Debunking the "vegan is too expensive" myth

[HappiestVeganOnEarth]

I keep hearing the "vegan privilege" argument, so I calculated the cost of one of meals I make most often. I grew up on food stamps and have never had a large food budget as an adult either, so you can imagine how it angers me when people tell me that I am only vegan because I'm rich or something. Unless you live in a food desert, far from grocery stores, cost is not an excuse to not go vegan.

Here are the details on my lunch today, you can see a photo on my instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BPQm-0PAQOT/?taken-by=happiestveganonearth

➡1/2 cup white rice = 32 cents (2lb bag = $2.50, 63 cents per cup)
➡1 cup pinto beans = 15 cents (2lb bag dried beans = $1.79, which makes 12 cups cooked beans)
➡1 carrot = 16 cents (89 cents/lb)
➡1 head of broccoli = 60 cents (1.49/lb)
➡1/2 lb butternut squash (about 1/4 of a small one) = 75 cents (1.49/lb)
➡drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper = about 10 cents
➡squirt of sriracha = about 10 cents
➡basil leaves from the plant on my patio = about 10 cents

Total cost: $2.28.


Here is the nutritional breakdown, via cronometer:
➡21.6 grams of protein (about half of what you need per day)
➡31.8 grams of fiber (well over the daily requirement)
➡At least half of the daily targets for vitamins B5, B6, A, C, E, K, folate, calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, and potassium.
➡30% of your daily requirement of Omega-3. I could have sprinkled some flax seeds on top to improve that.
➡550 calories
➡5.8 grams of fat (mostly from the olive oil)
➡Zero cholesterol, zero trans fat

Thanks for letting me vent a little bit. I hope some of you find this interesting!

[brimstoneSalad]

Sounds delicious. Food evangelism is very effective. My main criticism would be the protein level being a little bit too low.

➡21.6 grams of protein (about half of what you need per day)

Consumption of high fiber protein sources reduces absorption of protein, and protein from vegetables will be less absorbed unless very very thoroughly chewed (fiber is good, of course, we don't want to avoid it, but due to this we should increase protein consumption a little).

http://veganhealth.org/articles/protein
Jack Norris recommends 1 - 1.1 grams of protein per kilogram body weight.

Vegan men should probably be aiming for closer to 80 grams, and possibly over 100 for those who are very active.
Nothing wrong with [most] plant protein.
Most people don't get only the RDI for protein each day, so they'll feel low on protein if we don't up our game on our vegan recipes.

Unfortunately, 21.6 grams is only half for a small woman who isn't very physically active. Most men should eat about four meals like this... and that ends up being almost $10 a day. Certainly not bad, but a lot of people can't afford a $300 a month food budget, so I always try to ask people what their budgets are.

With a lower food budget, you could cut out the squash and save a bit (although making it less filling).
I can get my food budget down to about $3 a day when I optimize.

I would try to aim for at least 30-40 grams for lunch and dinner recipes, which will be more in the protein range most people will feel good on and be satiated by.

[Mr. Purple]

you can see a photo on my instagram

I want it...

I keep hearing the "vegan privilege" argument, so I calculated the cost of one of meals I make most often. I grew up on food stamps and have never had a large food budget as an adult either, so you can imagine how it angers me when people tell me that I am only vegan because I'm rich or something. Unless you live in a food desert, far from grocery stores, cost is not an excuse to not go vegan.

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. The most cost efficient foods by far are all vegan. An omnivore looking to actually eat at a non-privileged level of cost would be forced to eat vegan anyway.

➡1/2 cup white rice = 32 cents (2lb bag = $2.50, 63 cents per cup)
➡1 cup pinto beans = 15 cents (2lb bag dried beans = $1.79, which makes 12 cups cooked beans)
➡1 carrot = 16 cents (89 cents/lb)
➡1 head of broccoli = 60 cents (1.49/lb)
➡1/2 lb butternut squash (about 1/4 of a small one) = 75 cents (1.49/lb)
➡drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper = about 10 cents
➡squirt of sriracha = about 10 cents
➡basil leaves from the plant on my patio = about 10 cents

Total cost: $2.28.

If you wanted to push this even further, you could replace the butternut squash with sweet potato, and the broccoli with cauliflower to get it down to 1.30 - 1.50 for the meal while keeping it somewhat similar.
I also regularly get rice for half the price you got it here. Look around for a store that sells in bulk or has bins.

➡30% of your daily requirement of Omega-3. I could have sprinkled some flax seeds on top to improve that.

This is another way to make any meal cheaper and healthier(per calorie). Flax is as cheap as rice, but with way more protein, zinc, omega-3 and calcium. I sprinkle the hell out of it, or I add it to my breadmaker along with flour for some super healthy and cost efficient bread.



On a geeky side note, sometimes I compare foods on chronometer, and i'm starting to think white beans are the superior bean for maximal cost efficiency. Normally vitamin E(except sunflower seeds) and calcium(except for flax) are harder to get at the extremely cost efficient ranges (daily 2000 calories for under a dollar). White beans have an abnormally high amount of both of these, along with being one of the highest protein, zinc, and potassium containing beans as well.

[HappiestVeganOnEarth]

21.6 grams is only half for a small woman who isn't very physically active.

I'm 120 pounds, I'm very active, but I didn't tell cronometer that, so it gave me 48% of the daily target for 21.6 grams of protein. I feel fine on about 40 grams a day though, I don't measure it most days. I probably do tofu and seitan more often than beans, but for this demonstration, I didn't want to use any "weird" ingredients that omnivores couldn't picture themselves eating. 21 grams is pretty good compared to what you would get for $2.28 on the Standard American Diet. This is more directed toward people who eat ramen with an egg in it who are getting way less protein than this to begin with.

