33$ and some change. Hm. In California, there's no tax on foods, so that definitely helps.

Where I live, sweet potatoes are 78 cents a pound. Regular potatoes are 48 cents a pound. Eggs are about a 1.80$ per dozen. Ground beef is about three dollars per pound for 85% lean. Chicken thighs are about 2.88 per pound. Broccoli is 99 cents, zucchini is 88 cents, and carrots are 48 cents per pound. A pound of butter is 3.28$. Dark chocolate is 2.25$ per 100 grams, but our bulk bins have it (70% dark) at 4.70$ per pound. Bananas are 68 cents per pound, and peaches are 99 cents a pound, and strawberries are two pounds for 4.25$.

I would purchase two and a half pounds of sweet potatoes, two and a half pounds of regular potatoes, three dozen eggs, two pounds of ground beef, a pound and a half of chicken, a pound each of the noted vegetables, a pound of butter, a half pound of bulk bin-chocolate (or a bar of Lindt), two pounds of bananas, a pound of peaches, and two pounds of strawberries.

0.78 x 2 = 1.56$ 0.48 x 2 = 0.98$ 1.80 x 3 = 5.40$ 3.00 x 2 = 6.00$ 2.88 x 1.5 = 4.32$ 0.99 x 1 = 0.99$ 0.88 x 1 = 0.88$ 0.48 x 1 = 0.48$ 3.28 x 1 = 3.28$ 4.80 x .5 = 2.40$ 0.68 x 2 = 1.36$ 0.99 x 1 = 0.99$ 4.25 x 1 = 4.25$

Total cost: $32.89

This would provide me approximately 1860 calories per day, which is perhaps a bit scant for a person of my height and weight and activity level.

[Whew, this totally took me about an hour to do, adjusting for calories and cost, as well as plugging it into my handy-dandy calorie database. Fun!]

With more time and a better awareness of the prices at the store, I'm sure I could bump those calories up a bit to suit a person with higher needs, or eschew the vegetables or fruit altogether and focus more on the meat and eggs. However, this is reflective of my diet and it really only falls short of my calorie goals by about a hundred or so. I could dump the strawberries and get another pound of chicken for my money, or eliminate the chocolate in exchange for more eggs (I'm tempted to whinge about having to dump the chocolate, but in retrospect, that seems selfish in light of the fact that there are people in the world right now who cannot afford chocolate, much less a fraction of the items on my shopping list).

This was an eye-opening activity, and definitely made me think about where my money goes. Typically, I purchase organic meat and eggs, which are considerably more expensive than the conventional counterparts offered at my local grocery store. If I did account for those, it would probably increase my expense by another ten to twenty dollars or so. I'm also greatly aware of how fortunate I am that I can splurge on more humane meat and eggs.

I think you've posed an intriguing challenge, Koko, and one worthy of much consideration. Thank you. :)

Excluding alcohol, I pretty much always eat ~$4’s worth of food a day. I don’t eat grass-fed though, so that makes a big difference – instead I just balance my 3’s and 6’s by very rarely eating pork/chicken, only occasionally eating eggs, and eating seafood a few times a week. And I eat LC, so I don’t even have very much cheap filler.

My general rules of thumb:

• Seafood: max of $5/lb.
• Beef: max of $3.50/lb.
• Offal: max of $2.50/lb.
• Veggies: whatever’s on sale is usually cheap enough
• Eggs: ditto

Also, what really makes a difference for me is when I finally bought a crockpot, which means I can buy stupid-cheap cuts of beef. Mornings I usually have a crockpot meal, lunch I always skip, and when I get home from work I cook something that can be quickly pan-cooked. Easy peasy and cheap.

[edit]: In addition, I only cook for myself and I very much limit the number of things I’m willing to store in the freezer, so it’s not like I benefit from bulk purchasing.

Wow. Living in europe, 4,72 $ would be 3,3 € for me.

For 3,3 € you get

• 10 - 15 eggs
• Or 3 pounds bananas
• Or a pound of berries
• Or 150 g meat.

All high quality organic or pastured.

So its totally impossible to stay under 3,3 € with eating high quality paleo approved food.

If you buy the cheapest things available you get:

• up to 20 eggs
• Or up to 5 pounds bananas
• Or up to 2 pounds berries
• Or up to 4 pounds meat.

Not perfect but you could buy 6 eggs, some vegetables and meat and get around with it. Though, it will be difficult.

But you can also just buy a lot of cheap bread, cheap spread-up, some pasta and tomato sauce and feed an entire family from not more than 5-10 $ a day.

And this is where it leads to. People buy those stuff like pasta which they can store easily and if you combine it with some cheap protein source you can stuff your family up.

However, I am sure it is possible to eat paleo with high quality food if you have only 4,72 $ for yourself.

• Do dumbster diving and gather yourself some fruit and veggies
• Ask butchers for bones and bone marrow, often they give it away for free or very cheap. Make bone broth with cheap boiling meat
• Ask them to make ground meat out of boiling meat, it's cheaper and fattier.
• Go to the farmers market before it closes and ask farmers if they have leftovers. Sometimes they give it away for free, sometimes cheaper
• In some areas you can find windfall and abandond fruit trees.
• Grow vegetables, nuts, fruits and raise chickens. (Only for a small minority, since you need some land)
• Potatos or white rice to get enough calories

With this, my diet would look like:

• A lot of bone broth with meat and some lard, ghee or olive oil in it.
• "Gathered" fruit or veggies to snack
• Organ meat regularly
• A lot of ground meat made with potatos, sweet potatos, white rice or other veggies, cooked with a lot of oil

Is that realistic?

