Being Poor

[Milena]

In my 20's and recently, I had to live off little money. In my 20's it was tins of tomatoes, tinned mackerel on toast or a stir fry with an onion, a carrot, a few beansprouts and a chicken thigh and a large portion of white rice with egg plus half a pint of milk a day. Mackerel in tins was edible then. My skin was much improved. I hadn't the discipline the second time.

 

[DavidGardner]

How would you recommend someone in the cycle of poverty pull out into wealth/abundance?

This is a very relevant question and no one is giving a pragmatic answer to it. Learning a trade is a good way to make a career with decent pay. You may not be rich, but you can certainly make enough to live comfortably. My goal right now is to get a foot in the door working for an electrician. But there is more than one way to approach it, and OP has told us very little about his position.

I am poor, at least in income, and looking for jobs, I've been in retail for too long, which pays crap. OP doesn't tell us what he does or why he is poor so let's not make any assumptions.

The OPs beat down state is simply plain to see. You're inability to perceive is the relevant question. There is no arrogance involved. The OP needs to rise to the challenge of extracting himself from his current circumstance. Food is not his problem.

This is a big problem. People who seriously need to improve their circumstances fixate on foods and supplements and protocols. This is an obvious case. Sorry you can't realize that.

Bull**** I have friends who poor and friends who are rich. The ones who are poor by and large do not fixate on food, supplements, and protocols. Wealthy people do this a lot more because they have the luxury of more choice.

OP's question is meaningful because for those of us, myself included, trying to better ourselves, food is totally relevant. I didn't get to the state of relative mental health I'm in today where I could even consider looking for a better job without a lot of trial and error in nutrition.

 

[lampofred]

How to you get healthy when you are poor? Seems like everything healthy is to expensive ..

This is going to probably be not the kind of response you're expecting, but my personal take of the issue is that it's more important to have sufficient money to live without worry first than to worry about eating perfectly healthy. I would buy the foods that give you the best bang for your buck in terms of how much energy they provide you--so ramen, pasta, bread, potoates, ample coffee, gelatin etc. A few months of eating pufa and iron will not kill you. Thes foods are not "ideal" but they are still pretty low fat and will give you energy to work. I think one of the keys to being able to work a lot is to have low serotonin -- so aspirin, coffee, gelatin, low tryptophan consumption. Maybe avoid eggs, cheese and meat for now. And once you work and make sufficient money you can then buy the "ideal" health stuff like raw milk, grass fed eggs, cheese, etc.

 

[lampofred]

Also, not trying to be rude but out of a genuine interest to offer an actionable suggestion: I think several people in this thread could use some serotonin antagonism

 

[Vinero]

hahahahahahhaha, good one

grass fed eggs are like 7 dollars a carton, good milk can be like 5 dollars per 32 oz, oranges cost like .75 to a dollar per orange, beef oxtail is like 8 dollars a pound, to make a gelatin you need around 4 pounds for a slow cooker

You don't need grass fed eggs, good milk or beef oxtail to get healthy.
You can just buy the cheapest milk, eggs, and beef cuts and still heal your metabolism.
As long as you eat sufficient calories, carbs, protein, saturated fat, etc. you will suppress cortisol and free fatty acids and increase thyroid function.
Having good thyroid function and a high metabolic rate is all that matters. And you don't need expensive foods or supplements to get that.

 

[raypeatclips]

You don't need grass fed eggs, good milk or beef oxtail to get healthy.
You can just buy the cheapest milk, eggs, and beef cuts and still heal your metabolism.
As long as you eat sufficient calories, carbs, protein, saturated fat, etc. you will suppress cortisol and free fatty acids and increase thyroid function.
Having good thyroid function and a high metabolic rate is all that matters. And you don't need expensive foods or supplements to get that.

+1 Peat has said drink any milk you tolerate. For some that might even be UHT.

I also feel worse eating slow cooked oxtail compared to just supermarket beef steaks.

 

[Amazoniac]

Super minimalist diet.

I never heard milk_lover thinking in terms of the minimum income needed to live well. While the idea of not earning more than you need is great, it's not the best mindset for wealth because it usually involves a constant struggle and focus on subsistence. Ambition seems to be the key element, and the problems associated with it are when there's too much of it to the point of running over principles.

