Sunflower Seeds
Well @monica-ene I'm back to writing on food again. As you know I've been on a mission to find the most nutritious diet for the lowest possible price. I've looked at carbs, fats, and proteins so far. I've been rating everything according to the cost for 2000 calories as a benchmark.
Now I know you mentioned you aren't good at doing the math but if you give me the food stuff and weight (calories, kilograms, or pounds) then I can work out numbers for you. So, if you are ever curious how your local foods match up to our Canadian version I'd be happy to do the math for you! However, so far carbs are cheapest with flour being down at the $0.40 / 2000g level. Oils about double that. Proteins starting at $1.03 / 2000g for being but $4.54 for pork or milk proteins. Eggs at almost $10 / 2000 are the most expensive thing I've looked at so far.
Today I bought a giant bag of sunflower seeds. Why? Well, because they are tasty and great as a stand alone snack but honestly because I made a list of the best sources of vitamins (which I'll post later in this article) and sunflower seeds came up numerous times
Today I'm just going to rank Sunflower seeds based on their cost for 2000 calories and then briefly post about all the vitamin sources I'll be looking at in upcoming posts.
Sunflower seeds
$52.75 for 25 lbs which is the same as :
$2.11 / lb and a pound is 454g which means
0.464 / 100g and since each gram has 5.84 calories
2000 calories / 5.84 calories/g = 342.5g to make 2000 calories.
1.59 for 2000 calories
($0.464 * 3.425 ==> $1.589)
In short sunflower seeds are more expensive than basic carbs, oils, or proteins but then again they can be eaten raw, they are pretty tasty, and with 21% protein and carbohydrate along with 50% oil they are very nutrient and nutrition packed. Don't eat too many at once
Looking forward
Coming up I'll be looking at foods that will source all the different Vitamins and minerals also needed for optimal nutrition. What will I be looking at?
Vitamin A
- Carrots, Spinach, and Tomato
Vitamin B1
- Soy Beans Chickpeas, Sesame Seeds and Chia Seeds
Vitamin B2
- Almonds, Mushroom, and Spinach
Vitamin B3
- Split green peas, Mushroom, Peanuts, Sunflower Seeds Sesame and Chia Seeds
Vitamin B5
- Sunflower seeds, chickpeas, split green peas, and oatmeal.
Vitamin B6
- Chickpeas, banana, garlic, spinach, potato, and sesame seeds
Vitamin B7
- Almond, Peanut, Soy Beans, Mushroom, Oats, and Sunflower seeds.
Vitamin B9
- Spinach, Lettuce, Oatmeal, Chickpeas, black beans, sunflower seeds, chia and tomato
Vitamin B12
- Ground Beef
- NOTE: Vegan sources are challenging for B12. I might look at chicken, pork and other meats and B12 sources as well, but mostly I'll look at beef in small quantities because its my favorite :)
Vitamin C
- Oranges Strawberries, Peppers, and Lemon
Vitamin D
- I'll probably just gloss over this one and say take a Vitamin D tablet. However I'll probably add sardines and anchovies as a price point even though I really hate fish.
- NOTE Vitamin D is commonly added to many "fortified" foods such as cereals and especially dairy. There aren't many good sources other than fish or supplementation. I'm trying to avoid manufactured foods and hate fish so for me a supplement it is.
Vitamin E
- Sunflower, Almond, and Spinach
Vitamin K
- Spinach, Dries green peas, Blackberry, Blueberry and Tomato
With that mix of foods I'm also pretty set on the mineral required as well but I will be adding Pumpkin Seeds and Cashews for some trace minerals.
That will also leave me a bit weak on Calcium and Iron. However, a bit of vinegar and bones will get me calcium. A bit of vinegar (or tomato) in a stew or soup made with an "iron fish" can get me the necessary iron.
There you have it.
Flour, Rice, Corn, Sugar and Potato for carbohydrates.
Canola and sunflower oil along with nuts and seeds for fats.
Beans with a little meat for proteins
and all the items listed above to make sure I have enough of each vitamin and mineral I need to be healthy.
Of course the big questions I need to answer are:
- How much of each food type do I need?
- How much will each of those food types cost
and most importantly for most people..
What recipe's will I make using those ingredients!
A lot of upcoming posts
That should give me a number of posts for the upcoming year. When it is all done with every nutrient, vitamin, and mineral accounted for. Every item measured and cost analyzed. Every recipe tried and tested. Then I can say with a degree of certainty just exactly the minimum amount of money required to feed a person per day.
I postulated that it was possible to eat on $1/day in a post a post almost a year ago. Inflation has hit hard! However, I'm curious to see just what the real number is!
Now...
If there are any foods you want me to calculate the values for? If you want to add a local price to what I'm looking at here. If you thoughts, comments or feedback I'd love to hear it.
And of course if you are a nutritionist or dietician I'd love to get pointers on where I've gone wrong!
Thanks for reading
Until next time