At the moment, I spend approx. 110 $ a week for me alone on food. That's more than 15 $ per day. I already buy offal, cheap cuts, bones. Could try to get cheap veggies, but that isn't the bulk of what I spend on diet.

I could easily spend almost nothing on food. I would do dumbster diving, visit all those fruit trees, buy cheap leftover food at the farmers market and get very cheap high quality boiling meat, offal and bones and would probably not spend more than 3 $ a day.

But I am lazy, low-carb and have enough money for now.

It can be done, you won't necessarily be paleo though but you'll get everything you need.

I spend ~50/week utilizing a lot of tubers, dairy and rice or other grains occasionally. The trick is calculating how many calories per $10 are in the foods you want, use this info plus a program like chronometer to formulate your ideal diet.

I've been thinking about the hunger challenge as well, but I think the price must be per person...my family of four has been on foodstamps before, and we got about twice that much for a family of four, which was about half of what we needed...we had some income though, we would have received more with no income at all.

I would stick to cheaper but nutrient dense organ meats, eggs, spinach, and sweet potato.

But then again, I have no issue eating the same things over and over.

Living in Australia I would find this impossible. Food over here is ridiculously expensive. My GF and I don't try to shop cheap, we go for quality ie grass fed beef, free range pork and chicken and organic vegies where possible. Our weekly shopping bill is $300+, this week we spent $400, but we are having family over for fathers day. I know we could probably shop for less, but we are both extremely short on time.

So in answer to the original question, I couldnt do it.

$4.72? That's heaven for a full-time student!

I do roughly 4-5$ (usually less) 100% paleo eating lots of suet and offals / ground beef. Of course, I miss out on good veg.

approx 342 calories in 1 pound (about 453g) of boiled or steamed potatoes

2500 cals per day divided by 342 is 7.3 so you'd need about 7.3 lbs of sweet potatoes daily. I pay $1.49 per pound for them so it'd cost me about $10.89 per day. Tougher than I thought the organic tuber route would be. 

I think it depends quite a bit on what type of paleo diet you are on. If you are low carb, I think it would be much more difficult. I am not interested in doing the challenge because I grow and/or source much of my own food differently. I have eaten a higher-carb non-paleo "clean" diet for under a dollar a day.

We did something similar to this at my house, not strictly paleo but very healthy. We were driven by the question, "Is it even possible to eat healthy as described by the govt. for an average income family? We were motivated to test it after a trip to TN where the only grocery store in 15 miles was a convenience store with no fresh meat, fruits or vegetables (and a population that reflected the food options)

My wife blogged about it at www.eatingin3d.com The 3 'D's were

• Price ($7/person/day)
• Hitting daily RDA values (which I realize there is some disagreement on, but we needed something to measure)
• Not having to spend more than 30 minutes preparing a meal (Not strictly enforced, but mostly to prove it was reasonable for 2 working parents without making everything from scratch.

Interestingly, She stopped blogging bc she got tired of a lot of the political arguments and criticisms for how we chose to eat. It requires coordination and planning, but we got down to $7/day without much sacrifice and were actually eating healthier than when we weren't tracking (we each lost 15-20 pounds pretty promptly - measuring your food is very enlightening!

here are some helpful links with good information on budget paleo:

http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2010/12/primal-or-paleo-on-budget.html

http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-meals-12212010-more-budget-primal.html

http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-meals-budget-primal-fish-head-soup.html

There's a lot out there on the topic. I think with some good planning, a willingness to grow ones own veggies, and concessions on organics, it can be done.

I am just starting paleo (today and yesterday I had ramen though, but everything else was paleo and after this I intend to go actual paleo). Also, it appears I'm already on a budget like that! Less than that! I have around 3.50 CAN/day to work with. So this is going to be tough! I don't even know if it's possible... I stocked my cupboards and fridge with what I can, and when it runs out... um... well I'll get to that when I get to that! XD

So this could be a good idea to get other people to understand how difficult it can be to try to eat on a budget. Let alone eat well.

Last year we did a $35 weekly grocery challenge, for a family of 3 and it was very good food...just not a lot of left overs.

We bought a large pork roast and had all sorts of great dishes. Just add some on sale seasonal fruit, veggies, and lots of eggs and tuna.

Let's see what I pay to fit in almost 3k calories a day:

2 cups kirkland pistachios: $5.38 "salad" tomato: $.29 Costco avocado: $1.59 (they're 2.29 everywhere else!) one broccoli stalk: $.85 3 carrots: $.33 another broccoli stalk: $.85 12 oz package of "organic" bacon: $4.99 8 oz package of kraft extra sharp cheddar cheese: $3.69 Total: $18.82

Or

1 cup kirkland pistachios: $2.69 One stalk broccoli: $.85 3 carrots: $ .33 2 avocadoes: $3.18 4 tbls Mateo's Gourmet Salsa: $.43 (?!) 3 sprigs of cilantro: $.04 One pound of AZ leg of lamb: $6.69 8 oz Kerrygold Dubliner Cheese (costco): $3.00 Total $17.19

Or

Half a bunch of celery: $.35 6 tbls Maranatha Almond Butter (costco): $ 1.17 Stalk of broccoli: $.85 3 Carrots: $.33 One farmed trout (costco): $1.85 One cup cilantro: $.17 7 oz Comte' cheese: $6.12 11 tbls Maranatha Almond Butter (costco): $2.14 Total: $12.98

Major costs: Pistachios, meat, cheese. Cutting out luxury items like nuts and nice cheese would bring down the cost (did bring down the cost on the day I ate cheap almond butter) significantly. I don't think I could do $4.72 a day...