I don’t know where to post this, so I’m posting it here.
I need to gain some weight because I’m borderline anorexic. But I can’t afford much more than bread, potatoes, eggs and cheese, That is my diet. And I hate eating it. It’s the only thing I can stomach that is cheap, but I hate it. I don’t want to eat eggs and potatoes for the rest of my life. I would rather die of malnutrition, like I am currently doing.
I have no appetite, but that is a symptom of something else. Ideally, there is a way to gain weight while eating less mass. Something calorie dense.
I might be slightly exaggerating. But for the last couple of years I’ve been eating potatoes and eggs for almost every single meal of the day. And yes, I eat one warm meal a day. Sometimes I suppliment with some bread to stop the hunger pains. Sometimes I also eat a piece of vegetable.
Peanut butter
Can’t go wrong here. High calorie density. Best tasting food; fight me. And actually pretty healthful.
If you get pure peanut peanut butter. A lot of the shelf stuff has tons of sugar and salt added. Usually I’ll buy the pure stuff and cut it with a small amount of the other to sweeten it
In a thread about how to gain weight, you are advising against sugar sweetened peanut butter.
In a thread about how to survive on very little money you are advising the most expensive peanut butter option.
Get the cheapest, sugariest, oiliest jar you can find. Salt is not evil either.
Good point. Salt DOES drive away evil spirits. It can’t be bad.
spoiler
Not for the body anyway. Maybe for the spirit.
Hey my dude, you need some recipes and some mental health. Im happy to help on both fronts if you need.
Eggs and potatoes are easily the two most versatile substances on the planet, other ingredients to make them into things are actually equally as cheap, spices look expensive until you realize that $4 lasts up to 6 months. To add to that, I was once an incredibly picky eater and found personally and through feeding others that, outside of phobia and dietary constraints, the majority of food preferences is based on a history of bad cooking. Give me deets on your dietary limits and I’ll give you every recipe I know. If there’s anything you’re willing to experiment with, I’ll teach you everything you need to enjoy it. Anything from dry beans, to tofu, to grinding your own amaranth or acorns for flour.
If you’re in the western world, mental health services are decently accessible, even in the US without insurance. Shoot me a DM me your location and situation and I’ll do all the leg work, all you’ll have to do is make the appointment.
As for the information provided, the recipe that springs to mind is cheese gnochi bites.
You’ll need 3 large russet potatoes 2 eggs 1 cup shredded chedder or other strong cheese 1 cup flour Salt, pepper, garlic to taste Oil to fry in
Microwave the potatoes until baked, immediately shock in cold tap water and peal by hand. (fantastic trick for any mashed potatoes as it not only takes less time but does not add any moisture leading to fluffier potatoes)
In a large bowl, mash the potatoes and add the cheese, mix so that the cheese melts and spreads evenly.
Once incorporated, feel mix, if still hot, let it cool until luke warm or cool to the touch then mix in the eggs and spices.
Finally, add flour until it holds together when scooped.
Heat oil on medium in either a pot or skillet depending on oil availability and intended shape.
If using a pot with at least an inch of oil, scoop a glob of potato with a spoon and use another spoon to scrape it into the pot. Fry until golden all the way around.
If using a skillet with shallow oil, put the glob in the pan and gently press it flat leaving some thickness. Then flip like a Patty when golden.
If you have access to gallon bags, you can put the mix in the bag, cut off a corner, and squeeze the mix into the fry like a piping bag. Either making dollups for deep oil or doing a tight spiral for shallow.
Let cool on a wire rack but eat warm. Oil can be strained of bits and stored to fry with later.
You can also add extra cheese and cook in an air-fryer but the texture won’t be fried so much as baked. The extra cheese gets more oil in the mix to help the exterior crust up.
You are a wonderful human being. I hope you always have equally awesome peers by your side whenever you need them.
That sounds like food. If I don’t get literally crucufied for trying to fry something I will try it.
I wonder if my aversion to cooking has something to do with the constant criticism and threats I get… Oh well.
You get threats? For what?
My dude, that does not sound like a great environment. What’s going on?
