I Tried to Eat Vegan for a Week on $57, and It Was a Colossal Failure

To calculate my budget, I referred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2017 guidelines for the average weekly cost of food, opting for the “low-cost” plan for a man between the ages of 19-50. That came out to $54.70, which wasn't even the most restrictive budget on the list: that would be the “thrifty” food plan, which comes out to $42.50. (Note: at 6'3'', I'm on the larger side and consume more than the recommended 2,700 daily calories, which is why I opted for the low-cost food plan.)

I don't live near a Whole Foods or a health food store, so to buy ingredients, I only used my local Stop & Shop. To make sure that I was getting enough nutrients, I consulted with Cooper about my grocery list and asked her to evaluate the meals I made.

All told, I spent $52.85 on the groceries I used to make my meals, plus $4.69 in New York state sales tax. The total cost was $57.54 — a little less than $3 over budget.

I am wholly unprepared to start this experiment. In fact, I almost crack an egg in the skillet before I remember what I'm doing this week. So I quickly make an almond milk smoothie, so I don’t get hangry at the grocery store. My hanger is real and it’s terrifying. My infant daughter and her mom have been warned.

Breakfast

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole grain bread, and a smoothie with a banana, 2 mL of OJ (not included in my total), 6 mL of almond milk, a handful of blackberries and blueberries

Lunch

Potatoes, onions and peppers with paprika, salt, pepper, chili powder, olive oil and a little habanero.

Dinner

3 PB&J sandwiches

I eat the sandwiches late at night, after my baby and my partner fall asleep. It isn’t great, and I'm so hungry and tired that I forget to add some vegetables to the mix. Not a great start, but at least I'm sticking to the budget!

Before I go to bed, however, I do manage to put black beans in some water to soak overnight, so I can have some necessary protein to add to my meals throughout the week.

My hunger and irritability start to show, which in turn irritates my baby and my lady. After less than two days consuming less-than-normal amounts of grub, I feel weak and tired. If I were stranded at sea, I’d be the jerk who snuck some rations in the middle of the night, or perished days before we’re rescued.

Because I'm so tired, I make the decision to stop any sort of exercise this week. Ironically, this actually ends up compounding my problems, because exercise helps relieve stress and this diet is stressful.

Breakfast

-Potatoes, onions, peppers and spices

-Toast with smeared avocado

Lunch:

-Almond milk, banana and berry smoothie (same as yesterday)

Dinner:

-Rice and bean veggie stir fry (⅓ a cup of corn, 1 clove of garlic. a quarter of yellow onion, ⅙ cup of chopped red pepper, one crushed tomato, a tablespoon of olive oil, one cup of black beans and one cup of rice)

My goal was to create a reusable stock of rice and beans, to give me some freedom to experiment with meals. (I'm starting to learn that if you want to get the most bang for your buck on a vegan, there's a lot of repetition). Getting the beans moist and soft enough to eat, however, causes some drama. Although I soaked 2 cups of beans Monday night, they aren’t even close to ready when it’s time to cook dinner. An hour later, they're finally ready, but my stomach has shrunk. I go to bed totally famished.

This is the worst day. It’s still early in my week, but the lack of protein in the form of meat and eggs — my primary dietary staples before this experiment — makes me feel like I’m wasting away. The growl in my stomach feels more like a constant yowl.

Thankfully, in an effort to avoid making potatoes for breakfast yet again, I remember I bought the oatmeal and apples. With the addition of a little brown sugar and cinnamon, I have a filling and scrumptious breakfast (plus, I start to feel a little less like Mark Watley in The Martian).

Breakfast:

-Oats, traditional, almond milk and sliced apples with a pinch of brown sugar and cinnamon.

Lunch:

-Potatoes, peppers and onions

The potatoes are still tasty, but I’m running out of onions and peppers faster than I’d like. So I eat a smaller portion, and am left hungry. I briefly imagine whether chewing on my own arm breaks the basic tenets of veganism.

Dinner

-Rice, Beans, peppers, onions, spices (and a few drops of lime juice).

-Squash with crushed garlic, salt and pepper.

I fart after dinner. Loudly. It’s a byproduct of this bean-heavy diet. The abrupt noise startles my sleeping daughter and I laugh, which sounds oddly unnatural to me. As I doze off, my stomach emits a deep rumble. I dream about a cheeseburger and wake up with drool on my pillow.

Breakfast

-Sliced apple, cinnamon, brown sugar, oats, almond milk.

-Avocado on toasted bread.

Usually, I either skip breakfast or get a bagel with cream cheese, but I realize that thanks to this experiment, I'm actually eating healthier breakfasts than I have in years. Plus, the oatmeal with apple slices is delicious.

I smile at my daughter. She smiles at me, and I remember how lucky I am. But that brief feeling doesn’t last, and I’m already dreading my midday lapse into lethargy. Food powers my mood a lot more than I realized: I’ve got a perpetual frown on my face and I’m quick to take offense.

