I don’t know where to post this, so I’m posting it here.
I need to gain some weight because I’m borderline anorexic. But I can’t afford much more than bread, potatoes, eggs and cheese, That is my diet. And I hate eating it. It’s the only thing I can stomach that is cheap, but I hate it. I don’t want to eat eggs and potatoes for the rest of my life. I would rather die of malnutrition, like I am currently doing.
I have no appetite, but that is a symptom of something else. Ideally, there is a way to gain weight while eating less mass. Something calorie dense.
I might be slightly exaggerating. But for the last couple of years I’ve been eating potatoes and eggs for almost every single meal of the day. And yes, I eat one warm meal a day. Sometimes I suppliment with some bread to stop the hunger pains. Sometimes I also eat a piece of vegetable.
Patatoes
Eggs
Cheese
Rice
Legumes (lentils, beans, chickpeas…)
Salt
Oil
Vinaigre
SpicesThis make a cheap but healthy diet that can be cooked as something terribly bland in texture and flavor or extremely flavorful and diverse in texture depending on what you like.
Add bread sometimes and you can makes hundreds of recipes.
You have a small budget but since eggs and cheese are pricier in many places, by reducing them, you can easily add the legumes and oil.
Sometimes don’t buy potaoes and replace it with rice.
Do use salt, it is crucial for health and for making a recipe work.This way, you bugdet should stay the same.
Now, for spices, there is two routes :
1 - Buy prepackage mixes. They are cheap for the unit, the easiest to squize in a budget that can’t be streched any further. After a few servings the package is used up, so you can change the flavor for the next time. But they have additives that make them not the healthiest. But if you don’t eat or drink anything but water and what you say this is more than healthy compare to most people
2 - build you spice (and herbs) cabinet. Spices outside of blends are cheaper but sold in bigger format so you need more money in the short run. You might find the money by reducing slightly further cheese or eggs once a groceries trip every month or every six weeks and buy one more jar of spice to use in your cooking. If you are cooking for yourself and since you are not used to cook with spice yet, take a small size not the biggest one even if it is cheaper by the ounce. Focuse on what is used the most in your cuisine : For a westerner culture, it would probably start with pepper, then garlic powder, then oignon powder, then a herb mix, then paprika. You can get inspiration for ingredients in you favorite premade mixes to know what to buy next.
Choose an oil that has a neutral taste and that can be heated a lot (sunflower or canola) so it could be use in plenty of way. Use it generously, it help with feeling full, better tasting food and weight retaining.
Legumes can be bought in tins. They are very cheap, already cooked perfecty, for a price premium already flavored. They can be eaten cold, as a salad with a bit of acid from the vinaigre.
At the beginning eat small portions or you get flatulences. With the time, your body will get use to digest them.
Legumes can be smash/blend in sauces, soups or spread. They can be place on the side of potatoes or rice.When you are use to them (you know which one you like, which ones you eat the most), buy them dry. It is even cheaper and makes your groceries bags much lighter. It is not complicated to cook but it you have to figure out how to manage a budget, eat differently and gain weight, make it easy on you and start with the tins.
White vinaigre is so cheap. You buy one bottle and it least very long. It is much more acid than lemon juice so it is used in very small quantity. But it is not flavorful, just acid.
For specific recipes, it will depend on :
- your time available
- the cooking equipment you have
- the space you have
But I speak from experience, with a very very small space and limited cooking equipment these ingredient can bring you very far.
Other useful cheap ingredient you might buy from time to time are :
All-purpose flour, baking soda, semolina, oat, granulated sugar. They will add even more diversity and will make you a pantry from which many dessert can be cooked.
Tins vegetable are cheap…ish. They store well, so they can be bought in advance when you got a little room in your budget or when there is a nice reduction. Same with the cheapest kins of jams and preserved fruits. Some frozen vegetable are cheap as well but you need a freezer, freezer space and to use electricity to store them.I currently need to learn how to cook for people with diet very limited in diversity. I’m on a budget and want to do it healthy. So I would be very interested to know how your diet evolved and if I can be of any help don’t hesitate to message me. I’ll help you to the best of my advices.
