Ask Lemmy

Peanut butter

Fry potatoes, boil potatoes, bake potatoes... They will taste very differently. Use seasoning. Don't be shy on salt/pepper/whatever your culture uses. Eggs can be very different too besides fried or boiled: soak bread with egg and fry it. Very tasty. Add some flour or whatever you have in the fridge to make an omelette. Not a fan of cheese, but I am sure there are many ways to use it too.

Source: I had to manage on 30$ a month and still managed to build muscles.

Lentils and rice. They are both dirt cheap. They complement each other as they have a different type of protein. If you throw some carrots in there you have a more tasty meal. Add some salt for taste.

Oil is more expensive, but a must. Oil is 9 kcal per gram, carbohydrates and protein is only 4 kcal per gram. So even if oil is twice as expensive per gram it is still cheaper. It also makes you full for longer.

Ideally if you want to actually have a healthy and good tasting meal. Then add some dry boullion and some frozen vegetables. Potatoes is also an option. It is still dirt cheap, but slightly more expensive.

Potatoes are actually super filling per calorie, one of the first and best foods I recommend for weight loss. The potatoes/eggs/cheese combo is especially filling, basically you’ve dialed into a budget conscious survival meal.

But you need to gain weight without spending much more money. What do you have to cook with? Knife cutting board pots pans stove?

First great option is soup. Pre fry aromatics directly in the pot (carrots, celery, onion, whatever you can get). Be HEAVY with oil, I recommend light olive oil. Heavier than you probably think with salt too. Then add mass (potatoes) and water. Dried lentils and split peas don’t need to be soaked overnight, just add them in and let them simmer for the last half hour. Tons of cheap calories and seasoning. Season with anything you have.

Then get into white rice. There’s a cost barrier here but if you can save up enough for a large 20lb bags the cost per meal is extraordinarily low. Tons of calories and doesn’t really fill you. Have it with the soup or as a bed under other veggies. Overdoing it with the rice can cause some health issues relating to blood sugar but it’s an extremely easy and cheap way to add 2-400 calories to a couple meals a day.

Check clearance for oily sauces. This is basically the reverse advice compared to weight loss - a lot of innocuously small jars can easily contain over 2,000 calories. If you can get them at 25% cost that’s a ton of weight gain potential and will help give you flavor variety and make your meals more calorific.

Just a few thoughts. Wish I could help, I know this situation sucks

Are you eating these unseasoned straight out of the water they boiled in or was this taken during the process of cooking? Because I'd suggest some spices. Can make potatoes & eggs taste a lot of different ways with a few spices.

Egg or potato salad is decent & cheap if you can get your hands on some extra ingredients. Egg Salad Sandwich used to be one of my go-tos and you can literally make it with just egg and mayo/mustard if you wanted to (but I'd recommend adding spices & pickle)

Would add beans to your list of things to eat since they're also pretty cheap, filling, and would help you out with protein, which from your post, it sounds like you may be lacking.

Have you tried eating more butter with your bread and potatoes?

cheese and joghurt is a good source of protein. try to eat a lot of protein and do muscle work out to not only gain fat mass but lean mass aswell. because if youre ana it might be that your body already "consumed" a lot of your muscle mass to retain enegery.

One of the pillars of Spanish cuisine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_omelette

https://www.themediterraneandish.com/spanish-tortilla-recipe/

For calorie dense you can't do better than fat. Oil might be 'expensive' but it is one of the cheapest things to buy on a per calorie basis and you only need a teaspoon to fry an egg or make mashed potatoes taste half-decent. You would be surprised how much better potatoes and eggs can be with a little fresh chill pepper or coriander if you can find it. The better it tastes the easier it is to eat. One more tip... Canned condensed milk. It's cheap, calorie dense and delicious. A spoon a day will last weeks. Delicious in tea and coffee. Good luck!

Add more sugar to everything for cheap calories that will generally trigger more hunger. Also liquids are a good way to add calories without triggering fullness as much.

Have you heard of ARFID? A close family member, as well as my close friend's autistic child have this disorder. Low appetite and the visceral reactions to various food items are common with this disorder

Hi, I recommend beans (soak them overnight) and rice. Also, I would look into buying oats. They are a very good source of calories and are healthy for you. Put them in a blender and soak in water for 15 minutes, add sugar and blend. This can be a supplemental meal in itself.