Fry potatoes, boil potatoes, bake potatoes… They will taste very differently. Use seasoning. Don’t be shy on salt/pepper/whatever your culture uses. Eggs can be very different too besides fried or boiled: soak bread with egg and fry it. Very tasty. Add some flour or whatever you have in the fridge to make an omelette. Not a fan of cheese, but I am sure there are many ways to use it too.
Seasoning is the key - i was in a similar situation to op, I figured out how to make breakfast sandwiches that I love out of ingredients that are palatable to me. I use rotisserie chicken, spinach, eggs, and previously ovened cubed potatoes, broccoli or whatever veggies I could afford and bought that week. I’d used salt, pepper, smoked paprika, garlic powder on the ovened veggies and put them in the fridge, buy bulk eggs for cheap, buy bulk croissants, but any carb will do or just skip it and make an omelet.
I toast the bread in the pan. Cheap pan spray, throw in hand shredded chicken pieces, cold veggies, eggs on top of that, and here’s what made the difference for me - then sprinkle Tony’s Cajun on that while it cooks, flip, top with bulk cheese of choice, sprinkle nutritional yeast on top for gut health, bam, now it’s delicious thanks to those added flavors. I actually now love having my same meal every morning and the leftovers a few hours later for lunch. I vary my dinners, but breakfast and lunch are always the same aside from varying veggies in the mix.
Sandwitches and fried bread requires chewing. My teeth are coming loose (probably because of the malnutrition). It’s a bit hard/painful to bite and chew things.
Chicken is expensive. So is cheese. I can afford up to two to three slices a day when rationing for the whole month.
But spinach and broccoli do sound nice. I’ll buy some next month, when I can afford anything aside from the very basics. And eating those will help me gain weight?
Based on your diet you might have scurvy
Her some vitamin c in you! Better yet: take a complete multivitamin daily.
Based on your responses here I think you will object that they are too expensive. But they’re cheaper than the dental care you will need for the rest of your life without meeting your nutritional needs.
I get vitamin C. Oh wait, the energy drink I supplement with has every vitamin under the sun EXCEPT vitamin C. Thanks. I shall raid the medicine cabinet in search of those precious yellow tablets.
And do not worry. Dental care is free.
Wouldn’t a multivitamin be cheaper than an energy drink?
Per day a multivitamin is way cheaper. But per container it probably seems like a “big” investment for the multivitamin jar.
No, drop the energy drink completely. What are you thinking, that’s your problem right there. It’s expensive, and probably accounts for half your food spending. It’s also fucking terrible health wise especially if you aren’t eating much of anything else. There is no such thing as “supplementing” with an energy drink.
Things that are cheap and good imo: rice, lentils, bulk nuts, canned beans, tuna tin cans and veggies in general. Porridge sucks but it’s easy to make and cheap. If you want to avoid energy use while cooking, look into cooking in a thermos, stuff like couscous, porridge or noodle soups.
Hunt specials and change where you buy thing if needed. If you don’t like veggies, boil and blend. Ration of like 1/3 potato, 2/3 veggie, stock, plus some onion and garlic.
Get the oil, it’s basically where people get half their calories.
What’s your budget anyways (food total, include the money spent on fast food and energy drinks).
I’m glad you’re looking into vitamin c deficiency. I wasn’t listing my ingredients as suggestions, I was explaining what worked for me and hope you find some analogous recipe for your own meals. I hope you land on something affordable, maintainable, healthy and delicious!
If dental care is free, go see a dentist asap and tell them about your issues.
If medical care is free or cheap I highly recommend you see a doctor as well, to tell them about your issues around food and eating, both emotional and physical.
They can prescribe high calorie, high nutrition drinks to supplement and support your diet. And a lactose neutraliser if you’re intolerant and the drinks contain milk. And possibly an appetite stimulator to make eating seem more appetising.
Oil is expensive. So is electricity. Boiling is cheapest.
And I’m looking to gain weight, not make my food less miserable.
On a calories per dollar-ratio, oil is probably at least one quarter of the price of potatoes.
The difference in electricity costs is not going to be significant in the context since you’ll make back the money on the calories you ingest from the oil instead of more potatoes.