Cheers
Peanut butter
Can’t go wrong here. High calorie density. Best tasting food; fight me. And actually pretty healthful.
Some of the food packs that were created for humanitarian organizations when they go into a place with people suffering from severe malnutrition are basically peanut butter fortified with vitamins and minerals. It’s great for getting nutrition back on track, and easier to stomach than most calorie-dense foods such as meat.
If you get pure peanut peanut butter. A lot of the shelf stuff has tons of sugar and salt added. Usually I’ll buy the pure stuff and cut it with a small amount of the other to sweeten it
In a thread about how to gain weight, you are advising against sugar sweetened peanut butter.
In a thread about how to survive on very little money you are advising the most expensive peanut butter option.
Get the cheapest, sugariest, oiliest jar you can find. Salt is not evil either.
Good point. Salt DOES drive away evil spirits. It can’t be bad.
spoiler
Not for the body anyway. Maybe for the spirit.
I know we’re downvoting non-cheap options here but if you can, try to find one without palm oil at least, purely out of ethical concerns
Hey my dude, you need some recipes and some mental health. Im happy to help on both fronts if you need.
Eggs and potatoes are easily the two most versatile substances on the planet, other ingredients to make them into things are actually equally as cheap, spices look expensive until you realize that $4 lasts up to 6 months. To add to that, I was once an incredibly picky eater and found personally and through feeding others that, outside of phobia and dietary constraints, the majority of food preferences is based on a history of bad cooking. Give me deets on your dietary limits and I’ll give you every recipe I know. If there’s anything you’re willing to experiment with, I’ll teach you everything you need to enjoy it. Anything from dry beans, to tofu, to grinding your own amaranth or acorns for flour.
If you’re in the western world, mental health services are decently accessible, even in the US without insurance. Shoot me a DM me your location and situation and I’ll do all the leg work, all you’ll have to do is make the appointment.
As for the information provided, the recipe that springs to mind is cheese gnochi bites.
You’ll need 3 large russet potatoes 2 eggs 1 cup shredded chedder or other strong cheese 1 cup flour Salt, pepper, garlic to taste Oil to fry in
Microwave the potatoes until baked, immediately shock in cold tap water and peal by hand. (fantastic trick for any mashed potatoes as it not only takes less time but does not add any moisture leading to fluffier potatoes)
In a large bowl, mash the potatoes and add the cheese, mix so that the cheese melts and spreads evenly.
Once incorporated, feel mix, if still hot, let it cool until luke warm or cool to the touch then mix in the eggs and spices.
Finally, add flour until it holds together when scooped.
Heat oil on medium in either a pot or skillet depending on oil availability and intended shape.
If using a pot with at least an inch of oil, scoop a glob of potato with a spoon and use another spoon to scrape it into the pot. Fry until golden all the way around.
If using a skillet with shallow oil, put the glob in the pan and gently press it flat leaving some thickness. Then flip like a Patty when golden.
If you have access to gallon bags, you can put the mix in the bag, cut off a corner, and squeeze the mix into the fry like a piping bag. Either making dollups for deep oil or doing a tight spiral for shallow.
Let cool on a wire rack but eat warm. Oil can be strained of bits and stored to fry with later.
You can also add extra cheese and cook in an air-fryer but the texture won’t be fried so much as baked. The extra cheese gets more oil in the mix to help the exterior crust up.
Thanks for being a great and kind person! o7
You are a wonderful human being. I hope you always have equally awesome peers by your side whenever you need them.
That sounds like food. If I don’t get literally crucufied for trying to fry something I will try it.
I wonder if my aversion to cooking has something to do with the constant criticism and threats I get… Oh well.
You get threats? For what?
My dude, that does not sound like a great environment. What’s going on?
Fry potatoes, boil potatoes, bake potatoes… They will taste very differently. Use seasoning. Don’t be shy on salt/pepper/whatever your culture uses. Eggs can be very different too besides fried or boiled: soak bread with egg and fry it. Very tasty. Add some flour or whatever you have in the fridge to make an omelette. Not a fan of cheese, but I am sure there are many ways to use it too.