Ambition of all kinds is a health trait in my opinion. It's inevitable that at all times there will be the decision to stick to principles or to welcome Friedzord with his "diminishes and debases it" quote.

 

[mayweatherking]

You don't need grass fed eggs, good milk or beef oxtail to get healthy.
You can just buy the cheapest milk, eggs, and beef cuts and still heal your metabolism.
As long as you eat sufficient calories, carbs, protein, saturated fat, etc. you will suppress cortisol and free fatty acids and increase thyroid function.
Having good thyroid function and a high metabolic rate is all that matters. And you don't need expensive foods or supplements to get that.

Grass fed eggs are way healthier long term versus the cheap stuff... same with grass fed cow milk and grass fed beef....

Plus you are actually doing a service to the animals that are free to roam in your purchases... like free to roam chickens, milk, beef... When you buy cheap eggs, you are buying eggs from chickens that live in tiny crates and can barely move have many diseases and it's a large disservice to their welfare...

 

[jaguar43]

Grass fed eggs are way healthier long term versus the cheap stuff... same with grass fed cow milk and grass fed beef....

Plus you are actually doing a service to the animals that are free to roam in your purchases... like free to roam chickens, milk, beef... When you buy cheap eggs, you are buying eggs from chickens that live in tiny crates and can barely move have many diseases and it's a large disservice to their welfare...

Well unfortunately that argument is also use by vegans to justify not eating meat. Animal welfare is important for the health of animals which leads to the health of humans. But eating animals isn't necessarily good for their welfare. That doesn't mean one shouldn't eating animals. Health wise, I used to buy grass fed milk and it wasn't much different from the grocery store milk, except wal-mart milk which taste spoiled in my opinion. Milk with less fat is probably ideal. 2 percent milk should be good.

A lot of the organic "farmers" that sell grass fed food are price gougers. Knowing that the production cost of these food is cheaper than the large food production like milk and livestock, it doesn't make sense to charge more. But selling grass fed and free range products at extremely expensive prices has less to do with the value of these products and more with their idealistic nonsense.

I think buying store bought eggs is not ideal but using coconut oil and/or vitamin e should reduce it's negative effects of high puff content.

 

[mayweatherking]

Well unfortunately that argument is also use by vegans to justify not eating meat. Animal welfare is important for the health of animals which leads to the health of humans. But eating animals isn't necessarily good for their welfare. That doesn't mean one shouldn't eating animals. Health wise, I used to buy grass fed milk and it wasn't much different from the grocery store milk, except wal-mart milk which taste spoiled in my opinion. Milk with less fat is probably ideal. 2 percent milk should be good.

A lot of the organic "farmers" that sell grass fed food are price gougers. Knowing that the production cost of these food is cheaper than the large food production like milk and livestock, it doesn't make sense to charge more. But selling grass fed and free range products at extremely expensive prices has less to do with the value of these products and more with their idealistic nonsense.

I think buying store bought eggs is not ideal but using coconut oil and/or vitamin e should reduce it's negative effects of high puff content.

grass fed is healthier regardless...

who cares if vegans use that argument.. it's a good argument.. it's better to have chickens that are free to roam on grass and walk around and enjoy the sunlight, same with cows, versus the cheap stuff... which is chickens over crowded in crates for their entire life just so you can spend 2 dollars less on it...

 

[Travis]

grass fed is healthier regardless...

who cares if vegans use that argument.. it's a good argument.. it's better to have chickens that are free to roam on grass and walk around and enjoy the sunlight, same with cows, versus the cheap stuff... which is chickens over crowded in crates for their entire life just so you can spend 2 dollars less on it...

Makes me wonder if stress hormones can be detected in eggs?

And I agree about the chickens; it's good to make an attempt at be morally-responsible about as many things as possible. The conditions some chickens are kept in can be rather harsh absolutely brutal, packed so close their beaks must be clipped to prevent homicidal pecking.

 

[DaveFoster]

 

[jaguar43]

grass fed is healthier regardless...

Regarding milk, no so. Peat has stated that grass fed cows can sometimes eat allergic foods that causes the milk to contain allergies. Grass fed milk as a whole isn't much different than the milk provided in the store. He has also stated that milk is one of the safer foods in the commercial food production.

KIM GREENHOUSE: Yah, the milk is really pasteurized now and homogenized and really changed. Let alone what's happening with the cows, and what they do to the cows to get the milk now. It's a whole new world, isn't it?

