Eat a Vegan Diet for Under $5 a Day

Persons can eat a healthy vegan diet for less than $5 a day in most places here in the United States. Often foods that are good for us are cheaper than junk food.

Although eating a vegan diet can be cheaper than eating a diet that contains meat and dairy products, much of the information in this article applies even to persons who eat a diet that contains meat and dairy products.

Most of us can significantly reduce the amount of money we spend on food. Below I list some steps toward cutting food costs.

1. The first step (You may have guessed this one.) is to substantially reduce (or eliminate) eating at restaurants. Eating at restaurants is typically much more expensive than preparing and eating food at home--unless someone else is paying the restaurant bill. In addition, restaurant food often contains additives you don't want, such as extra salt.
   
2.  A second step is to buy dry beans instead of meats and poultry. A wide variety of beans are available in supermarkets, including pinto beans, great northern beans, black beans, kidney beans, cranberry beans, navy beans, and lima beans. Beans lack the fat that is in meats, and beans are typically cheaper than meats. Furthermore, beans are nutritious. For example, pinto beans and whole grain cornbread provide an excellent source of protein and amino acids. You can cook a big batch and freeze or refrigerate leftovers.
3. Third, eat a variety of whole grains instead of refined white flour products. Whole grain cornmeal, whole grain wheat flour, whole grain brown rice, and numerous other grains are available at reasonably cheap prices. My personal favorites are whole grain yellow cornmeal and white whole wheat flour.
4. Fourth, nuts and seeds (as well as legumes) provide nutrition and cholesterol free fat that is "good fat" compared to the saturated fat (with cholesterol) in meats. A serving or two of almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, peanuts, etc., can be a tasty part of a well-balanced diet. You can eat most nuts either raw or roasted. Try them both ways to add variety to your diet.
5. Fifth, even fresh fruits and vegetables are not very expensive on a per serving basis, especially if you buy them on sale. Fresh fruits can average less than 40 cents per serving, and vegetables can average less than 20 cents per serving. At these prices, eating three servings of fruit daily and five servings of vegetables daily would cost less than $2.20. The key is to buy things on sale. Supermarkets typically have a few fruits and vegetables on sale each week. You can also buy dried or canned fruit on sale, as well as canned or frozen vegetables on sale, but buy fresh products when reasonably feasible. And if you buy some vegetables at a cheap price (carrots for example), you can afford to pay more for others (asparagus for example).

The photograph below shows some of the foods I currently have in my apartment: a pineapple, green and red grapes, a cantaloupe, a tomato, carrots, potatoes, cinnamon-raisin bagels, white whole wheat flour, everything bagels, yellow whole grain cornmeal, and pinto beans. 
 

I bought the pineapple and cantaloupe on sale at a local supermarket for 50 cents each (even better than the sale price of about $1 each I usually try to buy them for), bought a pound of carrots on sale for $1, a five pound bag of potatoes for $1 on sale, tomatoes for less than $1 a pound on sale, and the other items at their regular prices. The bagels are a processed food made with regular white enriched flour, but still as a snack they are healthier than candy, most cookies, cake, pie, etc.

Below I provide some suggestions about what to prepare for various meals.

Breakfast
Oatmeal, wheat farina, homemade biscuits and gravy, pancakes, cereal (bought on sale) and nondairy milk, etc., are all relatively cheap breakfast foods. Add a piece of fresh fruit or juice. To get a vegan source of Omega-3 fatty acids, you can sprinkle some ground flaxseeds on your breakfast cereal, biscuits, or pancakes after cooking (cooking damages the Omega-3s). Walnuts are another good vegan source of Omega-3s. By the way, microalgae is another vegan source of Omega-3 fatty acids, and microalgae contains DHA and EPA Omega-3 fatty acids, making its fatty acids more similar to those in fish than the ALA in ground flaxseeds. It is probably best for vegans to add microalgae to the diet, too.

Personally, I drink a glass of orange juice enriched with calcium most mornings. I buy 12 ounce cans of frozen concentrate in store brands for about $1.50-$1.75 each, which provides six servings of eight ounces each per can for a cost of less than 25 cents per serving. I often add a banana or some other type of fruit to my breakfast, too.

