Eating cheap

Humble pie. That which we are forced to eat when humiliatingly wrong. But also one of my favourite foodstuffs! The secret to a great pie lays in the secret ingredient of… pie. It’s hard to get a pie wrong (although if you serve it with mashed potatoes and/or peas on top – congratulations, you’ve managed).

It’s also the first thing I’d reach for when I want a quick, low fuss meal. New Zealand is great for pies (barring aforementioned serving style) and a good pie can be got for dirt cheap. Take this family pie from Fresh Choice – unfortunately Fresh Choice don’t display nutrition labels on their website but fortunately I happen to have one in the fridge. One $10 pie contains 1,735 kCal.

^{N.B. They recommend three servings, but depending on how you vary your meal sizes, I’d make it two for a large lunch, or three for a smaller dinner.}

A price comparison

That’s 174 kCal/$ – how does that stack up? A famously student – and therefore cheap – meal of beans on toast should be a worthy contender. Let’s try to get 900 kCals of beans in our bellies!

I’m going to look at two options – the first is the absolute cheapest beans on toast possible. The second uses seeded bread and slightly more expensive beans, to give a slightly better meal (although you really shouldn’t be relying on this for particularly good nutritional value). The bread’s will be:

1. Pam’s Value White Toast Fresh Sliced Bread – coming in at 781 kCal/$
2. Freya’s Swiss Soya Linseed Bread – tipping the scales at 481 kCal/$

For beans, I’ll pair Pam’s to Pam’s, and Freya’s to Wattie’s (I’m desperate to compare to Heinz – the _correct_ brand of baked beans, but given this is a blog about eating cheap, I’ll have to draw the line):

1. Pam’s Value Baked Beans – 350 kCal/$
2. Wattie’s Baked Beans – 139 kCal/$
3. (FYI Heinz came in at a measly 97 kCal/$. They do taste good, though)

Britain has, as expected, provided an answer to the question of the right bread-to-bean ratio, coming in at 4 slices per tin (~400 g) of beans. This is serious research being done for you – my one reader!

I’m making an assumption that a listed serving of bread is two slices – it looks to be about right based on how many slices are in a bag. That means per tin of beans, with four slices of bread, we’re looking at:

1. Pam/Pam – 662 kCal per four slices or 1 tin of beans – for a cost of $1.37
2. Freya/Wattie – 874 kCal per four slices of 1 tin of beans – for a cost of $3.86

Adding an extra pair of slices of bread and half a tin of beans to the Pam/Pam combo to bring it up to 993 kCal gives a final price of $2.06.

I consider the range of 874 – 993 to be good enough for this, considering you’re not going to be eating half a slice of bread with a spoonful of beans.

Bean-to-pie

If you have the absolute cheapest beans, with the absolute cheapest bread, then you’re paying around $2 for nearly half of your daily calories (assuming you’re around 2,000 kCal). That’s incredible value, but unlikely to be sustainable as a long term diet without incurring some major issues.

If you want to add a bit of flavour* then you can move upmarket, get a bit more fibre and spend $3.86 for about the same. It’s a big step up, but with that you get some more protein, and around twice the fat. Not to mention the fibre – which really is important. Fibre isn’t listed on the online nutrition info but for the macros you’re looking at:

Combo	Protein (g)	Fat (g)	Carbs (g) / Sugars (g)
Pam/Pam	39	6.6	179.1 / 35.7
Freya/Wattie	43.6	13.2	95.9 / 35.4

Meanwhile our pie is coming in at $5 for a ~900 kCal portion. That yields:

Pie	Protein (g)	Fat (g)	Carbs (g) / Sugars (g)
BoB Creamy Chicken	30.6	62.4	37.2 / 2.7

I’ll admit, I was surprised at how low the protein was. But equally, pay a little extra and you’re getting around 1/8th the sugar. Not to mention the semblance of vitamins – this pie contains hints of carrot, onion, and celery – for a broader range of vitamins than will be found in just beans on toast. Again – I am not a nutritionist, but you’ll find more of vitamins A and K in foods with carrot and celery, without missing anything from the beans (thanks onion).

Whichever way you slice it

Ultimately the choice is yours. At these levels, for a quick and easy meal, I’d opt for the $5 pie portion over $2 of cheap beans on toast, every time. That’s the difference between around 15 minutes of work (at minimum wage) and around 6 minutes.

I’ll work 9 minutes more for a pie.