Cooking potatoes in oil is also very significantly less miserable than eating boiled potatoes, and this is coming from someone that actually likes boiled potatoes quite a bit
Oil is calories. Oil helps you gain weight. Same for butter, margarine and lard. If you can find a good price on any fat, buy it and use it.
Potatoes are actually super filling per calorie, one of the first and best foods I recommend for weight loss. The potatoes/eggs/cheese combo is especially filling, basically you’ve dialed into a budget conscious survival meal.
But you need to gain weight without spending much more money. What do you have to cook with? Knife cutting board pots pans stove?
First great option is soup. Pre fry aromatics directly in the pot (carrots, celery, onion, whatever you can get). Be HEAVY with oil, I recommend light olive oil. Heavier than you probably think with salt too. Then add mass (potatoes) and water. Dried lentils and split peas don’t need to be soaked overnight, just add them in and let them simmer for the last half hour. Tons of cheap calories and seasoning. Season with anything you have.
Then get into white rice. There’s a cost barrier here but if you can save up enough for a large 20lb bags the cost per meal is extraordinarily low. Tons of calories and doesn’t really fill you. Have it with the soup or as a bed under other veggies. Overdoing it with the rice can cause some health issues relating to blood sugar but it’s an extremely easy and cheap way to add 2-400 calories to a couple meals a day.
Check clearance for oily sauces. This is basically the reverse advice compared to weight loss - a lot of innocuously small jars can easily contain over 2,000 calories. If you can get them at 25% cost that’s a ton of weight gain potential and will help give you flavor variety and make your meals more calorific.
Just a few thoughts. Wish I could help, I know this situation sucks
Your sound advice and my visceral reaction to it have been a wakeup call for me. I need therapy ASAP. They need to cure my autism so that I can eat poor people food like I deserve. Because just thinking about eating lentils and peas makes me retch in disgust. I hate peas. And lentils are related to peas, so I hate them by association.
Thanks for the advice. Despite my reaction, it is more than reasonable. I will attempt consuming more nasty… nasty rice. School food really made me hate rice…
Just remember: the school rice is not your rice; make the rice your own with butter, tumeric, a little bullion cube or dust, maybe some black pepper. Those very basic spices are relatively cheap (typically less than $5 for all three).
Considering your teeth situation soup may be your best bet since they mostly have liquid and soft veggies, but consider this: the crappy peas/lentils/chickpeas or whatever you had previously can be made to your own personal taste standards until you think it tastes good.
You can put spices on rice? You have opened a new dimension of cooking to me. Why did I never think of that? Probably because I never seen anyone doing it. Or because I’m stupid. Depends on who you ask.
Put a bouillon cube in the water with the rice while it’s cooking, a knob of butter on top when it’s almost done, and some tumeric when fluffing it. Add garlic you’re golden!
YOU CAN PUT SPICES ON EVERYTHING. YOU HAVE FREE WILL :D
If school made you sour on rice, I found the slightly pricier Jasmin rice to taste way different to the Basmati rice common in cafeterias. In a big sack, they’re both pennies per meal, though you should probably check if it’s to your taste with a smaller sample first.
Hi I have basically the same problem.
a) take a fucking multivitamin before you get fucking
scurvy(til dv vitC of potatoes), anemia, rickets, Wernicke’s encephalopathy, or some other crazy shit in 20 fucking 26.b) find a high calorie protein shake you can stomach enough to keep down. If you’re only eating like one meal a day anyway you can splurge a little on something premixed and tastier. There’s a weirdly ritzy gas station chain near me that does a lovely strawberry banana smoothie that sits real well on my stomach, and I always get the yogurt scoop and protein shot.
c) start mixing your white sauces (anything that would normally have mayo, sour cream, or runny white cheese) with plain greek yogurt to give you a better fat / protein balance to all those carbs.
d) oh and you need metamucil. Desperately. Food that is both tasty and inoffensively bland is almost by definition low in fiber. And tbh you might find giving your bowels a good scrubbing may affect your appetite for the better.
At risk of going off-topic, exercise?
I don’t mean run marathons, but just stuff at home. Knee push ups, sit ups, squats, standing on your toes, sitting in a chair to lift your leg with your biceps; whatever you can manage until you are little winded.
