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	warrioreowyn 2007-10-11 01:36 am UTC (link)
	I thought those argument made sense until I actually lived on my own this summer. Vegetables (carrots, celery, cucumber, peppers, onions, etc.)? Apples? Cheap. Meat and cheese? EX-PEN-SIVE. I'd bet anything lentil are cheap too. You'd have to be crazy to voluntarily live primarily off veggies, lentils, and rice meals, but it would be massively cheap. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	flightstothesea 2007-10-11 01:48 am UTC (link)
	Speaking as someone who lives on their own full-time, I can say... no. Not really. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	soupspooks 2007-10-11 02:44 am UTC (link)
	That depends entirely on where you live and what it costs to ship fresh vegetables to your area. (Reply to this)(Parent)

wrongly_amused
2007-10-11 03:16 am UTC (link)

The heavily preserved, less healthy canned stuff? Yeah. Fresh produce? Eh, not so much. A lot of the stuff can be impacted by seasonal or export changes. It costs about $3-4 to buy a bag of cut lettuce at my Giant Eagle, and that bag of lettuce has half the calorie count of that $8 worth of meat unless I buy more items to put on it. I'd think it easy to make up the difference monetarily by trying to build up the daily calorie needs in vegetables/fruits alone when you could supplement it with a protein or dairy product.

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	hallidae 2007-10-11 03:35 am UTC (link)
	Seasonal changes. I swear to God, this (and a soy allergy) is what keeps me from attempting vegan. Nearly all of my favorite fruits are sold in this area only during particular times of the year, and it's frustrating as hell, because when they are sold, they're massively expensive. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

napalmnacey
2007-10-14 05:00 pm UTC (link)

We have that problem here in Western Australia. Bananas go on random spikes in price (luckily I don't eat bananas cause, as amusing as they look, sound and feel, the taste and texture makes me balk) and just recently tomatoes were eight dollars a kilo. (That's roughly four dollars a pound, and there's currently only ten cents difference between the American and Australian dollar). The price went back down to four again, but it's prompted Mum to try to grow her own tomatoes.

Australia is having serious drought problems at the moment, so fresh produce is not always the cheapest option in our area of the world. Then again, neither is meat. So the vegans, vegetarian and omnivorous folks are screwed, doesn't matter what you put into your mouth.

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warrioreowyn
2007-10-12 05:30 am UTC (link)

But buying pre-cut lettuce isn't exactly cutting costs. And most calories are more likely to come from grains/legumes than from veggies, the veggies are more for other nutrients and roughage. (I don't expect that it would be easy (or healthy!) for anyone to manage living solely off vegetables and fruits.)

I was thinking more of grains and legumes, plus stuff like carrots and celery and bananas (and potatoes and onions) which you can buy for basically nothing, supplemented with whatever's seasonal and reasonably priced. I'm not saying that it would be a fun or exciting diet, and you couldn't pay me to eat vegan, but lack of money doesn't preclude it; rather the opposite.

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papervolcano
2007-10-11 10:23 am UTC (link)

Yep - At least, if you're not buying pre-processed veggies - bags of salad leaves, pre-cut carrots and so forth (and honestly, if you're paying £2/$4 for a bag of lettuce, of course you're not going to get your money's worth! The markup on those things is obscene). Lentils cost next to sweet FA for lots, same with pasta. If you think about your cooking and try to do what's local and seasonal, you're also quids in. While at the moment I'm likely to have to pay a small fortune for asparagus, other stuff is cheap right now. I just need to think about what I'm eating.

F'rex - I'm down to the wire on my food budget. Tonight, I'm likely to be eating pasta with red peppers, broccoli, fried tofu and chili oil. It will be yum (if not especially healthy). It will cost me a pittance to put together, and the most expensive part of it will be the tofu. The stuff I bought for this meal will stretch to 4/5 meals. I've been veggie since I was 12, and have lived/cooked alone since I was 18. I don't recall at time where getting hold of a few carrots or whatever was ever beyond my reach.

Aaaaaaaaaand I'm turning into preachy-veggie, so to avoid being smote with veal steaks, I'll shut up now.

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	warrioreowyn 2007-10-12 05:36 am UTC (link)
	That's unhealthy? (Speaking from a position where a "healthy food day" is one where I actually consume vegetables ). ;) I've regressed since returning home for university. (Reply to this)(Parent)

napalmnacey
2007-10-14 05:04 pm UTC (link)

You'd cry at my diet. I have IBS that's brought on by endometriosis, so there is so much food I can't have that it'd make a vege-lover cry. No asparagus, artichokes, celery, seeds of any sort or whole grains. Basically no insoluble fibre. I have to take psyllium husks and iron pills because we can't afford enough red meat to get my iron levels up. It also doesn't help that I bleed for a week a month rather than the usual two to four days.

I do wish I could eat the food you do. It's just not feasible for me, I'm afraid.

Though I gotta say - lentils are cheap and delicious. The things my Mum can do with a bag of red lentils, some onions and some spices. It would make you weep with ecstacy.

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