RAY PEAT: Yah, but when you look at all the other changes in the food supply in the United States, the other things are, I think, almost invariably riskier than the processed milk.

Ray Peat

who cares if vegans use that argument.. it's a good argument.. it's better to have chickens that are free to roam on grass and walk around and enjoy the sunlight, same with cows, versus the cheap stuff... which is chickens over crowded in crates for their entire life just so you can spend 2 dollars less on it...

Free range eggs are usually fed soy feed. The vegetarian feed is code word for soy base. Soy is subsidizes by the u.s government and is one of the main exports of the U.S. So it may not only be a monetary problem but also a logistical problem since trying to find a source of eggs that aren't feed soy.

 

[cyclops]

So for milk/dairy is organic much more important the grass-fed? Or are neither that important?

 

[Ulysses]

So for milk/dairy is organic much more important the grass-fed? Or are neither that important?

Neither, I thinm. As someone else said above milk is one of the safest foods in the food supply, and is tightly regulated.

 

[michael94]

So for milk/dairy is organic much more important the grass-fed? Or are neither that important?

I think freshness/quality control ( animal health included ) is most important. Best milk I've had in California is from Rosa Brothers in Fresno and theyre neither organic nor graze in the grass but its not cheap milk either. But there are other very good milks also that are organic and/or grass fed. And then there's pasteurization method to consider. I wish there were more offerings of vat pasteurized milk ( basically the "slow cooked in a crockpot" version of pasteurization ) but that's just me.

Breed also seems to be important, not in a "better/worse" kind of way, but Jersey cow milk and Holstein milk just seems to have different properties... Same with Goat/Sheep/Camel milk. Trying to wrap my head around that one still in terms of specifics.

So basically... just do what Ray says, experiment...be honest about how the milk affects you. That is more important than marketing labels like organic/grass feed

 

[Ulysses]

Makes me wonder if stress hormones can be detected in eggs?

And I agree about the chickens; it's good to make an attempt at be morally-responsible about as many things as possible. The conditions some chickens are kept in can be rather harsh absolutely brutal, packed so close their beaks must be clipped to prevent homicidal pecking.

Hey, Travis, it’s often said in health blogging circles that pastuerization “denatures” milk proteins and renders them less digestible, and more allergenic somehow, and therefore, raw milk is ideal.

But I always see pasteurization discussed positively on this forum. What are your thoughts on this?

 

[cyclops]

Neither, I thinm. As someone else said above milk is one of the safest foods in the food supply, and is tightly regulated.

Has Ray ever mentioned which food(s) he thinks are most important, if any, to buy grass-fed, pasture-raised, organic, etc? I always thought dairy was on top of that list but guess not.

 

[Ulysses]

Has Ray ever mentioned which food(s) he thinks are most important, if any, to buy grass-fed, pasture-raised, organic, etc? I always thought dairy was on top of that list but guess not.

anything without a rumen needs to be sourced carefully. So if you’re shopping for beef and chicken and, due to budgetary constraints, have to decide which you’ll pay a premium for, it’s much more important to have top-quality chicken, because the composition of the chicken’s tissues will directly reflect the composition of its diet. Whereas Cows and other ruminants are able to convert nutrients to other forms in their digestive tract. So if you feed a cow a high PUFA diet, its tissues will contain a lower proportion of PUFA than was present in the diet, but if you give a chicken, say, 40% PUFA, the fats stored in its tissues will basically be 40% PUFA.

Anyways, this is Ray’s argument for eating ruminants instead of chicken. He mentions it in a number of places I think.

 

[cyclops]

anything without a rumen needs to be sourced carefully. So if you’re shopping for beef and chicken and, due to budgetary constraints, have to decide which you’ll pay a premium for, it’s much more important to have top-quality chicken, because the composition of the chicken’s tissues will directly reflect the composition of its diet. Whereas Cows and other ruminants are able to convert nutrients to other forms in their digestive tract. So if you feed a cow a high PUFA diet, its tissues will contain a lower proportion of PUFA than was present in the diet, but if you give a chicken, say, 40% PUFA, the fats stored in its tissues will basically be 40% PUFA.

Anyways, this is Ray’s argument for eating ruminants instead of chicken. He mentions it in a number of places I think.

Make sense, if I eat chicken (and I do) it is always very lean.