The biggest thing you can do is to make the food you eat more enjoyable and eat more of it. I would have no appetite and starve if i had to eat your diet. The good news is that it's possible to eat a lot better, but still very cheaply. Also you really need to eat two or preferably three or even four meals daily if you want to gain weight.

I would remove eggs and cheese as they aren't a good value. Add black beans, chickpeas, and lentils, which are good over rice (very cheap, especially if you buy them dry in bulk). Pasta too. Add spices, cheap hot sauce, tomato sauce, etc and it becomes a good meal. Try oatmeal for breakfast too. I would also make sure that you are getting as many fruits and vegetables as possible (apples, bananas, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, etc. not too expensive but will complete the meals and provide good nutrition). Also consider pan frying the potatoes - it's tastier than boiling.

How about bananas? If you can get yourself to eat a banana some time during the day separate from your main meal, that's all bonus. Plus it's got lots of vitamins you definitely need.

Corn and corn meal are also cheap and high energy. Grits are a poor person food staple in parts of the world for a reason.

Onions aren't the highest energy density veggie, but they are cheap and make other food taste MUCH better. Green onions in particular are one of my favorites. The best part is you can take the green onions and put them in a glass on your window sill with an inch of water. Trim the tops and cook with them. They will keep growing back for quite a while, so very cost effective. Just make sure you change the water every couple days so they don't get slimy.

Can you drink milk?

Gallon of Milk a Day Diet

Use more oil, butter and sugar.

Potatoes are not ideal when trying to gain weight, is pasta / noodles so much more expensive? If so, buy flour and mix it with 1 egg per 100g and add some water or milk. Cook chunks of it in salted water.

Try to get your hands on the cheapest nuts you can find and eat as much as you can.

You can make some Tortilla Española very delicious. There are other variations that are simpler. Just look up tortilla for recipes. You can add onions in there too.

You can add some suggars to your diet too.

Alternatives:

Bread and cheese sandwich. Bread and jelly sandwich. Tortilla with some chicken in there. Chicken omlette.

Cook eggs in all kinds of ways possible, like omette, plat, poached, japanese style, souflé ... Mashed potatoes, cooked potatoes. Fried potates, roasted potatoes; roasted potatoes with chess filling. Roasted potatoes with egg and cheese filling.

You could of course add other vegetables like tomates and onions. A moroccan salad could help you change a bit. This salad could be reduced to only two ingredients.

As much as you really can gain weigt with potatoes and bread, you need to add some proteins. Like lentils, very cheap, or just a little bit of chicken to spice it up.

One important thing is to eat more than once a day. If you really need to gain weight fast, eat at least 3 times a day. Bread and scrambeled eggs in the morning. Torrtilla for lunch, and some other kind for dinner. and a cheese sandwich for 18:00.

The only thing you're really missing is some pulses/beans/legumes, and some more veg.

Buy yourself some more grains (jumbo oats go well as a porridge, they go well in soups, and you can use them to make flapjack (250g oat, 125 butter, 125 sugar, 3 table spoon of golden syrup, mix flatten in a tray bake at 200c for 15-30 mins, or in a covered pan on the hob), energy dense and can have other stuff added (dried fruit, ginger, choc chips, etc))

You could also add pasta and rice as two other carbs that effectively cost next to nothing, lentils and beans can give you the protein that you need, alongside the eggs

And buy an A-Z multivitamin+mineral if you don't have them already, if you're malnourished you won't be feeling great to begin with.

Keep tins of tomatoes and beans around for when you do feel adventurous

Try lentils and Dahl if beans don't agree with you

Find a local Asian/Indian supermarket and stock up on essential spices: ginger, cumin, pepper, paprika, chilli flakes. This is how the rest of the world doesn't become bored living on potatoes/rice and lentils

I am the same as you, I eat 1 meal in the evening and don't have an appetite for the rest of the day

My advice was going to be peanut butter, but someone beat me to it. Make sure it has sugar in it (almost all of it does).

Also, the expression is "hunger pangs."