Seasoning is the key - i was in a similar situation to op, I figured out how to make breakfast sandwiches that I love out of ingredients that are palatable to me. I use rotisserie chicken, spinach, eggs, and previously ovened cubed potatoes, broccoli or whatever veggies I could afford and bought that week. I’d used salt, pepper, smoked paprika, garlic powder on the ovened veggies and put them in the fridge, buy bulk eggs for cheap, buy bulk croissants, but any carb will do or just skip it and make an omelet.
I toast the bread in the pan. Cheap pan spray, throw in hand shredded chicken pieces, cold veggies, eggs on top of that, and here’s what made the difference for me - then sprinkle Tony’s Cajun on that while it cooks, flip, top with bulk cheese of choice, sprinkle nutritional yeast on top for gut health, bam, now it’s delicious thanks to those added flavors. I actually now love having my same meal every morning and the leftovers a few hours later for lunch. I vary my dinners, but breakfast and lunch are always the same aside from varying veggies in the mix.
Sandwitches and fried bread requires chewing. My teeth are coming loose (probably because of the malnutrition). It’s a bit hard/painful to bite and chew things.
Chicken is expensive. So is cheese. I can afford up to two to three slices a day when rationing for the whole month.
But spinach and broccoli do sound nice. I’ll buy some next month, when I can afford anything aside from the very basics. And eating those will help me gain weight?
Based on your diet you might have scurvy
Her some vitamin c in you! Better yet: take a complete multivitamin daily.
Based on your responses here I think you will object that they are too expensive. But they’re cheaper than the dental care you will need for the rest of your life without meeting your nutritional needs.
I get vitamin C. Oh wait, the energy drink I supplement with has every vitamin under the sun EXCEPT vitamin C. Thanks. I shall raid the medicine cabinet in search of those precious yellow tablets.
And do not worry. Dental care is free.
No, drop the energy drink completely. What are you thinking, that’s your problem right there. It’s expensive, and probably accounts for half your food spending. It’s also fucking terrible health wise especially if you aren’t eating much of anything else. There is no such thing as “supplementing” with an energy drink.
Things that are cheap and good imo: rice, lentils, bulk nuts, canned beans, tuna tin cans and veggies in general. Porridge sucks but it’s easy to make and cheap. If you want to avoid energy use while cooking, look into cooking in a thermos, stuff like couscous, porridge or noodle soups.
Hunt specials and change where you buy thing if needed. If you don’t like veggies, boil and blend. Ration of like 1/3 potato, 2/3 veggie, stock, plus some onion and garlic.
Get the oil, it’s basically where people get half their calories.
What’s your budget anyways (food total, include the money spent on fast food and energy drinks).
Wouldn’t a multivitamin be cheaper than an energy drink?
Per day a multivitamin is way cheaper. But per container it probably seems like a “big” investment for the multivitamin jar.
A medium potato has 30% of daily vitamin c but you need to eat the skin. So scrub potatoees and leave skin on when cooking. It will also be better to bake or fry. Even if making mashed potatoes, you can bake them and then mash with skins on. They’re better this way imo.
If dental care is free, go see a dentist asap and tell them about your issues.
If medical care is free or cheap I highly recommend you see a doctor as well, to tell them about your issues around food and eating, both emotional and physical.
They can prescribe high calorie, high nutrition drinks to supplement and support your diet. And a lactose neutraliser if you’re intolerant and the drinks contain milk. And possibly an appetite stimulator to make eating seem more appetising.
I’m glad you’re looking into vitamin c deficiency. I wasn’t listing my ingredients as suggestions, I was explaining what worked for me and hope you find some analogous recipe for your own meals. I hope you land on something affordable, maintainable, healthy and delicious!
Butter on potatoes if that’s an option too.
Oil is expensive. So is electricity. Boiling is cheapest.
And I’m looking to gain weight, not make my food less miserable.
Gaining weight requires consuming more calories than you use . If you hate everything you cook you will not eat enough. Simple as.
I don’t hate everything I cook, I hate eating. It’s a chore. I have no appetite. I need a way to cram more calories into me without needing to do so much chewing and swallowing.
