Contest: The $5.99 Primal Value Meal
The Prize:
A yoga mat! Yoga is more than just exercise, it’s also a great way to relieve stress. And in the case of today’s prize, a great way to save the environment. Jade Yoga, today’s prize donor, is partnered with Trees for the Future to plant a tree for every mat they sell. Jade Yoga recently provided mats to the White House for children’s yoga on Easter Monday, and today they’re providing a professional natural rubber yoga mat in any choice of color to the contest winner.
The Contest:
Fast food value meals are such a farce. They certainly aren’t talking about nutritional value. And as for economical value, you pay $5.99 for a burger, fries, and soda that you would have paid $6.09 for if you’d bought them individually. If saving a dime on 2500 calories of sugar and trans fat is your idea of value, then you’re probably not the type of person who wants to win a yoga mat.
So, what does a Primal value meal look like? You tell me. For today’s contest I want you to create a Primal “fast food” meal in which all the ingredients can be purchased for $5.99 or less. That is, the recipe needs to be inexpensive and easy to eat on-the-go. Leave your recipe as a comment on this post.
Examples:
I’m looking for cheap recipes that satisfy this reader’s question. I offered up a few options. Now see what you can come up with!
Eligibility:
This prize is only available to residents of the 48 contiguous states. [If you don’t live in the U.S. and you win I’ll ship you a bottle of my Master Formula instead, and the mat will go to an alternate winner.]
The Contest End Time:
Midnight, tonight (August 25th)!
How the Winner Will Be Determined:
Executive decision. I’ll pick a favorite. That’s the winner.
To track all the contests visit The Primal Blueprint Health Challenge Contest Page for daily updates.
Visit The Primal Blueprint Health Challenge for challenge details.
Subscribe to Mark’s Daily Apple feeds
Posted By: Mark Sisson
My favorite easy meal is cottage cheese (from Trader Joe’s – no rBGH) with some great vine ripe tomatoes and basil. It’s awesome with some salt and pepper, super easy to throw together, and makes a great breakfast or lunch.
Good luck to finding your favorite easy and cheap meal!
So I’m probably late for the contest (I just got up), but I still want to share a few of my “readymade” lunches, none of which have to be expensive.
My favorite is called Scotch Eggs, which is basically a hard-boiled egg inside a meat ball. You just boil a bunch of eggs, peel them and cover them in sausage meat (don’t forget those spices and herbs!). Then just fry them, and when they are done, let them cool – voilà, two or three days worth of lunches. I like that they are good when eaten cold. You could always wrap them in lettuce (or chinese cabbage, or savoy cabbage) leaves if they are too greasy to handle, that way you get some greens.
Something else I like is basically anything grilled on a stick – Chicken Satays, Lamb Keftas, Mixed Shish Kebabs (in between pieces of meat,go wild on peppers, onions, zucchini, mushrooms, broccoli, whatever is in season where you live), liver on a stick… you get the idea. These, too, can be prepared ahead of time, and they keep in the fridge for a few days. They are very good cold. Don’t forget that you can grill fruit, too! Chicken satays with a bit of peach or pineapple thrown in, that’s like lunch and dessert in one. You don’t get messy fingers when you have a wooden or metal stick to hold, and you can drop it at a moment’s notice.
Anything good costs either time, work or money. If you want fast and cheap lunch, I thinks it’s best to invest a little work (i.e. preparing it yourself) once a week and then enjoying the fruits of that work all week long.
And just recently, I came across a recipe (will link if I remember the address…) for riceless maki rolls. It’s easy enough to make: You make a tamagoyaki (thin omelette), put that on top of the nori, and then fill with avocado, any veggies, fish, shrimps, whatever! If your budget is really tight, just use canned tuna.
Again, a dish that is good when eaten cold, but don’t make this one ahead for the whole week
Thanks, everybody, for some yummy ideas. It’s always good to have a bigger repertoire.
Found it! Michelle posted pictures of her riceless sushi here. You can also eat these things uncut, like a ehou maki, and then it’s like a sandwich.
Thanks for sharing such a nice post.
Freeze Dried and Frozen Fruit
I feed myself for $5.71 a DAY!
3 hard boiled eggs $0.24
10 oz of meatloaf $1.48
8 oz of Ribeye $3.99
I purchase a dozen eggs for $0.99 and hard boil them.
Meat loaf is 2lbs of ground beef at $1.99 a pound from Trader Joe’s. I combine this with 2 eggs, 5T of almond meal, salt, pepper and garlic powder and bake at 350 for 1.5 hours.
My dinner is 8oz of Ribeye, also from Trader Joe’s which costs $7.99 a pound. I could go HOG WILD CRAZY and eat the entire ribeye if I’m feeling really hungry, and I’d still be feeding myself for less than $10 a day.
That meat isn’t anything special though, TJ’s ground grass fed beef is $6.50 a lb (still an awesome deal). They don’t have any other beef that’s grassfed (I have to check on the roast organic beef- I can’t eat it due to the marinade ingredients). Lamb there is grassfed though and a decent value.
Even their free range eggs are apparently not ethical, they are debeaked. You can find a doz real pasture eggs for $5-8 around my town.
Very helpful site. Great post, finally a decent website with good information in it.
A cheap meal I’ve been loading up on lately:
1/4 lb grassfed ground beef ($1.50 from TJ)
plateful of arugula (figure 1/4 bag- arugula is $2 a bag so 50 cents)
tbsp of ghee, butter, or animal fat to fry the burger in (10 cents?)
spices, olive oil, vinegar
Fry up your burger in the fats, mix in some spices, and pour it over your arugula for a warm tasty salad. Easy to double if you’re hungry and you still probably aren’t at $5
Another awesome breakfast one:
3 chicken sausage links (12 for $3 so 75 cents a serving)
Almond pancakes, based off of Elana’s pantry website (I calculate this at around 1.40 to 1.50 a serving. I am easy on the sweetener, using either a SMALL amt of raw honey or xylitol, and adding extra water or liquid fat)
I eat this for breakfast often, it is so good. Probably around 2.50 including a nice cup of tea or joe, maybe with some coconut oil thrown in.
Again easy to double if you are still hungry!