My 2500 kcal $6 a day meal plan

[starfire28]

@esteban The studies I was mentioning were also about omega 3 values in red blood cells. As I mentioned earlier, the blood is going to be much more dangerous to molecules than in organs and where antioxidants are naturally concentrated, like in the nerves where vitamin C is highly concentrated to protect them.

Would not the animal body evolve to not retain much unstable omega 3s in red blood cells? Therefore, I suspect that this metric may not be the best to measure how much omega 3s actually get to where they need to be. This is admittedly just my hypothesis.

 

[dawn16]

@esteban Make sure if you're eating a lot of rice, that it's sourced from a good place. In America a lot of the rice has high arsenic levels, and Dr. Michael Greger suggests no more than one serving of rice a week because rice acts as a sponge for arsenic. The reason American rice has so much arsenic is because back when cotton fields were the big cash crop, they used a lot of arsenic based pesticides, and it stuck in the soil. Funny part is that some have suggested using rice to soak up the excess arsenic. Otherwise looks like a solid meal plan!

 

[esteban]

@dawn16 Never heard of this, I'll have to look into it, thanks!

 

[bobrobyn]

@esteban According to my wife, rice grown in California does not have high arsenic levels. Imported rice does.

 

[dawn16]

@esteban Kcal=Cal why do people still say kcal

 

[esteban]

@dawn16 I dunno, I just see it used a lot in nutrition research so I use it.

 

[andrewmcwatters]

@esteban I'm trying to eat as cheap as possible while getting enough vitamins and gaining weight and muscle, so cool post.

The only issue with almonds is they have a lot of omega-6 content.

Is too much omega-6 bad?

Soy milk: Has complete amino acid protein and fortified with B12, calcium, and vitamin D. Also used to make my smoothie delicious.

I use to get soy milk but it just seems too expensive. I recently stopped and started taking b12 and omega 3 vitamins. I also got some hemp protein. I wonder how that compares in terms in effectiveness? I've heard multivitamins can be a waste, but from my understanding b12 and omega 3 are important and can be tough to get. My diet mostly consists of rice and beans, oats, bananas, peanut butter, tofu, juice and seeds.

 

[lyn244]

@andrewmcwatters Too much omega 6 inhibits omega 3 absorption I think

 

[dawn16]

@andrewmcwatters

Is too much omega-6 bad?

Its more the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.

 

[esteban]

@andrewmcwatters Soy milk is expensive and entirely unnecessary. It's literally the same thing as taking a supplement for the vitamins and minerals it has. One can also buy way more actual soy beans for a lot more protein content than you get in the milk too. I mainly just get it since it makes my smoothies taste better and rounds out my meal plan well.

Omega-6 isn't necessarily bad. It is bad though in high quantities and when it skews your omega-3 to 6 ratio beyond a 1 to 2 ratio. Ideally you want a 1 to 1 ratio between omega-3 and 6. This is because omega-3 and 6 use the same pathways in your body to absorb them or transform omega-3 ALA into EPA and DHA. I get around this by taking my omega-3 algae supplement without foods rich in omega-6, aka my almonds.

Omega-6 is something you only ever have to worry about getting too much of since it's in so many foods and some have astronomical levels of omega-6. Like if you eat a cup of walnuts you get around 45,000 mg of omega-6, but only 10,000 mg of omega-3. So walnuts are NOT a good source of omega-3 even though people claim they are.

Your diet looks good except do you eat any vegetables? Where are you getting your vitamin a from? I am willing to bet you are getting waaaay too much omega-6 between your peanutbutter and seeds. I'd recommend you look into that.

 

[andrewmcwatters]

@esteban I will definitely look into my omega-6 consumption, thank you for the advice, I am sure you are right. I eat a lot of peanut butter and decent amount of seeds, but I only just recently started taking omega-3 vitamins and hemp protein 3 times a week, but besides that I haven't been consciously targeting my omega 3 consumption at all.

As for vegetables, I definitely need to eat way more. Sometimes I steam a serving of vegetables with my rice, but I can't imagine it's often enough to see any benefits, I will start trying to eat vegetables every day.

Do you know if theres any difference in quality between frozen vegetables and fresh? I imagine the frozen are much cheaper, and much easier to keep.

 

[esteban]

@andrewmcwatters I've always read that frozen is better than 'fresh'. I put fresh in quotes because fresh in a supermarket is far different than fresh from a garden. Ideally you would eat your vegetables straight from a garden. However, vegetables in supermarkets are picked before they are ripe and lose their nutrition over time. Frozen vegetables though are picked when ripe and flash frozen so they retain most of their nutritional value.

 

[dawn16]

@esteban I would change almonds to walnuts for omega-3.

 

[esteban]

@dawn16 I need the almonds for vitamin e. Walnuts are a very poor source of vitamin e. Almonds also are much higher in calcium than walnuts and much lower in omega-6. I get my omega-3 from my algae supplement, which is much more of an effective omega-3 than walnuts since walnuts are ALA not DHA and EPA.

 

[golgotha1995]

@esteban Thanks for posting.

Great to see someone with the same goals as me. I am trying to save money on food, as well as get jacked!

 

[ron1999]

@esteban What creatine do you use?

 

[carolbrookes]

@esteban Gluten can sub for protein powder. I dump it in a smoothie, doesn't chunk up.

 

[favord]

@esteban What about your iodine? Unless you are getting a lot of iodized salt, which doesn't exist where I am from.

 

[esteban]

@favord Don't know. It's not something I have to think about in the United States. Sorry!

 

[dianne46]

@esteban Have you heard of Soylent? Might be up your alley. https://www.soylent.com/

You could also upload this recipe to the diy section of the soylent website: https://www.completefoods.co/diy/recipes