Then you need to make your food more calorie dense. The only way to gain weight is to consume more than you use. There is no other way.
Been on the no chewing journey, how are you with meal replacement shakes? The bulk powders come in lots of flavours and cand be very cheap per meal. It’s usually got dietary fibre, vitamins, minerals, and will healthify you far faster.
For potatoes, you need the skin included to keep nutritional value, which can be hard with no chew but doable.
You’re essentially thinking newborn diet, you need calorofic nutition that’s easy to eat even when you don’t want to.
You got this, it’ll get easier.
My meal smoothie is basically banana, white beans, spinachs, frozen fruits, lemon flavored yogurt and soy milk. I’d also add hemp hearts (expensive but super dense), nuts and a few other things. Also vanilla and almond extract for taste.
Thick blended soups are also an option. You can just drink them.
On a calories per dollar-ratio, oil is probably at least one quarter of the price of potatoes.
The difference in electricity costs is not going to be significant in the context since you’ll make back the money on the calories you ingest from the oil instead of more potatoes.
Cooking potatoes in oil is also very significantly less miserable than eating boiled potatoes, and this is coming from someone that actually likes boiled potatoes quite a bit
Oil is calories. Oil helps you gain weight. Same for butter, margarine and lard. If you can find a good price on any fat, buy it and use it.
You need 50g of oil to roast a kilo of potatoes, and you can buy 4L jugs of it.
Okay, and how do I gain weight from that?
Oil is very calorie dense
So why not just do a shot of rapeseed oil and be done with it? Why even involve the potato?
Am I going too far? Maybe. Will that stop me from trying? No.
You absolutely can, if that’s what works for you. Nutritionally, there’s no difference between eating oil with a meal or separately. Lots of people take olive oil shots or mix butter in coffee or whatever and that’s OK. That approach can be particularly good if it’s helpful to think about it more like a supplement than a meal.
People may recommend against that in favor of working it into a meal you won’t hate eating, and there’s some merit to that for some people. But if eating is going to suck either way, just start by doing the thing that gets you calories. Work toward getting a mix of protein, fat, and carbohydrates (with potatoes + oil + eggs you have all 3) and fiber too. (potatoes have a bit) The rest can come later.
This page has a table of cheapest cost-per-calorie foods alongside some other general recommendations that may or may not be helpful. Notable items from that table are flour, bread, sugar, pasta, rice, olive oil, ramen, peanut butter, pinto beans, and lentils.
Ultimately though any food you’ll eat is always better than any food you won’t. A calorie is a calorie pretty much no matter what form it takes. You got this!
did that some time ago, it’s not particularly nice tastewise, but you can just chug one or two shots a day - that’s about 700kcal if you do 40ml per “serving” the YouTuber “DougDoug” did something similar for his diet. if you buy the cheapest oil (here it’s sunflower I think) you’ll get extremely many calories per unit of Money. in Germany that’s about 3000 kcal per 1€
It makes the potato have more calories because it has oil in it.
Same amount of chewing and swallowing. More calories. It’s what you want!
Source: I had to manage on 30$ a month and still managed to build muscles.
Lentils and rice. They are both dirt cheap. They complement each other as they have a different type of protein. If you throw some carrots in there you have a more tasty meal. Add some salt for taste.
Oil is more expensive, but a must. Oil is 9 kcal per gram, carbohydrates and protein is only 4 kcal per gram. So even if oil is twice as expensive per gram it is still cheaper. It also makes you full for longer.
Ideally if you want to actually have a healthy and good tasting meal. Then add some dry boullion and some frozen vegetables. Potatoes is also an option. It is still dirt cheap, but slightly more expensive.
Potatoes are actually super filling per calorie, one of the first and best foods I recommend for weight loss. The potatoes/eggs/cheese combo is especially filling, basically you’ve dialed into a budget conscious survival meal.
But you need to gain weight without spending much more money. What do you have to cook with? Knife cutting board pots pans stove?
First great option is soup. Pre fry aromatics directly in the pot (carrots, celery, onion, whatever you can get). Be HEAVY with oil, I recommend light olive oil. Heavier than you probably think with salt too. Then add mass (potatoes) and water. Dried lentils and split peas don’t need to be soaked overnight, just add them in and let them simmer for the last half hour. Tons of cheap calories and seasoning. Season with anything you have.