You will gain some weight, keep more of the calories you ingest, and eating will feel better too.
I’d recommend some beans too. I like black bean bowls with rice, and both are cheap.
Have you tried eating more butter with your bread and potatoes?
Butter is too expensive to buy consistently. It’s for special recipes only. So no, I have not tried that.
For calorie dense you can’t do better than fat. Oil might be ‘expensive’ but it is one of the cheapest things to buy on a per calorie basis and you only need a teaspoon to fry an egg or make mashed potatoes taste half-decent. You would be surprised how much better potatoes and eggs can be with a little fresh chill pepper or coriander if you can find it. The better it tastes the easier it is to eat. One more tip… Canned condensed milk. It’s cheap, calorie dense and delicious. A spoon a day will last weeks. Delicious in tea and coffee. Good luck!
Where do you live where condensed milk is cheap? It’s the price of liquid gold where I live. Also, I am unfortunately lactose intolerant. And I have not seen lactose-free condensed milk anywhere.
Tried that. Cheap beer is what finally slowed down my metabolism enough.
But peanut butter is super cheap per calorie, and is super calorie dense.
I gues alcoholism DOES solve SOME problems. But I don’t want to tempt the toothless snake. He’ll be upset I get to drink beer and he can’t. Too many problems that can only be solved with the blunt end of a bottle.
As someone who’s been cooking every meal with what is largely the same four to five ingredients for the past six months due to the economic situation here, I can say with confidence that varying preparation methods and spice profiles is key to thriving in spite of repetition.
Potatoes like the ones in your picture? Use them to make something akin to boxty: https://donalskehan.com/recipes/boxty-irish-potato-pancakes/
Unless you’re planning to make mash, though, you might benefit more from a method other than boiling your potatoes. Baking is far less effort and if you don’t feel like sticking them in the oven for an hour, you can microwave them for 6 minutes or so in a 1,000 watt microwave (if theyre still not soft, use more time).
What kind of bread are you working with?
Eggs, potatoes, cheese, and “bread” (traditionally tortillas, but wheat flour is wheat flour) are primary ingredients for a breakfast burrito. Splash of cumin, pinch of paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt (maybe a tiny pinch of chili powder, cilantro, oregano, annato, and coriander if you have them, or lime juice, or tomato) if you can squish the bread flat and warm it in a pan a little you can slightly crisp up one side for texture and make an improv breakfast burrito sandwich.
Polish https://eatingeuropean.com/authentic-polish-pierogi-potatoes-cheese/
Or even
Japanese https://www.kaveyeats.com/hokkaido-potato-cheese-dumplings-chizu-imomochi
Kitchens have been known to make potato cheese dumplings. Make the innards and serve as a spread on pan-fried (low heat) bread if you can’t make the dumpling exterior. (Edit – just saw that you said you’re from an eastern european country and I just recommended dumplings. LOL. That’s like asking an american if they’ve ever eaten a hot dog. I feel a tad silly. )
Italian potato frittata: https://cookingitalians.com/the-classic-italian-potato-frittata/
I’m sure someone has reccomended a Potato cheese omelette, but you can do those lots of ways, from a souffle omelete (separate eggs, whip the whites into stiff peaks, then fold in the yolks so it’s super fluffy) to gyeran-mari type rolled omelette https://www.koreanbapsang.com/gyeran-mari-korean-rolled-omelette/
Got sugar? Tired of eating bread in bread form?
French Toast Casserole: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/240502/easy-french-toast-casserole/
I’ll edit the post to add more if I think of them, but I’m not awake yet.
Edit – just read your comment about the sugar tax. Boo :(
And about boiling being cheaper. (which is weird to me because boiling water is one of the most energy expensive methods of cooking when i go camping, but that might be due to wind, and as you said, circumstances are different in your area of the world, so boiling it is )
I saw rapeseed oil mentioned, got any other ingredients handy that you’re willing/able to use without causing family strife?
Even seemingly minor ingredients can make a big difference.
I’ll see what I can come up with for ideas.