Lunch

-Potatoes, onions and a red pepper with the same assortment of spices (paprika, chili pepper powder, salt and pepper)

Berry Banana smoothie (blackberries, blueberries, almond milk (8 mL), ice and two bananas)

I wish I had learned to make latkes or tater tots before starting this experiment. These potatoes are getting old.

Afternoon Snack

-A peanut butter, almond milk, banana smoothie.

While this might sound melodramatic, the smoothie changes my whole week. It gives me the protein I need, in a fraction of the time it takes to prepare anything else. I am saved by this smoothie — so much so that I’m not even that hungry when I have some pasta and marinara on Thursday night.

Dinner

-Pasta and homemade marinara with garlic, onion and olive oil.

This is the first day that I feel like I'm getting the knack of this whole vegan thing. For the first time, I don't wake up starving.

Breakfast

-Oatmeal, apple (last one), berries, brown sugar, cinnamon, almond milk (which I’m almost out of)

Lunch

-Potatoes, onions, peppers and aforementioned spices.

Snack (!!!)

-a peanut butter banana smoothie

-Second-to-last avocado smeared on some bread.

Dinner

-Leftover pasta and marinara sauce

After another mid-day PB and banana smoothie with the avocado, I reheat the previous night’s dinner. I’m hungry, but the simple act of reheating a dish, rather than making something new, helps lessen my near-constant yawning. Going vegan is exhausting. (It also probably doesn't help that the pasta with marinara sauce doesn't have a lot of protein).

Going vegan is exhausting. The lack of protein, combined with constantly having to think about what I need to eat, and what I need to prepare to get there, leaves me whipped every night. Pro tip: Don’t try a vegan diet with a newborn.

Breakfast

-Oatmeal and almond milk with blackberries, blueberries, and a little bit of brown sugar

Lunch

-2 PB&J sandwiches

-Guacamole — last avocado, a tomato, quarter of an onion and a couple drops of lime juice — with toasted bread and some leftover chips

Dinner

-Salad: Entire stalk of green leaf lettuce, a quarter of a chopped onion, chopped baby carrots, chopped tomato sans seeds, chopped orange pepper, and half a can of chickpeas.

Before I started the experiment, I knew chickpeas were a good source of protein, and I had initially planned to create multiple meals with them. But it was an idea I never followed through on. Honestly, I'm just too tired.

Yes, this dinner features leafy greens, so I've gotten better at eating vegan on a budget; and yes, if I needed to continue eating like this, I could survive. But I still wouldn't recommend it.

Breakfast

-Oatmeal with almond milk, blackberries, blueberries and brown sugar.

It’s my last day! Huzzah, huzzah, HUZZAH!

Lunch

-Potatoes, peppers, onions and spices (for the fifth time this week, but who's counting?)

Dinner

-Rice, the rest of the pre-soaked black beans, the rest of the yellow onion heated in olive oil, 3 cloves of mashed garlic with olive oil, salt and pepper

-Sliced yellow squash and frozen green beans with garlic, salt and pepper

I throw the squash and green beans in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 mins, but first, I mix it with two or three cloves of mashed garlic spread among the olive oil, salt and pepper. I make this meal 2-3 times a week normally, so it makes sense to throw it in my vegan week. I pour the rest of my frozen corn and assorted frozen veggies in the mix, and ad some habanero.

It's over. It's finally over.

By the end of the week, I'm hungry and exhausted — but I do stay within my budget, even with some food left over. And to my surprise, when I send her my meal plan for the week, Cooper says I did a pretty good job.

“[You] managed to spread his dollars out nicely nutritionally speaking,” she tells me. “You were able to gather an impressive variety of foods. I especially like the emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables. In many ways, your experiment demonstrates that it IS possible to eat well on a budget.”

That said, she wasn't a huge fan of how many potatoes and PB&J sandwiches I ate. While peanut butter and jelly are “still quite healthful” for processed foods, she says, I would've been better off swapping out the jelly “for a low-sugar version, or used fresh fruit instead.”

Cooper also said I didn't get enough protein, a common pitfall on a vegan diet. "You're probably not getting enough protein to carry you through the day with what you need for optimal energy," she says. "I think [you] could have bulked up lunch with some leafy greens as well.”

Ultimately, I do think that with enough planning and a relatively homogeneous palette, you can eat vegan on a sparse budget. But there's so much more that goes into eating vegan than money.

For starters, I can’t overstate how much time this all takes, particularly for a parent like myself: if it weren’t for my amazing partner, there’s no way I could have done this experiment, even for only a week. (Serious props to single parents). Plus, you need to be close enough to a large grocery store where you can get all the ingredients you need to make it work, so there is a certain amount of privilege that does play a role in being able to eat vegan — even if it's not just economic privilege.

Sure, going vegan might be cheap in the long run, and it’s certainly less expensive than I initially anticipated. But I found that in order to lead a healthy vegan lifestyle, the most important thing you need is also the one thing that so many of us lack: time.