Lunch at Work and Other Meals Away from Home
If you must eat a meal away from home, such as lunch at work, to save money consider packing your own lunch. For example, you might pack a sandwich or two, a piece of fruit, and a salad. 

Taking to work your own peanut butter and jelly sandwich(es), banana(s), and a fresh salad will almost certainly be cheaper than eating at a restaurant and likely more nutritious, too. You can pack the salad in an airtight plastic container with some ice cubes to keep it cold. If you are concerned someone may tamper with your lunch before you get to eat it, perhaps you can put it in a locker, in a drawer at your desk, in your locked car, or some other place that is safe.

Dinner, Supper, and Other Home-Cooked Meals
Preparing some type of beans and some type of whole grain bread (cornbread, biscuits, garlic bread, etc.) provides a tasty, nutritious main part of the meal. A variety of spices and seasonings can add flavor. Numerous recipes are available online in addition to the basic ones on the bags of beans and grains.

For side dishes, choose from whatever vegetables you bought on sale (asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, celery, collard greens, corn, green beans, lettuce in a variety of types, mustard greens, onions, potatoes, radishes, spinach, turnip greens and turnips, etc.).

Fresh fruit can be dessert. In addition to apples and bananas which are usually reasonably priced, each week some types of fruit are usually on sale (such as apricots, blackberries, blueberries, cantaloupes, grapes, oranges, peaches, pears, pineapples, plums, strawberries, watermelons, etc.).

For dessert, instead of fresh fruit, you can prepare some type of homemade treat. Homemade cakes, candies, cookies, pies, etc., are usually fairly cheap per serving, and if you prepare them with relatively small amounts of fat, salt, and sugar, they can be relatively healthy compared to most store-bought desserts. Numerous vegan dessert recipes are available online that have limited fat, salt, and sugar content, thus making "junk food" a bit healthier eating. For example, some recipes substitute applesauce or another sweetener for sugar, reduce the amount of cooking oil or margarine compared to a typical recipe, omit salt by substituting other seasonings, etc.

To give one specific example, when time permits, I enjoy making homemade cinnamon-oatmeal-raisin cookies, using molasses or applesauce to sweeten them. They are tasty, somewhat nutritious, and relatively low in fat--I use little vegetable oil in them.

Snacks
One of my favorite snacks is bagels. I buy cinnamon-raisin, blueberry, and everything bagels, and eat one or two of those instead of potato chips, candy, or other less healthy foods.

Popcorn that is air popped without adding significant amounts of salt, margarine, cooking oil, etc. is a relatively healthy snack that adds fiber and relatively few calories to one's diet, and it is cheap, too.

Fresh fruits and vegetables can also be tasty and nutritious snacks, with or without a nutritious dip.

Homemade treats like banana nut bread, oatmeal cookies, and peanut butter cookies are tasty, too.

Closing Thoughts
Since no one eats perfectly, adding a daily multivitamin to one's diet is a good way to add nutrients. I confess that the one I take is probably not a vegan multivitamin, but I hope to find a vegan multivitamin that I like. If a bottle of multivitamins costs $15 per 100 vitamins, that is only 15 cents a day added to the cost of one's daily diet. Vitamin B12 is one of the nutrients that vegans often have difficulty getting into their diet. In addition to taking a daily multivitamin that contains vitamin B12, I use soymilk enriched with B12, as well as sometimes eating cereal enriched with B12.

I am neither a dietician nor a medical professional, so I cannot give dietary or medical advice, but I am confident that persons who follow the guidelines I provided in this article will eat a more healthy diet than most persons and more cheaply than most persons eat here in the United States.

Do adapt my suggestions for your own specific calorie and nutrition needs. And please seek out other sources for more information about eating a healthy diet at a relatively low cost.

Who knows? You may find that you enjoy eating a cheaper and healthier diet more than you enjoy your current diet--and you may feel better as a result, too.

