Hungry entrepreneurs eat up Y Combinator's help | Hacker News Reader

Hungry entrepreneurs eat up Y Combinator's help

usatoday.com

33 pointsjcwentz21 comments

Speaking of "Hungry":

> If you must live on a diet of Lean Cuisine, try the Swedish meatballs.

I don't understand this part. Eating healthy isn't much more expensive than eating poorly. Why sacrifice your health and risk your mental abilities by eating crap? That seems like a stupid investment.

If you want to cut back on food bills, lose the energy drinks... especially Red Bull. That's my personal experience.

Also, fruits, vegetables, breads, nuts... these things can be eaten at your desk while you work.

If you're just gunning for maximum return on investment, note that (in my experience) you get the most protein per dollar from breadcrumbs, and the most calories per dollar from coconut milk. If you're going to be cheap and unhealthy, be that way sensibly.

Uh... I think that if you need to optimize "food expenses" to this extreme, you have much more serious problems than software.

Penny-wise, pound-foolish... wow

Don't forget that people also just enjoy the stereotype. Take it cum grano salis.

Food is something you eat every day. In this case, it's pennies that add up-- and pretty quickly. My monthly food bill (when I'm not skimping) is typically second only to rent and taxes.

Consider- 1/4 a box of that barilla pasta I mentioned... 400 calories costs maybe $0.50. Add sauce and you're maybe up to 500 calories and $1.00 for the meal. Drink water, or maybe a cup of gatorade for another $0.50. A meal for around $2.00. Cereal for breakfast is probably similar, $2.00-$2.50 per meal.

Ruling out breakfast, consider 2 meals a day for a month. At $2 for lunch and $2 for dinner for 31 days, that's $124/mo. A $7 lunch and a $10 dinner is $527/mo. In 3 months you'll have saved $1,200.

protein from breadcrumbs? No.

Krasdale seasoned bread crumbs have 96 calories for $1.69 pretax (in the C-Town grocery store in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn). I couldn't find a cheaper source. You?

What kind of healthy but extremely inexpensive diet do you recommend? It's the fresh produce that really adds up.

Are you in SV? The Milk Pail pretty much fixes that problem.

http://www.milkpail.com/

Sounds like an amazing place, but I don't know of anything like it on my side of the country.

Rice/Pasta/Corn, frozen/canned vegetables, a little meat/eggs.

I claim that food shouldn't have to be "extremely" inexpensive, merely reasonable. Eating a poor diet may save you $100 per month, but you risk getting sick and decreased productivity. That's like saving a minute while driving to not put on your seatbelt, eat, and talk on your cellphone.

@ rms: check out Trader Joe's. It's not a bargain, but it's much better than Safeway (which seems to be a front to sell soft drinks and snacks, not a grocery store). There's one in the San Antonio shopping center.

I recommend multi-grain pasta (Barilla seems to be good enough and very tasty). Lots of protein and complex carbs, some vitamins, and fiber. More expensive than regular pasta, but with tomato sauce it's still around a buck or two a meal (depends on how much you eat of course).

More hassle to prepare than Ramen, but not by much.

While Red Bull may be delicious, you can also add caffeine to your diet by buying kola nut or guarana. Iamshaman.com has kola nut powdered for $.99 an ounce. The guarana is $2.99 an ounce. They're both great flavors. If you make a strong kola or guarana solution, you can use it to flavor rum and cokes and other drinks. A house teaspoon of either is about equal to a cup of a coffee, which makes them a cheaper source of caffeine than any energy or coffee drink.

This place lets you get it wholesale if you want to try reselling it, they've also got bulk extracts with guaranteed caffeine levels. federalabs.com/1kilopricing.htm.

My preferred stimulant is Kratom.. Sometimes productivity boosts are worth using performance enhancing drugs, caffeine or otherwise. My Kratom site is http://www.getkratom.com and please email if you have any questions.

Then there are other drugs that can make you smarter, or at least measurably increase working memory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracetam. Get your nootropics at www.bulknutrition.com.

Fruits and breads are expensive because of how much time it takes to obtain them. You have to buy them fresh every few days, which means taking time out to visit the supermarket.

And there are many cases where healthy is more expensive. A tiny bottle of pom wonderful is $5, where a huge bottle of off-brand soda is $1.50. Breaded fish sticks are a lot cheaper than a fresh salmon and a lot easier to prepare.

If you downmodded the above post, I would be interested to know why. Feel free to email me at the above username @goladus.com if you do not wish to post publically. Put "ycombinator" in the subject line.

I consider it succinct, informative, and accurate; if there is a problem with it I do not know what it is. I would be happy to clarify if there is any confusion.

The only interesting part was that PG, a quintessential rational man, is apparently a vegetarian. My brain exploded.

There's reason to believe intelligence and vegetarianism are at least correlated. It certainly matches with my experience. The two smartest I personally know find eating meat disgusting.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6180753.stm

will PG please share his chicken stew recipe with us?

(If he wants, I can give him one of my recipes too).

Go to nearby lake with laptop and fishing rod.

Catch 2 lbs of fish. Clean. Cut into nuggets.

go to store and buy catfish nuggets. (Walmart sells $10 for a 5 lbs box).

Mix together the following:

1 tsp black pepper powdered + 1 tsp salt + 0.5 tsp chilli powder + 0.5 tsp turmeric powder.

coat the fish nuggets with it.

heat oil in a shallow pan just enough to shallow fry.

When very hot, place fish in gently. lower heat to medium. cover. after 3-5 mins, flip fish to fry other side. fish must be browned, not black.

if you flip fish prematurely, outer layer will scrape off.

eat with white rice.

(you can buy Chinese rice from Sams Club. $5 for a 20 lb bag)

(Turmeric can be gotten cheaply from an Indian store).

All that promising talent, consumed by cannibals. The travesty!

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