| Amount | Ingredient | $ / day | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 147 | g | Peas, Split, Dry | $0.66 | |
| 8 | g | Flaxseed Meal | $0.05 | |
| 11 | g | Rice, Brown | $0.05 | |
| 0.5 | pill | Source Naturals, Inositol & Choline | $0.04 | iherb |
| 3.1 | g | Now Foods Calcium Citrate | $0.10 | iherb |
| 0.2 | pill | Source Naturals, Vitamin K, 500 mcg | $0.01 | iherb |
| 0.1 | pill | iHerb Nutritionals, Vitamin D3 | $0.00 | iherb |
| 1 | pill | Kirkland Signature Daily Multi Vitamin & Mineral with Lycopene and Lutein | $0.09 | eBay |
| 2 | g | MSM (optional) | $0.12 | eBay |
| 8.15 | g | Diet Rite Salt Lite (optional) | $0.12 | Coles |
| 75 | g | Canola Oil (Example Only - Don't Add!) | $0.00 | |
| 68 | g | Brown Sugar (Example only - Don't Add!) | $0.00 | |
| 0 | g | READ THE NOTES SECTION FOR DETAILS! | $0.00 | |
Amounts for: Total Daily Cost: | $1.23 | Add Ingredients to Amazon Cart | ||
Based on SimpleCheapVeganNoSoy.
This recipe is designed to be a frequent meal replacement, but not a complete diet - it's more for the busy/poor/lazy person than the hardcore soylent consumer.
Without the optional extras, it works out to be just $0.99/day.
It's cheap, vegetarian, simple, and with plenty of room for bad food in the calories, carbs and fat. For a vegan mod, the vitamin D capsules and the Multivitamin need to be changed. It seems as if the VitaminShoppe's "One Daily Men's Multivitamin" doesn't contain any animal products, but you'd need to confirm it first.
There is brown sugar and canola oil in this recipe but only as an example to show how much space there is in this recipe to eat fats and carbs. Don't add the canola oil or the sugar, leave it out so you have space in your diet for snack foods and eating out.
There is plenty of Sodium, Potassium and Chloride supplied by the Salt Lite for completeness, but you can drop that from the recipe if you prefer eating some salty snacks and having a cup of tea or coffee daily.
This can be used for a calorie-restricted diet as is though you will likely want to add some extra protein by increasing the amount of split peas or adding your own protein powder, and the fat can easily be supplemented with a couple of tablespoons of coconut oil or you could add extra flax seed instead. Adding extra brown rice will fill out the carbs if you are aiming to make it a complete food.
This one has Vitamin K from a supplement to replace the Kale, which makes the overall recipe cost cheaper. Kale is one of the "dirty dozen" of most chemical-sprayed foods, so unless it's organic kale powder it's probably not a great thing to have anyway.
Magnesium is also lower than the RDI. 30g (1 oz) of Cashews or Almonds will make that up (if you drop the Salt Lite, then you can eat salted nuts instead.) Or you can get fancy and use ~10g of Agar powder to hit the Mg requirements and to add extra insoluble fiber to help keep you feeling full through the day. A small amount of chives, mint, coriander leaf/cilantro, wheat bran or cocoa powder daily will also hit the mark as alternatives.
I have added some MSM for completeness. You can drop the MSM if you eat a small amount of onions or garlic each day (which are in everything anyway) or just leave it in to be certain.
If you are veg you need be careful with your consumption of nutritional yeast flakes/savoury yeast flakes on this diet because it is already at the upper limits of Folate (AKA Folic acid, B9) intake. Long-term impacts of high B9 intake may increase risk of cancer, so speak to a doctor or nutritionist first if you are planning to take this on as a long-term meal replacement.
Basic items can be sourced locally to avoid high postage costs:
Indian grocers often sell large bags of brown rice and bags of split peas (known as peeli mattar dal in Hindi) cheaply.
Flax seed can be bought cheaply from bulk foods or whole foods stores.
Ingredients can be ground in a coffee grinder to save trying to find a cheap source of split pea powder or flax meal, as they are often much cheaper bought whole (and flax keeps much better this way too.)
Having trouble digesting this soylent recipe?
Are you planning on using this recipe as the majority of your dietary intake?
Concerned about phytate/phytic acid?
Then you need to take these steps to neutralize the phytate (Instructions borrowed from It's People!'s Bulkco, Choc/Banana note)
Take split peas, rice, flaxseed and cover with boiling water. Make sure to use plenty, as the peas and rice will absorb a lot of water. Stir in 45ml of apple cider vinegar, or you could use a few tablespoons of yoghurt, whey, or lemon juice as an alternative.
Leave for a minimum of 12 hours, preferably 24. (Too much longer and you will end up fermenting your beans.)
Blend until smooth.
If you find the mixture is too acidic a small pinch of bi-carb soda (baking soda) will help neutralize the acidity, keeping in mind that this will increase your overall sodium. You can also pour off the acidic water and blend with fresh water instead (even rinsing once or twice before blending if you still find it too acidic.)