NOTE: The material in this article is adapted and/or reprinted from material I wrote in Chapter 31 of my book True Christianity: It May Not Be What You Think, second edition, copyright 2015, as well as from material in an article I posted on Newsvine on April 20, 2012.          

Flat Tax: An Advantage and a Disadvantage

Many persons support replacing the current federal income tax, with its numerous forms, etc., with a flat tax. As I see it, a flat tax has one big advantage and one big disadvantage compared to our current federal income tax.

The Big Advantage
A huge advantage of a federal flat tax is its simplicity. If everyone paid the same percentage of our income in taxes, it would eliminate the need for millions of people to fill out many complex tax forms, as well as eliminate the need for a lot of record keeping for various tax deductions. It also could eliminate most of the pages of federal tax code--thousands of pages that few ever read entirely and probably no one fully understands!

With a flat tax, it would not be necessary any more for a typical person to either pay another person to fill out a federal income tax form or to devote hours to doing it himself or herself. I hold an MBA, but I still find filling out my annual tax return a time consuming task that is unnecessarily complex under the current system.

Under a federal flat tax, for wage earners whose only income is from paychecks that their employers withhold taxes from, filing a federal income tax return might be unnecessary. The employer would simply withhold the appropriate percentage of income from one's paycheck and the employee's taxes would be paid by the employer.

For example, here in Lexington, Kentucky (where I live), we have a city payroll tax. Those of us working for an employer get a certain percentage of our income (2.25% currently) taken out of our paychecks each pay period. Employers pay this amount to the city government, and employees do not need to file a tax return at all for this. Those of us who are self-employed do need to file a short form and pay the 2.25% if our net income level is large enough. But that form takes little time to fill out--the hardest part is filling out the federal tax forms necessary to get information for it under the current system. And persons running businesses will need to keep records of income and expenses under any tax system.

Above is a picture of form 1040, its 104 page instruction booklet, and some of the schedules that many persons needed to fill out their 2014 federal income taxes. Though many persons could fill out a shorter form with fewer instructions, others needed additional schedules and instructions. I am not convinced that the 2015 tax forms were easier or that the 2016 ones will be.

The Big Disadvantage
A huge disadvantage of a flat tax for most people is that under a flat tax most people will pay more federal income tax than they do now. You may ask why?

Under the current system, due to the "standard deduction," the "earned income credit," and numerous other deductions, the majority of citizens pay no federal income tax at all. In fact, many of us workers currently get a "tax refund" back from the federal government that is larger than the amount withheld from our paychecks. Eliminating all the deductions (which would happen with a flat tax) would raise taxes for the majority of taxpayers.

The relatively few persons who would pay less under a flat tax are primarily those with high net incomes who are currently in a high tax bracket. Therefore, those earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year (or more) would pay far lower income taxes than they do currently under a flat tax, assuming that they don't have some type of deductions or other "loopholes" to reduce their taxes--which many do.

A Fair Compromise?
Perhaps the best approach would be neither the current system nor a flat tax. Instead, create a progressive tax with no deductions or only a few deductions. This would be similar to the current progressive federal income tax, but much simpler due to eliminating most deductions.

For example, perhaps persons would pay 0% in taxes on their first $5,000 in earnings (or some very small percentage just so they were contributing something), then pay a gradually escalating percentage as income increases. Persons earning over $1,000,000 a year might pay a marginal tax rate of 50% on income over $1,000,000. You may think 50% is exorbitant, but I am old enough (58 years old) to remember when the top marginal rate on the federal income tax was 70% (in the 1970s, and no I wasn't in that bracket). I think 50% is a nice medium between what I consider the too high rate some decades ago and the too low rate now.

Personally, I think it is a shame that so many persons devote so many hours each year to filling out tax forms and accompanying papers, reading the instructions for them, and assembling the records for the process. I strongly support simplifying the current federal income tax system.

But, I dislike the idea of a totally flat tax. Do we want a person making only $5,000 a year to pay the same percentage of their income in federal income taxes as a millionaire? I think some type of compromise is right. What do you think?

