I am very poor, can't eat beans, lentils or soy, and am dairy-free. Any ideas?

[Gralick]

Right. I don't diet - am a recovered anorexic, so 'counting' my food is dangerous. I'm benefits dependent. Health conditions rule out stuff that goes right through you (ahem) and also soya and dairy.

Health's getting worse and I'm gaining weight for the first time in years, presumably due to forced inactivity. My knowledge of nutrition's almost encyclopaedic but I'm stumped on this! Before being this skint, I'd have filled up on lovely fresh salad but it's too bloody expensive to buy as a staple. I make my own bread and, due to the budget thing, eat a hell of a lot more carbs than I used to. I don't eat sugar. I don't know what to do!!!

With huge trepidation about posting a diet thread, I've decided you lovely lot are my best hope

Good luck.

Do you like that old Italian staple of tuna and onion and garlic? Would normally have beans as well but you can leave them out. Half tin of tuna, some raw onion and crushed garlic. A drizzle of oil if it doesn't upset your tum.

Gralick search for A girl named Jack you may get some inspiration from her. Delia Smith also wrote Frugal Foods which I find handy.

Check out www.turn2us.org.uk and use their calculator to ensure you are maximising your income.

Thanks for your encouragement :) I am going to stick with this for at least a week - mid-carbing, if you like - to see whether my appetite will adjust. It should: this is more like my pre-poverty diet in that it's more veg-based that starch, but I now have a malfunctioning metabolism and am on loads of meds which affect appetite.

As regards the budget, I'm just going to have to embrace carrots and potatoes although neither's particularly low in carbs. I'm adding crisps to my diet Never been much of a crisp eater, but they're more compatible with the low-carb principle than toast or biscuits! Summer's got to be the best time to start this - fresh stuff's going to be cheap soon.

Thanks for the reminder about Italian tuna, ancient. I don't get on that well with onions, but I do love them! I'll take the chance :)

I've hit a problem. Massive energy crash this afternoon wasn't fixed by high-fat, high-protein, medium-carb salad. I needed instantly-available sugar, so ate some toast with honey. It's wholemeal bread, so fairly low-GI but still pure carbs. If I carry on like this I'll get even fatter!

I'm going to have to fiddle around with this until I find something that works, and then fiddle some more to make it affordable, dammit. My meds do a thing with glucose which is beneficial to my system (locks more glucose in the cells) but also makes my brain think my blood sugar's low. I'm insulin resistant anyway, and this exacerbates it. I guess the most tried & tested diet for erratic insulin is low-GI, but the digestive/fibre thing interferes with that. Hmm. Perhaps I should 'allow' more carbs and cut down the fat?

It's proving very tempting to frantically count the grams of carbs & fats in everything ... it's only day one, so I can write this down as early enthusiasm, but I need to watch it! On the up side, my incredibly rich potato salad's going to last 2 days so it'll work out less expensive than I feared.

If. You don't get on with onions, cut them out and use garlic instead as a little goes a long way and will cause less fermentation in the tum which is. Traditionally what onion and garlic do ( tho see below it can help).

Two traditional regional things to help cure dodgy intestines include

Sweetened mint tea, used all over the Middle East. They also use Laban but that is dairy based so no use to you

Ginger. Pref fresh when you can afford it. Cut, boil for St least half an hour, drink the water, sweetened to taste. Don't throw away the boiled ginger, just add more water and start again. Will take several goes before it becomes tasteless.

In Zimbabwe they used to use live beer. Not sure how that would work with your meds. It restores the flora.

a girl called jack budget recipes

Oh dear, the first of Jack's recipes that caught my eye was these muffins! They don't have any added sugar or (weirdly) any fat ... but they're muffins, and I have all the ingredients ... No energy to make them right now, unless I try it in the bread machine. Hmm.

I've avoided bread & chocolate so far today but am knackered, which I'm trying not answer with toast. I think my potato/veg salad must be over-rich: it's making me feel a bit sick now! I put too much egg & olive oil in it, I think.

Going back to sleep as I'm confusing myself

How goes it?

Argh, ancient, I was no-one would ask I was really unwell & depressed yesterday, didn't eat properly and shoved carbs in my face like a woman possessed ... well, I was, after a fashion. Jack Monroe's fat-free muffins were quite pleasant, if strangely chewy.

This evening I atoned with a slice of beef and 2 bowls of veg+noodle soup I'm not really sure I should be trying to stick to any kind of diet due to my tendency to get all obsessed with it and then go spiralling off. BUT you've all forced me to rediscover the joys of a veg-heavy diet, and given me great ideas on how to cut back my meat/protein costs to afford it!

I'd run out of lentils and get paid tomorrow - so will be attempting my first sprout garden as soon as I've been to the shop. I'll probably be making some bread as well, though, so my conversion has failed for now.

I was hoping* no-one would ask.

But I'm glad you did!

Have you got a pressure cooker OP? Because beans soaked then cooked with kombu, a seaweed, are more digestible, I think it does somat to the enzymes? Worth a try because I've skinned chickpeas in my time and frankly, fuck that. Also why bother when you can buy channa Dahl, - split and skinned chickpeas, or red lentils, which are skinned and split brown lentils. Etc. The kombu thing worked for a friend who really struggles as he has had a portion of his bowel removed because of ulcerative colitis

Does kale upset the tummy ? Because boiled then stir fried with chilli and garlic yum. Ditto broccoli. And apart from a small amount of oil, not too calorific or carby.

Have you got a liquidiser? Buy some cheap lettuce, sautee briefly with onion, add a veg stock cube and water, plus a dash of nutmeg or sherry it both if available, hey presto soup.

Other useful soups, curried parsnip, green pea and ham, carrot and anything else you gave in the cupboard.

Keep going. What are you like on bananas, mashed, baked or raw?

What about caugetti?

Or cauliflower, baked or as rice?

I'm sorry for ignoring your replies & kind suggestions! This happened - I went to buy some clothes, which I sized by holding them against me (this usually works.) When I got them home they were 2 sizes too big. This meant that thinking about my diet/weight had put me back into eating-disordered mode as I could no longer accurately assess the shape of my own body. I'm just going to have to live with looking pregnant and love myself anyway!

I sprouted some lentils (taste like cress) and have some peas currently on Day 6 of sprouting. The hassle/benefit ratio isn't good enough to convince me. Likewise bean-peeling which, no matter what the internet says, is too much work for this short life

I learned a few good things, though, so thank you