Hi, long time vegan, but rather new to cycling. I used to be OMAD (please don’t question the health/fitness, I’m just poor, not ideological), but due to cycling I need to eat 2 meals to have the strength to get back home (riding uphill). I tried eating breakfast, but by the time I get to work and get through the shift, I think anything from breakfast is gone and useless, because I struggle with going uphill. I don’t struggle, however, if I eat lunch. But premade lunches are too expensive.
- I live completely alone.
- Buying entire lettuce and even just half a bread is too much for me and a part of it will go bad, making me feel awful (even environmental reasons aside, again, I’m poor, so it hurts more to spend money I don’t have much of on things in the end going to waste). No, I don’t want to seek ways to eat the exact same thing every single time, it’s making me depressed.
- I’m not interested in long preparation time nor cooking for the week. I don’t even own stuff I could pack food into, but I of course can buy one container suitable for whatever meal for work you may help me come up with.
- I enjoy the simplicity of putting cereals together via just putting them in a bowl and submerging them in m!lk, to give context for the simplicity I yearn for.
I will deeply appreciate no poor-shaming and being helpful over trying to impose a semblance of moral superiority over having different life ways than myself.
I’m from a poor family, so I don’t have experience with breakfasts/lunches at all. I spent my life eating dinner only.
I was thinking of oatmeal with fruit, but I have no idea if it’s a good idea…? I’ve never done oatmeal before. From what I’ve read, it’s done in minutes. But I also fear it will spill. Do lunch containers keep in soup-like food like oatmeal well? What cheap fruit goes well with it? Berries are mad expensive, I was thinking of buying pears, maybe apples, and cinnamon.
I would suggest avoiding letteuce since it is low calorie and more of a luxury as it doesn’t give you much fuel for biking. If you can’t eat much in a day, then what you do eat should have lots of energy and make you feel full. In a nutshell, calories will give you energy to bike and protein will make you feel fuller for longer.
Breakfast, you can do oatmeal for cheap. Look for bulk bags of quick oats. If you want to add fruit, frozen fruit is cheap and doesn’t spoil (which also saves money). I like blueberries. Just follow the instructions to cook with a pot. Or, if you have a microwave then that will speed things up - may also use less power/$$$ but not certain. For flavour, add some sugar. White will be cheapest. Brown sugar is tastier. And Imo tastiest is maple syrup but it’s expensive. PM me if you’re visiting Canada and I’ll hook you up if you’re in my area.
Brown rice and black beans or lentils are great staples that are CHEAP and much cheaper if you buy them dry, but it takes time to cook them. Find the biggest bag you can afford since it’ll save money on average. If you can bike to an Indian grocery store, they tend to have good prices there. Cook a pot of rice and lentils and this will work for lunch and dinner. Add some rice wine vinegar (apple cider vinegar or even regular will do if one is cheaper), oil (any kind will taste fine), and chop up some veg like bell pepper and onion and it’ll taste great. If you can swing it, adding some dried parsley, and dried dill will add more flavour, bonus for chopped frozen mango.
Another option is whatever pasta is on sale/cheapest - likely a white pasta, paired with canned sauce. It keeps for lunch if you reheat it and you can make one batch to eat for lunch and dinner. You can throw some red lentils in the sauce while you heat it and once they’re no longer hard in 15min or so, it’ll be ready to eat. This adds protein which makes you feel fuller longer. If you can swing it, you can add in some red peppers or mushrooms chopped for some extra veg.
At the end of the day, you’ll find that cooking new recipes really isn’t all that hard. All that is missing is knowing what to do, but google/YouTube can teach you anything these days.
I hope this helps. You surviving takes priority, so if you don’t eat vegan at any point, don’t let anybody fault you for it. Take care!
I’ve never even looked at frozen fruit. ^ ^’ I’ll go have a look once shops are open. I don’t have any sugar, because I never use it. I never had maple syrup, I’ll see if I can find it. I’m in Germany atm, quite far from Canada, but thank you for the offer!
I cannot eat any pasta. Beans are also a danger. My stomach gets irritated by these a lot. :'( I really like good rice, but idk what to eat it with. I used to try making tofu with spicy sauce to combine it with rice, but it felt really one note and exhausting to eat, if that makes sense. But I made my tofu in microwave and I don’t have one here.
I’ve been vegan for 8 years. I don’t get how people may not eat vegan when poor, considering the prices of animal body parts and how fast they spoil, since they’re literal corpses.