of chicken wings or chicken thighs is never more than $3 at either grocery store.

Fast food is cheap as well - plain hamburgers, salads, and tacos (at Taco Bell).

Back to Food Lion and Aldi - produce is super cheap as well. $0.89 for a pack of mushrooms and $1.99 for a 3 lb. bag of russet potatoes. Frozen vegetables are very inexpensive as well. Your (cheaper) grocery stores might vary in price but they’ll be close.

Eating cheap (when needed) is easy. Once you buy inexpensive meat, produce, and fruit, you can build your meals.

This right here. My family never had fresh vegetables growing up or real food. It was always prepackaged and not great. Moving in with my now husband he couldn't believe what I called a meal. Going grocery shopping with him I was able to buy healthier options for the same amount or less. Now that I have found Aldi's and learned the sales on different food rotation I am even better. Kroger in our neighborhood. Week 1 - dairy, Week 2 - Meats, Week 3 frozen, Week 4- canned.

Get a coleman soft side lunch box cooler and one of those refeezable blocks. Take your food with you. My 99 cent store sells bread for a dollar and cans of tuna 2 for a dollar. One can tuna will make 2 sandwiches. They also sell rubber made take alongs 2 for $1 perfect for home made meals and sandwiches. Ramen is not a good choice IMO.

From my email inbox this morning from MFP... http://blog.myfitnesspal.com/13-ways-lose-weight-dollar/
It's actually a pretty good list of a lot of the main cheap staple foods a lot of us buy to fill specific macros.

If you can afford it, one of the newfangled electric pressure cookers (they also substitute in for a slow cooker and a rice cooker) is a great investment for being able to cook with minimal time and money. You can even brown meat right in them before adding other ingredients for chili/stews/etc. And they make short easy work of rehydrating and cooking dried beans (no more having to pre-soak them in advance or pay more for the canned ones). And it can cook up a 40-48oz bag of frozen chicken in almost no time at all.

I second the lunch box (any one you can afford will probably do).

I also eat yogurt just about every day, and your basic Chobani or Dannon greek yogurts are typically around $1 per. It's a nice filling protein boost IMO.

There should be a sticky on best tips for eating healthy on a tight budget. Multiple posters MFP have asked about this; financial barriers to getting healthy are real, and doctors rarely provide resources.

One big trick I learned on a particularly harsh boat of unemployment:

Ground beef, mixed 1/4-1/2 with ground black beans is a pretty good stand-in for plain ground beef, especially for tacos and cassaroles and meatballs. Adds fiber too.

Banitos is an inexpensive, tasty corn tortilla (2 for $3 at Walmart) that is a great lower carb choice, good for above-mentioned tacos, too.

I second the Aldi recommendation, if you have one in your area. If not, stay away from the big chains, unless you go armed with their weekly special flyer. Plan for leftovers; cook and make enough to get two meals from one dish. You can supplement the dish with salads and/or bread or soup. Good luck!!