QUEER ODOR ▽*

thatangryblackgrrrl:

Deaf Aspie: Challenge to Vegans:

stfuconfederates:deaf-aspie:violetbelle:deaf-aspie:violetbelle:deaf-aspie:

Make me a vegan diet plan for 2 weeks. And if I like it, I’ll actually try it.

But it’s not so simple. See, I’m poor. And by poor, I mean, your meal plan can’t cost me more than $30 for 2 weeks (and I mean not a cent more).

And I live in the northeast by the great lakes. This means that…

I would attempt to make a vegan eating plan for you, but your demands are totally impossible, even for a person who was trying to organise a food plan that involved meat and dairy. Who the fuck lives on $30 every 2 weeks but eats 2,500 calories a day? That sounds impossible. You can’t set an impossible task and then use it as an argument against veganism. Veganism IS a viable option for the absolute majority of people who don’t have impossible, ridiculous demands like these.

First of all, I don’t eat dairy (lactose intolerant). And if it’s impossible, how do I do it? How am I alive right now?

I get my calories from red meat. A lot of red meat. Cheap red meat with high fat content. That’s how I get my calories per day. Not lean beef, we’re talking 60/40 beef. That and chicken. Fry up some chicken, and it comes with a good amount of calories. Same with fried potatoes. Potatoes are surprisingly cheap, as is cheap oil. Just boil the potatoes on the stove in oil. Tada, french fries. And the vegetables in my salads that I eat? Canned. That juice adds a few more in there, as well.

And how is this impossible or ridiculous? Please….do tell me. Or better yet, prove me that it is a viable option.

And I completely forgot to mention that rice is on my list of texture problems, too. Ugh. My fault, there.

Alright, I’ve decided to attempt to meet your challenge. You have some pretty tough requirements, which I have endeavoured to meet here. This is veganism on the poverty line.

I live in Australia so I had to go online to the Wegman’s website to see what they had available. All the ingredients here listed are available at that store, and I have listed the prices.

Shopping list:

• Dry Yeast ($1.59)
• Peanut butter ($1.79)
• 1 lb roasted sunflower seeds ($2.69)
• Red lentils ($1.79)
• 10 lb bag potatoes ($4.99)
• Calcium fortified orange juice ($2.29)
• 11 oz. almonds ($4.99)
• 2 lbs bananas ($1.00)
• Avocado ($2.00)
• Salad mix ($1.29)
• Mixed vegetables ($2.00)
• Tofurky deli slices ($2.99)

*You can make bread with just 4 ingredients; dry yeast, flour, water and salt. I have assumed that you have water, flour and salt available, so I have just added yeast to the list. There are 26 servings per container of yeast, so this should be enough to enable you to make enough bread to provide you with breakfast and lunch for a fortnight.  Oh, and you  can totally make pizza bases out of these ingredients too, which means you can make pizza.

Sample daily menu:

Breakfast: 2 slices bread with 2 tbsp peanut butter + glass of calcium fortified orange juice

Snack: 1 banana + almonds

Lunch: Sandwich with avocado, salad mix and tofurky

Snack: 1 serve roasted sunflower seeds

Dinner:2 baked potatoes with red lentils or pizza with avocado, vegetables, sliced potato, tofurky..

Total cost: $29.37.

• Admittedly you will need to find $1.63 for your bus fare
• Your daily meals will be pretty repetitive
• You might need to scrounge together an extra $5 for a bit of variety at dinner

To be honest though, I think I’ve shown that if you want, you can do anything you set your mind to. I have offered you a selection of foods that have a high fat content (healthy unsaturated fats, like seeds, nuts, avocado) for your high calorie intake requirements. I have provided foods that are high in iron, protein, calcium and vitamins to keep you healthy, and I have kept it cheap. 

First, I’m sorry for the delay. My computer broke and my iPod was stolen so I had to wait to get online in a library computer.

While I’m glad you actually did this, there’s still a few problems with this.

#1, bus fare isn’t $1.63, it’s $2. This isn’t a work-around. 