Then get into white rice. There’s a cost barrier here but if you can save up enough for a large 20lb bags the cost per meal is extraordinarily low. Tons of calories and doesn’t really fill you. Have it with the soup or as a bed under other veggies. Overdoing it with the rice can cause some health issues relating to blood sugar but it’s an extremely easy and cheap way to add 2-400 calories to a couple meals a day.
Check clearance for oily sauces. This is basically the reverse advice compared to weight loss - a lot of innocuously small jars can easily contain over 2,000 calories. If you can get them at 25% cost that’s a ton of weight gain potential and will help give you flavor variety and make your meals more calorific.
Just a few thoughts. Wish I could help, I know this situation sucks
Your sound advice and my visceral reaction to it have been a wakeup call for me. I need therapy ASAP. They need to cure my autism so that I can eat poor people food like I deserve. Because just thinking about eating lentils and peas makes me retch in disgust. I hate peas. And lentils are related to peas, so I hate them by association.
Thanks for the advice. Despite my reaction, it is more than reasonable. I will attempt consuming more nasty… nasty rice. School food really made me hate rice…
Just remember: the school rice is not your rice; make the rice your own with butter, tumeric, a little bullion cube or dust, maybe some black pepper. Those very basic spices are relatively cheap (typically less than $5 for all three).
Considering your teeth situation soup may be your best bet since they mostly have liquid and soft veggies, but consider this: the crappy peas/lentils/chickpeas or whatever you had previously can be made to your own personal taste standards until you think it tastes good.
You can put spices on rice? You have opened a new dimension of cooking to me. Why did I never think of that? Probably because I never seen anyone doing it. Or because I’m stupid. Depends on who you ask.
You can put spice, condiment and premade sauce on every thing. You can cook many thing with spice or condiment around it (rubed on or mixed in cooking water), the result will be different than added at the end.
Put a bouillon cube in the water with the rice while it’s cooking, a knob of butter on top when it’s almost done, and some tumeric when fluffing it. Add garlic you’re golden!
YOU CAN PUT SPICES ON EVERYTHING. YOU HAVE FREE WILL :D
If school made you sour on rice, I found the slightly pricier Jasmin rice to taste way different to the Basmati rice common in cafeterias. In a big sack, they’re both pennies per meal, though you should probably check if it’s to your taste with a smaller sample first.
One of the pillars of Spanish cuisine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_omelette
https://www.themediterraneandish.com/spanish-tortilla-recipe/
You convinced me. I will try this. Ever tried it with boiled mashed potatoes instead of potato slices? I have access to a lot of leftover mashed potatoes.
spoiler
No way I’m letting that snake eat all the potatoes for himself.
No, but the potatoes can be cut however you want, the slices are only to make them faster to cook.
Mashed is technically sliced. In pieces so small they form a homogeneous mass. It shall be attempted. I’ll update y’all on how it went.
Update: I didn’t have the energy to cook today. I just made scrambled eggs. I hated them. Every time I hate them more.
If I were to try with mashed potatoes I would make small balls with the mashed potatoes and then try not to stir it to not mix too much the eggs with the potatoes.
Hi I have basically the same problem.
a) take a fucking multivitamin before you get fucking
scurvy(til dv vitC of potatoes), anemia, rickets, Wernicke’s encephalopathy, or some other crazy shit in 20 fucking 26.b) find a high calorie protein shake you can stomach enough to keep down. If you’re only eating like one meal a day anyway you can splurge a little on something premixed and tastier. There’s a weirdly ritzy gas station chain near me that does a lovely strawberry banana smoothie that sits real well on my stomach, and I always get the yogurt scoop and protein shot.
c) start mixing your white sauces (anything that would normally have mayo, sour cream, or runny white cheese) with plain greek yogurt to give you a better fat / protein balance to all those carbs.
d) oh and you need metamucil. Desperately. Food that is both tasty and inoffensively bland is almost by definition low in fiber. And tbh you might find giving your bowels a good scrubbing may affect your appetite for the better.
