Let me start by saying I have a good job. I have a job that pays me well. They don't seem to mind if at times I'm underqualified or a bit overwhelmed. Either way I'm not doing this because I have to... it's an experiment, this is science.

Here are the rules and constraints for my experiment:
- I can't spend more than $1 for a meal.
- I can't eat more meals than breakfast and lunch (no elevensies). This should be a meal that can sustain me for the high-impact white collar job.
- It goes without saying that as I'm attempting to do with only a dollar a meal I will be stealing as much as I possibly can.

So here's my first recipe:
Ghetto Office Tuna Salad

Everything except the tuna in the recipe was taken from the condiments tray in my office cafeteria. That means this meal cost me a whopping: $0.44. Regular price for bumblebee is $0.69 but a quick swipe of my safeway card saved two bits.

Ingredients:
* 1 can of BumbleBee Tuna (I used the "Light in Water", but I guess "In Oil" would be just fine.)
* 3 pkts of mayonnaise
* 1 pkt of sweet relish
* 3 pkts of pepper
* 1 pkt of salt
* 1 pkt of mustard
* half a pkt of hot sauce
* as many pkts of crackers as you can steal

This isn't rocket science... drain the tuna in a sink and then open everything except the crackers and mix it together. Eat the mix with crackers. (For completeness I mixed everything in a bowl I got from afore mentioned cafeteria.)

Neoteric wrote:

So here's my first recipe:
Ghetto Office Tuna Salad

Everything except the tuna in the recipe was taken from the condiments tray in my office cafeteria. That means this meal cost me a whopping: $0.44. Regular price for bumblebee is $0.69 but a quick swipe of my safeway card saved two bits.

Ingredients:
* 1 can of BumbleBee Tuna (I used the "Light in Water", but I guess "In Oil" would be just fine.)
* 3 pkts of mayonnaise
* 1 pkt of sweet relish
* 3 pkts of pepper
* 1 pkt of salt
* 1 pkt of mustard
* half a pkt of hot sauce
* as many pkts of crackers as you can steal

Okay, I typed in your recipe to my nutritional-analysis software (DietOrganizer v1.3), and here's what I came up with.

Note: I made the assumption that the tuna fish mixture would get you through about 10 saltine crackers. If you'd like me to plug in a different number, let me know.

With the tuna, the condiments, and the crackers, the nutrition comes out as:

Calories: 480 (about 25% of a typical day's calories)
Fat: 35 grams (about 82% of recommended maximum)
Protein: 15 grams
Carbohydrates: 25 grams
Saturated fat: 4.5 grams

Sodium: 1590 mg (over 50% of recommended maximum)
Cholesterol: 45 mg
Fiber: .5 grams

Eating this mixture about 4 times a day (to reach 2000 calories/day) would:

- Definitely keep you alive, though it would mean that you were eating a diet that was: 13% protein, 21% carbohydrates, and 66% fat

- Only give you 10% of daily fiber requirements

Or in other words, prepare for heart and circulatory problems if doing it on a longterm basis.

In terms of other nutrients, it's a mixed bag. You'd be getting adequate amounts of vitamin C, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, and Folate. However, there would be very little in the way of Iron, Calcium, Vitamin B6, and zero Vitamin D or B12.

Recommendations: Include a multivitamin with iron, a calcium supplement, and concentrate on getting fiber into one of the other meals. I'd also recommend switching from 3 packets of mayo, to 1 packet of light mayo, which would bring the protein/carb/fat ratios more into line: 24/42/34, though that would also reduce the calories of one batch from 480 to 260, so it would require several additional batches per day to meet calorie requirements. The next gating factor would be sodium, since at that point you'd be getting 400% of the recommended maximum. Though you might be able to find a place to swipe some salt-free crackers.

For me, to reach the "$1 per meal" goal, I'd go with protein bars. You can buy them in bulk at places like Sam's Club (or online) for about $1 each. The main minuses that I saw with the bars I checked, were that they're low on fiber, and a bit *too* low fat to be comprehensive, but you can get that taken care of by going into a nightclub and grabbing a handful of (free) peanuts. Eat the below and you're at 1922 calories/day, with protein/carb/fat ratio at 23/52/24, and all nutrients taken care of:

* 4 Protein bars per day
* .5 cup of bran cereal
* .5 cup of whole milk
* 2 ounces of peanuts, scrounged from a bar somewhere
* 2 bananas (for potassium)

Looking forward to your next recipe,

Elonka :)