NOTE: This article is adapted from one I published January 1, 2012 on Newsvine titled "Flat Tax -- Good Idea or Bad Idea? POLL"

Creating A New Pledge of Allegiance

The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States can be a good thing when spoken the right way by the right person at the right time. If you have never heard Red Skelton's reading of the Pledge of Allegiance and his explanation of its meaning as it was taught to him, I urge you to do a Google search to find it and listen. I think you will find it a wonderful experience.

But, I think the pledge also does some harm at times, and it would be marvelous to replace it with a better pledge that focuses on something other than a piece of cloth (I hope you forgive me for calling the United States flag a piece of cloth, because I do respect that cloth that symbolizes the United States.).

Some persons are offended by the current pledge, because of the reference to "under God." Some oppose pledging allegiance to a flag, which is a piece of cloth, rather than to something more important. And some may oppose the concept of a pledge completely.

Tradition 
I know the current pledge has a lot of tradition.  Many oppose changing it in any way. It has probably been happily and lovingly recited by millions of people multiple times.

As a child, I often enjoyed patriotically reciting the pledge. I considered it almost sacrilegious when persons desecrated the flag in some way. Tears would come to my eyes when I heard Johnny Cash singing his popular song "Ragged Old Flag" on the radio.

And I will repeat my request in the first paragraph of this piece for persons who haven't done so to listen to Red Skelton's rendition of the pledge. I think you will find it a moving experience.

But there is another side to the story. The pledge can be used to promote chauvinistic nationalism (as I feel Hitler did with the Nazi flag), at the expense of loving patriotism that cares for all people of all countries while being devoted to one's own.      

The current pledge seems to imply that the United States is always right and always to be supported. Blind obedience is not true patriotism. In contrast, true patriotism seeks to follow righteousness and truth to make oneself, one's neighborhood, one's country, and the world a better place. As United States Senator Carl Schurz stated long before I was born in his own definition of patriotism: "My country right or wrong. When right, to keep right; when wrong, to put right."

The picture above of a United States flag flying near the courthouses in Lexington, Kentucky was taken by me (James E. Gibson) on October 23, 2016. A United States flag flies prominently near many government buildings in this country, as well as many other places.

Under God in the Pledge
The words "under God" in the pledge may correctly imply that we are only to obey the country when it is obedient to God, but some may interpret the terms "under God" to imply that the United States is always to be obeyed because it is always obedient to God.

While I like having a reference to God in the pledge, I think a reference to obedience to the highest righteous authority (which I consider to be God) is adequate. This preserves the concept of God while better exemplifying the freedom of religion that many of our Founding Fathers supported. Remember that persons like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin wanted freedom of religion for Muslims and those of other faiths than Christianity, probably even atheists and agnostics. And "under God" was not added to the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954.

My Pledge of Allegiance
Some may feel that a pledge is not needed at all, but I feel that righteous values need to be instilled in some way. And I feel that a pledge to righteous living is one way to help instill those values.
   
Over five years ago, I wrote what I consider an improved Pledge of Allegiance, which I published on Newsvine.com on May 31, 2011 as part of an article titled "A New Pledge of Allegiance: Poll" (which this Google Blogger article I am posting today is adapted from). I reprint that pledge here: "I pledge allegiance to seeking to help make the United States a better country by seeking to be obedient to the highest righteous authority and to always be truthful in a loving way, seeking appropriate liberty and justice for all."

I now seek to revise my own pledge to make it better, by having it state: "I pledge allegiance to seek to always do right, to seek to always be obedient to the highest righteous authority, to seek to always be truthful in a loving way, to seek appropriate liberty and justice for all, and to help make myself, my family, my friends, my neighborhood, my country, and my world better by improving my own behavior."

My revised pledge is not perfect, and I welcome suggestions on how to improve it. But I feel that mine is superior to the current one. I give the highest righteous authority, God's Holy Spirit, credit for any good in my pledge; I take responsibility for any failings in it, and I hope no one is offended. Even if you disagree with me, I hope you will respect my right to my view, as I respect your right to yours.

NOTE: This article was last modified on October 23, 2016 when I added the photo of a flag.