I suppose I should explain. I had a job until November (and have been able to find one since). At any given week, my paycheck ran roughly $200. This means that I was getting about $400 a month. My rent is $320 a month (and I’m in the cheapest of the cheap), which gives me ~$80. My school is on the quarter system, which means every 12 weeks, I need new books. I took $10 from each check and save it towards used books; this means that I usually have about $120 for each quarter to buy new books (well, used books, but it’s usually enough). My tuition is covered entirely by scholarships, so there’s no loans this year. This means that I had, at most, $60 per month to work with. Which is where the strict $30 per 2 weeks limit comes in. It’s either buy food or buy textbooks, and since I need the grades to keep my scholarships to avoid paying out the ass for school, it’s the textbooks. Hopefully that makes sense as to why it’s so strict.

At one point, I was making slightly more a month (over last spring), so I saved up some of that money. This is what I’ve been living off of since November. Which is why the $30 per 2 weeks limit still stands. 

Fortunately, since I said “no beans”, and “no tofu” (once again, because of texture issues related to autism, which means I’m going to vomit whatever’s in my stomach the second those textures get in my mouth), so the red lentils and tofurkey can be removed from the list. This brings the total, with tax, down to $26.61. Plus the $2 for bus fare means that I can do this. 

However, look at the items.

From the description of the salad mix, I have to use it within 2 days of opening it. Which means it’s either going to last 2 meals or I’m going to need to buy more than one. This carries 20 per serving, which is 35 for the whole bag.

As per the description for sunflower seeds, the bag has 210 calories. 

Each jar of peanut butter has a calorie count of 3200 (18 oz).

Per potato, 110 calories. Generally, about 3-4 potatoes to a pound. So, at most, 40 potatoes, 4400 calories.

Per bottle of orange juice, 880 calories.

Per bottle of almonds, 1650 calories.

Per banana, 110 calories. (And average 5 per set), so 550.

Per avocado, 60 calories.

Per bag of frozen mixed veggies, 240.

Now, if you assume that you’ve brought one single serving of everything (and some magically assuming that all of them will last 2 weeks, frozen or not), this comes out to a 2-week calorie count of 11, 225. Remember, I assumed the high end of everything. Divided over 14 days, this comes out to a calorie count of 807.7857. Or, less than a third of what I need on a daily basis….on the low end. This means the bread you have me making would have to cover 1600 calories a day. 

This assumes, remember, that I’ve brought one of everything, and eaten the entire thing over 2 weeks. 

Now, I ran some numbers using linear optimization on the daily values of products you’ve given me:

Let: x_n = the number of product n brought; x_n ≥ 0

1.) min(z)=1.79x_1+2.69x_2+4.99x_3+…+2.00x_9

Such that:

2.) ∑(xi;a,…,i)≥35,000

3.) a=3,200

b = 210

…..

i=240

1.) Function is to minimize cost.

2.) Calorie count for whatever’s bought should be at least 2,500 per day.

3.) Calorie count for each object

Doing the math says that the cheapest way for me to meat 2,500 with what you’ve given me would be…to buy solely 12 jars of peanut butter and eat that. If I eliminate that as a solution and limit that to just 2 jars of peanut butter (x1 = 2), then the next cheapest solution possible is 2 jars of peanut butter and 6 bags of potatoes, with 4 things of bananas, which comes out to: (2*4.99) + (6*4.99) + (4*1) = $44, and add in the yeast, this is just under $46. Prior to taxes. Which is over $30. So, unless you’re suggesting I eat peanut butter for 2 weeks, this is impossible given what you’ve shown me.

TL;RD:

I literally cannot do this with what you’ve given me (meeting calorie requirements on this budget) for 2 weeks without resorting to eating nothing but peanut butter. Literally.

Holy shit.

And I thought I was a math god. But seriously, this shit is important and the classism among vegans (on Tumblr anyway) was already legendary but this is a fantastic resource.

holy shit this is perfect

(via rusty--shackleford)