At risk of going off-topic, exercise?
I don’t mean run marathons, but just stuff at home. Knee push ups, sit ups, squats, standing on your toes, sitting in a chair to lift your leg with your biceps; whatever you can manage until you are little winded.
You will gain some weight, keep more of the calories you ingest, and eating will feel better too.
I’d recommend some beans too. I like black bean bowls with rice, and both are cheap.
For calorie dense you can’t do better than fat. Oil might be ‘expensive’ but it is one of the cheapest things to buy on a per calorie basis and you only need a teaspoon to fry an egg or make mashed potatoes taste half-decent. You would be surprised how much better potatoes and eggs can be with a little fresh chill pepper or coriander if you can find it. The better it tastes the easier it is to eat. One more tip… Canned condensed milk. It’s cheap, calorie dense and delicious. A spoon a day will last weeks. Delicious in tea and coffee. Good luck!
I second oil. There was a time in my life where I had some health issues and I had zero appetite and was underweight. Sometimes, when I could not bring myself to eat anything, I would just eat one or two spoonfuls of oil or peanut butter. It’s way easier to get down than most other things.
This settles it. I will drink half a shot of rapeseed oil and see what happens. Wish me luck. Hope I don’t crap myself in my sleep.
Update: It is now in me. It feels strange. I feel lubricated in places that aren’t usually lubricated. And it is NOT where you might think. Is it really worth it for 180 Kilocalories? I guess we’ll see.
Don’t fall into the trap of eating less food because you think the oil will substitute it. Remember that the goal is to add the oil to your intake as well as all the food you would normally eat.
Where do you live where condensed milk is cheap? It’s the price of liquid gold where I live. Also, I am unfortunately lactose intolerant. And I have not seen lactose-free condensed milk anywhere.
First, if you can, try eating the potatoes with the skins. Less food waste, less time peeling, and it’s where most of the nutrients and fiber are.
Next, consider something like canned beans. Not “baked beans” because those are mostly sauce and honestly kinda gross. Like a can of black beans or chickpeas or red beans or black-eyed peas. You can season them however you’d like, but they’re good plain too. Versatile and can pair with almost anything. High in protein and fiber. And they’re affordable.
Another option is dried beans which are the cheaper option per bean but they’re more work to prepare because they need to soak. Lentils don’t need to soak though, and a pound of dried lentils isn’t too pricey.
If you can afford whole grain bread, it really does have much more nutrients than white bread. If you have a high metabolism, your body is just going to burn off all the empty carbs from white bread. Butter can add some easy fats too.
Oatmeal is another affordable option. Not the packets. Get the giant cylinder of instant oats. It’ll last you many meals, and all it takes is some hot water. You can adjust to your preferred consistency, whether you like it thick and clumpy or a bit more soupy is up to you.
If you can eat nuts, find one you like and get a big bag of them. Larger quantities are usually cheaper by weight. Walnuts are pretty affordable. Lots of omega-6 fatty acids. You can even crush them up and put them in your oatmeal if you like that.
If you’re not opposed to poultry, you can get a carton of chicken broth and drink maybe half a pint of it at a time. Heat it up first of course. It’s very gentle on the stomach and can stimulate an appetite. Also provides lots of good fats which are what your body needs if you want to put on weight and keep it on.
If you don’t eat meat, then vegetable or mushroom broth could do for stimulating appetite, just be aware that the fat content will be lower.
That’s mostly what I can think of. If you have troubles with digestion you might want to consider live foods/probiotics like yogurt, miso, stuff like that. A little bit pricier but it can make a big difference if your GI tract just doesn’t feel right. And again the larger containers are usually cheaper by volume.
Wait why are we suggesting more fiber to someone trying to gain weight? Fiber makes you feel full easier without giving you any real calories. Like… some of those are really good suggestions for losing weight for someone with a big appetite. However, OP said they have a small appetite and want to gain weight.
Because fiber is still important regardless of one’s weight goals. It also aids in digestion meaning OP will absorb nutrients more efficiently, instead of pooping most of it out. They said they’re on a budget, so why would they want the food they eat to go right through them without nourishing?
