Food
Small steps that worked for real people, on food.
The sky over Food · 52 small steps
- Skip the shrink-wrap: ask at the butcher counter
- Ask the waiter where they eat
- Buy the cooked bird and boil the bones
- Calories per dollar — arithmetic for the thinnest weeks
- Cheap food does not have to be empty
- Cook one long afternoon, eat for weeks
- Keep the fizz, drop the sugar
- Keep your fingers off the cheese
- One list, one pickup — the aisles never see you
- Green onions: pay once, regrow for months
- Thirst is the system working
- Seventy pounds of ugly produce, split two ways
Or browse another area:
- foodBuy the cooked bird and boil the bonesFive conversations say the cooked chicken is priced to get you in the door; six say one bird is several meals and the carcass is stock.
- foodCheap food does not have to be emptySeven conversations build cheap meals on beans and rice, four more on the potato. Whole staples cost less than the packaged food and feed you more.
- foodAsk the waiter where they eatFive conversations say ask the staff where they eat on their night off. The tells to read at the door, and where the walk-away rule stops.
All 52 tips on food
- A dry paper towel in the bag
- A garden costs nothing to start
- An egg and a handful of frozen peas
- Anyone can eat at a gurdwara
- Ask the waiter where they eat
- Bread belongs in the freezer
- Butter, milk, and one more egg
- Buy the cooked bird and boil the bones
- Buy the pumpkin on the first of November
- Calories per dollar — arithmetic for the thinnest weeks
- Cheap food does not have to be empty
- Cook once, eat twice
- Cook one long afternoon, eat for weeks
- Cook the corn in its husk
- Cook the whole bag, then freeze it
- Cut off tomorrow’s butter tonight
- Dimple the patty, then leave it alone
- Flatten the meat before you freeze it
- Flavour is the cheapest ingredient
- Float the egg, then smell it
- Frozen fruit is picked ripe
- Give the leftovers back their steam
- Green onions: pay once, regrow for months
- Keep the fizz, drop the sugar
- Keep your fingers off the cheese
- Make the groceries last when the money runs thin
- Make the meat a seasoning
- One list, one pickup — the aisles never see you
- Only the boring panel is regulated
- Press the film onto the guacamole
- Push the food into a ring
- Put the pinch of salt in the grounds
- Refill the pickle jar
- Reheating does not undo the afternoon
- Roll the orange before you peel it
- Salt the meat the night before
- Seventy pounds of ugly produce, split two ways
- Skip the shrink-wrap: ask at the butcher counter
- Smell the pineapple; the leaf tells you nothing
- Stop it when the pops slow down
- Sweat the onion first
- Thaw the turkey all the way through first
- The eggs will disappear first
- The first layer is the glue
- The kettle is a stove
- The pantry is for weeks like this one
- The species is printed on the can
- Thirst is the system working
- Try the food you hate, cooked another way
- Warm the jar, don’t boil it
- Wet the bread before it goes back in
- Zest before you juice, then freeze it in cubes
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