Primal Diet On A Shoestring

Nutritionally Complete, Inexpensive Low Carbohydrate Meal Plan

Some of the questions I received on a previous post regarding nutrient, particularly folate, delivery of a diet containing no vegetation prompted me to run a nutritionalysis to see if I could create a nutritionally compete zero carbohydrate meal plan.

Alas, so far I could not do so, even when I included chicken liver in the daily diet to provide folate (chicken liver has about 400 mcg folate per 4 ounce serving). Although liver is very nutrient dense, without nuts (source of trace minerals not so well supplied by meat) and produce, I could not get adequate levels of vitamin C, vitamin E, magnesium, manganese, or potassium.

So, I changed my approach to create a diet with minimal carbohydrate, yet supplying all required nutrients, and I added the requirement that the daily diet cost would fall below the USDA allotments for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan, otherwise known as food stamps.

I wanted to include the latter requirement because when I watched Food Inc a few weeks ago, I did not like the part where they created a sad story around a family that supposedly could not afford to purchase good food in a grocery store, so felt compelled to purchase $1 meals at fast food restaurants twice daily. I knew that story was a pile of corn grits, so I decided to prove it.

I succeeded in all respects. I came up with the following, tailored to my own nutritional requirements.

Cost of food and supplements

Food	Quantity	Grocery	Unit cost $	Cost $
Beef	8 ounces cooked	Food City	1.99/lb	1.00
Butter	8 tablespoons (112 g)	Food City	2.59/lb	0.63
Pork Chop	4 ounces cooked	Food City	.99/lb	0.50
Eggs	4 large	Food City	1.69/doz	0.56
Walnuts	1 ounce (14 halves)	Sprouts	4.99/lb	0.31
Turnip greens	4 cups raw (1/2 cup cooked) (220 g)	Food City	0.92/lb	0.45
Broccoli	2 cups raw (1 cup cooked) (182 g)	Sprouts	0.77/lb	0.31
Carrots	2 cups raw (1 cup cooked) (256 g)	Sprouts	0.59/lb	0.33
Peppers, red	1 cup cooked	Sprouts	0.77/each	0.77
Vitamin D3	2 x 1000 IU	Complementary Prescriptions	13.95/250,0.06/1000 IU	0.12
Vitamin K2	1.5 mg	Complementary Prescriptions	10.95/60, 0.18 ea	0.18
	TOTAL			$5.16

This menu provides 2442 calories, 191.0 g of fat, 63.7 g of carbohydrate (21 g as fiber; 42 g net carbohydrate), and 126.2 g of protein. That's 69% fat, 21% protein, and 10% carbohydrate. Saturated fat is 32% of energy, polyunsaturated 8%, and monounsaturated 22%.

It provides 524 mg folate (31% more than the RDA), and exceeded the RDA or AI for all nutrients measured on FitDay except VT-D, calcium, magnesium, and potassium.

Regarding calcium, metabolic studies indicate that the RDA overestimates calcium requirements. Current data indicates that people maintain calcium balance with an average intake of 741 mg per day [1]. This plan provides 782 mg of calcium. Also, adding 3 tablespoons of well-made bone broth (see The Garden of Eating for a recipe) to each daily meal will cost virtually nothing and add 300 mg calcium to bring total to over 1000 mg.

Regarding magnesium, metabolic studies indicate that the RDA overestimates magnesium requirements. Current data indicates that people maintain magnesium balance on an average intake of 165 mg per day [2]. This plan provides 285 mg, exceeding the 165 mg by 50%.

Regarding potassium, this plan provides 3608 mg, 77% of the "adequate intake" defined by the Institute of Medicine. Add some vegetable scraps to the pot while preparing the bone broth, and the broth will provide the necessary additional potassium. Alternatively, adding 1.5 cups of cantaloupe or similar fruit will bring the potassium to 4233 mg, 90% of the AI -- close enough -- while still keeping the total digestible carbohydrate at about 60 g/d, and increasing cost of the menu by only about thirty cents, to $5.46.

To cover vitamin D and vitamin K2, I included supplements: VT-D 2000 IU, VT-K 1.5 mg. I get them from Complementary Prescriptions.

According to the USDA’s Fact Sheet on Resources, Income, and Benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a household of 4 qualifies for a maximum monthly allotment of food assistance in the amount of $668, or $167 per person, which comes to $5.57 per day. So you will have ten cents left over!

Someone with lower caloric requirements would just eat smaller portions and of course has lower nutrient requirements. They would spend even less.

So I have just shown that even people on food stamps can eat a highly nutrient dense, meat-based, low carbohydrate diet, shopping in conventional supermarkets.

So the Food Inc people got it wrong. That family doesn't need to eat at fast food joints. They could follow my plan, the whole family would lose body fat, the father would lose his diabetes, they would stop needing dental repairs, and they would then have the money he spent on medications for upgrading the quality of their food.

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Notes

1. Source: Hunt CD and Johnson LK. Calcium requirements: new estimations for men and women by cross-sectional statistical analyses of calcium balance data from metabolic studies. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 86, No. 4, 1054-1063, October 2007.

2. Source: Hunt CD and Johnson LK. Magnesium requirements: new estimations for men and women by cross-sectional statistical analyses of metabolic magnesium balance data. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 84, No. 4, 843-852, October 2006.