[HappiestVeganOnEarth]

I also regularly get rice for half the price you got it here. Look around for a store that sells in bulk or has bins.

I intentionally didn't buy anything in bulk for this demonstration, because people who have small food budgets often can't buy things in bulk, even something with a long shelf life like rice. When every dollar of every paycheck counts, it's sometimes not possible to buy the $10 bag of rice in bulk, instead of the $2 smaller bag, because you don't have those $8 to spare at the time.

I will try it with white beans next time! Pinto beans are usually the cheapest though. I never did much research on which beans were slightly better than others, I assumed they were all more or less the same nutritionally.

[brimstoneSalad]

21 grams is pretty good compared to what you would get for $2.28 on the Standard American Diet. This is more directed toward people who eat ramen with an egg in it who are getting way less protein than this to begin with.

Not really though. The protein to calorie ratio for this dish and for ramen noodles with an egg is about the same.

78 & 188 calories (266) = 6g + 4.5g protein (10.5)
Your recipe is 21.6 g protein with 550 calories.

226 / 10.5 = 21.5 calories per gram of protein
550 / 21.6 = 25.5 calories per gram protein

Unless I did my math wrong, this is giving more calories and less protein.

A packet of ramen costs about 13 cents, and an egg costs about 14 cents. That's 27 cents. We have to multiply the recipe by 2.07 to match the calories of your recipe (550/266). The total cost of that meal comes down to 54 cents.

To get 2k calories, 3.6 of these meals would be needed.
That's $1.94 for the ramen and egg based diet, and $8.21 for the kind of food you're talking about. And the ramen+egg is more protein.

Ignoring the low protein (which you really should try to increase a little with respect to dietary recommendations for vegans), I know your meal is far healthier, but people in that position can't necessarily see their ways to spending an extra $6.27 a day... and putting in the extra effort (it takes like ten minutes to cook ramen+egg, yours probably takes quite a bit longer).

I'm not trying to be negative here. I think food evangelism is fundamentally goof for veganism, and you're doing a good thing here. But if you want to make something bullet proof against that kind of criticism, you'll need to step up your game a little bit. You're almost there, and doing so much better than most.

Mr. Purple gave some good recommendations. And if you increase the beans a little too, I think this will be very solid. Try to cut costs (and preparation time) every way you can. We should also remind people that eating largely ramen and eggs is false economy, since it's bad for ones health; it's a debt that will likely need to be paid back later with medical bills.

[HappiestVeganOnEarth]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I did another one of these today and made it even cheaper, with a higher protein to calorie ratio!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQQ1aR8gMmM/?taken-by=happiestveganonearth

This meal cost me $1.86 and took 30 minutes to make, mostly passive time while the lentils cooked. I got all the ingredients at Vons. I didn't buy anything in bulk because that is hard for people who are living paycheck to paycheck. Here is the pricing and nutritional breakdown:
➡1.5 cup lentils = 46 cents (2lb bag = $1.50)
➡1/2 cup rice = 32 cents (2lb bag =$2.50)
➡1 carrot = 16 cents (.89/lb)
➡1/2 sweet potato = 62 cents (1.99/lb)
➡drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper = about 10 cents ➡squirt of sriracha = about 10 cents
➡parsley from the plant on my patio = about 10 cents
➡31.2g protein (more than half of what most people need per day)
➡22.6g fiber
➡3.9g fat (from olive oil)
➡Zero cholesterol ➡Over half of RDI for: vitamins B1, B3, B5, B6, A, folate, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, zinc
➡576 calories

[brimstoneSalad]

Very nice! That's what I'm talking about.

Great job on improving the cost and protein to calorie ratio.

[cornivore]

I keep hearing the "vegan privilege" argument, so I calculated the cost of one of meals I make most often. I grew up on food stamps and have never had a large food budget as an adult either, so you can imagine how it angers me when people tell me that I am only vegan because I'm rich or something. Unless you live in a food desert, far from grocery stores, cost is not an excuse to not go vegan.

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. The most cost efficient foods by far are all vegan. An omnivore looking to actually eat at a non-privileged level of cost would be forced to eat vegan anyway.

I think the context would be vegan products that cost more for being labled "vegan", like phony baloney or whatever. Other than the gourmet stuff, I think it should be illegal for things to cost more for being considered healthier, especially something like the same product without added sugar, for example (which is often marked up in price, just to exploit people for reading the label). It's nonsense that cigarrettes are highly taxed for being unhealthy and then anything with a hyped up vitamin, or not including corn syrup or lard is overpriced too. Same goes for organics (pick your poison, since everyone seems to lie anyway). That isn't the whole picture of what's available, but I can see where those who you may consider to be reverse snobs are coming from, and it isn't entierly a myth. They may have first heard of the word vegan from some high priced foodstuff (and there are as many of those as the market will bear, as they say—not that I care for that stuff, any more than cotton candy marked up at a fair).

[cornivore]

By the way, I'm not trying to complain about everything, and don't object to vegans wanting gourmet food, but it can give some people the impression that veganism is more expensive, because sometimes it is (yeah, pretty much anything that says vegan, so it's no wonder). The word superfood is as bad or worse for that matter. It's like the Beverly Hills Cop "supercops" lie being told on ordinary produce... Wanna banana in the tailpipe? Look, this aint no ordinary kale, it's suparkale... pay up! Okey dokey, it's like people just want to make up new words for old stuff and charge more for nothing! I don't know why that works, because supposedly health conscious people would be skeptical. I figure anything that's overpriced must be unnecessary at this point. So, while there's ordinary vegan food that hasn't been hyped to hell, I'm not missing anything (apart from the spirituality of fasting).