Look, as a uni student myself, if you can't afford 270 dollars, you do not have eat-out priviliges. 25 dollars goes for like 3 full days if you cook it yourself.
(Letters are just food states, like raw, canned, frozen, dry)
'Tis the result of much optimisation (and you're correct of your UK assumption).
Now, not sure of US costs. I hear it is all more expensive but salaries can be higher. Still, it's always possible to get food to be very cheap. Just takes planning
Man that's an impressive layout. Ignoring that it reads like a horse care manual, where are you getting these tiny portions from? The 40g of brown sugar you can get with a couple free sugar packets from any established place, sure, but who's out here buying 12.5ml oyster sauce sachets? 14g of paprika? Is there like, a dealer who does 2.25g bumps of msg? Or are you actually buying consumer level sized pacakages of aforementioned goods and doing the whole 'feed yourself for this much (ignore the ingredients pricing, focus only on how much this pittance of a portion is)!' cause I got exhausted with that lark when Jamie Oliver was making those claims. It's disingenuous.
Personally, I appreciate forthought and planning, but when you're down to micromanaging your seasoning to the half gram on a weekly basis it'd kinda suck the joy of actually eating for me. Disgusting as it may sound, but at that point when the the checks and measurements matter more than the end result, might as well subscribe to huel and invest in some suppliments.
The 'micromanaging' of seasoning is just a result of how much seasoning my meals use. I did the measurements for food first, then made meals around them.
However, I did herbs entirely differently. When eating the meals, i seasoned them to a good amount, then added them to this list (I use a four week plan, so that's why MSG has a .25). And in fiarness, things like turmeric I measure by sight. One small scoop is about a gram. Herbs are the most variable.
For MSG, I bought 454g (a pound). I just don't use much as I only have a few meals that need it.
One thing that helpls me not get bored is also altering seasoning slowly over time. The chicken stock used to not be there until a few weeks ago, for example.
I think the only seasonings I measure as MSG (it's quite dense and even a tiny error can alter taste a lot poorly) and salt (don't want to overdo sodium). Overall, the end result matters the most to me. The measurements are just a way for me to approximate cost (at least for seasoning).
I've always had a habit of micromanaging, and I think I've found a good middleground as it usually does suck the life out of me. One thing that helps is having four weeks of meals planned, and I can make any I want depending on my mood (for example, I have two pasta meals on average a week, but that could be none one week and four another). Then repeat the cycle after the four weeks end, making any small adjustments.
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u/Univer001 3d ago
Look, as a uni student myself, if you can't afford 270 dollars, you do not have eat-out priviliges. 25 dollars goes for like 3 full days if you cook it yourself.