Besides, more full = eat less = groceries stretch further. So fiber is important for someone on a budget, even without counting the nutritional benefits.
Look, for just about every other case, I’d recommend eating a bunch of fiber, however:
It also aids in digestion meaning OP will absorb nutrients more efficiently, instead of pooping most of it out
I assure you, people can easily get most of the nutrients from food without fibers. In fact, overweight people don’t usually eat much fiber at all.
Besides, more full = eat less = groceries stretch further
Again, talking about a person who already has zero appetite and is at an unhealthy low weight, at least according to themselves. Eat less = die of malnutrition at this rate.
Overweight doesn’t necessarily equate to over-nourished. Someone can be overweight and still have malnutrition. Fiber is important for everyone, regardless of body type.
Also, eating a fiber-rich diet isn’t going to kill anyone, even if they are recovering from anorexia and need to put on weight. Feeling satisfied sooner because of the fiber content in a meal isn’t the same thing as eating nothing. And it’s more nourishing than low-fiber options.
Plus, in terms of gastrointestinal health, fiber can significantly improve appetite over time. So using no appetite as a reason to avoid fiber is a bit counter-intuitive.
Regardless, ideally OP will consult with their doctor and follow their advice. Lemmy isn’t the place to get critical medical guidance. But when it comes to tips on simple, easy-to-digest foods to eat on a budget, which is what was asked for, I’ve offered my input. Beyond that, I’m not here to defend a thesis.
You still need fiber though. It woud be remiss to give this person a recommendation without considering nutrients. You can’t live entirely on bread and potatoes without supplementing other things.
Person said they’re borderline anorexic and have no appetite. Person might literally not get enough calories if they up their fiber intake.
Beans also complete protein with potatoes. Humans should always easy beans with some carb. Rice, bread, potatoes, yams, corn.
Have you tried eating more butter with your bread and potatoes?
Butter is too expensive to buy consistently. It’s for special recipes only. So no, I have not tried that.
Then use oil and applies this advice. Since a few years, I have had to out butter in my regular diet but olive or vegetable oil replace it very well in any place but toast and pastry.
Tried that. Cheap beer is what finally slowed down my metabolism enough.
But peanut butter is super cheap per calorie, and is super calorie dense.
I gues alcoholism DOES solve SOME problems. But I don’t want to tempt the toothless snake. He’ll be upset I get to drink beer and he can’t. Too many problems that can only be solved with the blunt end of a bottle.
Do you use spices or hot sauce to add flavor?
A slow cooker could make soups and stews with potwtoes and whatever vegtables or scraps.
Im sure lentils will send a represenitive to talk about them.
Lentils are lit.
Seriously, I wish I ate more of them as they’re such a lovely cereal crop that just gets ignored. And cheap af too.
cheese and joghurt is a good source of protein. try to eat a lot of protein and do muscle work out to not only gain fat mass but lean mass aswell. because if youre ana it might be that your body already “consumed” a lot of your muscle mass to retain enegery.
PS: coming from a former ana
I try my best with protein. Eggs, cheese, sometimes dairy or meat. Even an odd protein bar every once in a while. But I have noticed no difference.
Actually, I chipped my tooth on one of the protein bars, so I guess there IS a difference now, if you really look for it.
ouch, that sucks, sorry about that. you need about 2 x the amount of protein in grams of your bodyweight in kg. so when you weigh 45 kg for example, you would need to consume about 90 g of protein while training to build muscle. of you reach that, odds are that you also increase your kcal intake aswell.
From what I’ve gleamed just reading through your responses it seems you are mostly looking to keep to your current routine but supplement it with something calorie dense. Really the only way to do that without simply eating more mass is to find a way to add more oil to your foods. Something like canola or soybean oils are very cheap and are around 500 calories for 1/4 cup or 60ml.
You can either add that with cooking or learn to make simple oil based sauces to add to the meals you already like. Something like mayonnaise is simple to make at home and is mostly just oil and eggs. I would also recommend a multivitamin, as it’s going to be cheaper than modifying your diet with an arrangement of veggies.