The biggest thing you can do is to make the food you eat more enjoyable and eat more of it. I would have no appetite and starve if i had to eat your diet. The good news is that it’s possible to eat a lot better, but still very cheaply. Also you really need to eat two or preferably three or even four meals daily if you want to gain weight.
I would remove eggs and cheese as they aren’t a good value. Add black beans, chickpeas, and lentils, which are good over rice (very cheap, especially if you buy them dry in bulk). Pasta too. Add spices, cheap hot sauce, tomato sauce, etc and it becomes a good meal. Try oatmeal for breakfast too. I would also make sure that you are getting as many fruits and vegetables as possible (apples, bananas, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, etc. not too expensive but will complete the meals and provide good nutrition). Also consider pan frying the potatoes - it’s tastier than boiling.
No offense to you, but I read all the “bean-centric” comments as: “Yes, just add raw sewage to your food. It’s great!”
And you said “make the food you eat more enjoyable” and then gave me a meal plan written by Satan himself. BEANS AND RICE!!!
I would rather die than live off beans.
Thank you for the comment.
Do you like hummus? That’s not actually a suggestion in itself, I just know you’ve mentioned texture issues elsewhere in the thread.
If you do like hummus, that indicates that the bean aversion may be a problem with the way beans are prepared. Part of why they’re always recommended is how easy they are to flavor. They’re also pretty easy to make disappear into a dish. Although navigating that as a newer cook on a shoestring budget could be very challenging.
Do you use spices or hot sauce to add flavor?
A slow cooker could make soups and stews with potwtoes and whatever vegtables or scraps.
Im sure lentils will send a represenitive to talk about them.
Lentils are lit.
Seriously, I wish I ate more of them as they’re such a lovely cereal crop that just gets ignored. And cheap af too.
Have you heard of ARFID? A close family member, as well as my close friend’s autistic child have this disorder. Low appetite and the visceral reactions to various food items are common with this disorder
Interesting. That would explain why I shiver and want to vomit from the mere smell of fish. And I actually do vomit when I eat meat and the texture isn’t uniform. That’s why I am no longer capable of consuming sausage or canned meats. The texture literally makes me throw it back up.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Now I’ll have more things to bother my doctor about. 🙃
I’m reading more of your comments in your thread, and I really hope your doctor can help you out. Treatment for this can range from having a feeding port installed to therapy. My family member needed both a port and therapy, but is thriving now.
I also do really understand the texture thing, I have both AuDHD and a sensory processing disorder. If I’m severely stressed about anything, I end up living off safe soft food for a few weeks until my stressor has resolved. Because some textures feel less like food that will nourish me, and more like random objects that might cause me health issues if I try to digest them. That rubbery canned meat texture, especially if it’s accompanied by a layer of fat at the top of the can… 🤢 Yeah I totally understand that :/
cheese and joghurt is a good source of protein. try to eat a lot of protein and do muscle work out to not only gain fat mass but lean mass aswell. because if youre ana it might be that your body already “consumed” a lot of your muscle mass to retain enegery.
PS: coming from a former ana
I try my best with protein. Eggs, cheese, sometimes dairy or meat. Even an odd protein bar every once in a while. But I have noticed no difference.
Actually, I chipped my tooth on one of the protein bars, so I guess there IS a difference now, if you really look for it.
ouch, that sucks, sorry about that. you need about 2 x the amount of protein in grams of your bodyweight in kg. so when you weigh 45 kg for example, you would need to consume about 90 g of protein while training to build muscle. of you reach that, odds are that you also increase your kcal intake aswell.
Depends on how much you eat. If you have some idea of what your “ideal” calorie consumption per day is, your goal is to eat more than that. Bread is easier than potatoes because it’s more calorie-dense, i.e. you don’t have to eat as much of it.
You don’t really have to “cook” as in dirtying a lot of pans to make potatoes and bread more appealing.
- Nuke a potato and add salt and butter, and maybe a sprinkle of garlic and onion powder. Only takes a few seconds more than a plain potato.
- Get a big jar of jam and have butter and jam on your bread. Minimal effort, way more enjoyable.
- Low-effort grilled cheese sandwich: Put a slice of cheese between 2 pieces of toast, nuke 10 seconds, boom.
