Higher protein & healthy diet - seems to work out expensive?

[chinesechicken]

It seems that chicken is somewhat an expensive source of protein, so I'm wondering ways to reduce the cost. I currently purchase the chicken I have for lunch at Tesco (2 for £5) because a) it's cooked, b) needs no preparation and c) tastes bloody nice (I recommend mexican and/or sweet chilli). I would go for Tuna, but the taste is rather bland even when mixed with mayo/sweetcorn.

On an average work day, my meal plan is as follows.

Breakfast:
Protein Shake (25g Protein - 3g fat)
Porridge with a pinch of sugar

11am:
Banana

Lunch:
100g (half a packet) flavoured chicken (25g Protein, 2g Fat)
Handful of mixed salad
Slice of bread

3-4pm:
Banana
100g chicken as per above

Training days: (6-7pm)
Protein Shake
Orange

7-8pm:
Fish or chicken based meal with salad, usually pretty healthy.

I usually drink half a litre of orange juice a day and 4-5 pints of water.

Any recommendations how to reduce the cost of the chicken? Should I buy a cooked one and chop it up, cook it myself (but then I'll need the other ingredients to get the same flavour), buy unflavoured cooked chicken with condiments?

Either that, or if anyone has any tuna recipes fire away!

Also, am I consuming too much sugar?

P.S. Mods - not sure if this should be in food & drink or health, as it's a high protein diet aimed for building/cutting

Cheers

Edited by chinesechicken on Thursday 15th July 16:02

[DarrenL]

I have a similar diet- and buying meat like that is bloody expensive!- To keep costs down I go to the local Butcher and buy fresh chicken in bulk and then cook 5 meals on a Sunday, ready to defrost/warm up in the morning. Much more tasty and keep the costs down. I also make my own marinades!

[chinesechicken]

Having posted this I did wonder to myself, why don't I just cook more chicken the night before (doh!). Won't really work for the fish though and not all chicken dishes I cook would really be suitable for a lunch and/or mid afternoon snack

C&C also welcome on the 'diet'

[ukwill]

tins of tuna and do what the rest of the world does: neck it with a pint of water (sometimes pinching your nose so as not to gag)

[chinesechicken]

ukwill said:

tins of tuna and do what the rest of the world does: neck it with a pint of water (sometimes pinching your nose so as not to gag)

I'm currently at a stage where I'm eating healthy and very much enjoying the food that I eat.

I'd rather not feel that eating high protein is a 'chore'.

[ukwill]

chinesechicken said:

ukwill said:

tins of tuna and do what the rest of the world does: neck it with a pint of water (sometimes pinching your nose so as not to gag)

I'm currently at a stage where I'm eating healthy and very much enjoying the food that I eat.

I'd rather not feel that eating high protein is a 'chore'.

Good luck bulking cleanly then.

[Rach*]

How about turkey?


I mix wasabi in my tuna & mayo gives a nice zing

[chinesechicken]

ukwill said:

chinesechicken said:

ukwill said:

tins of tuna and do what the rest of the world does: neck it with a pint of water (sometimes pinching your nose so as not to gag)

I'm currently at a stage where I'm eating healthy and very much enjoying the food that I eat.

I'd rather not feel that eating high protein is a 'chore'.

Good luck bulking cleanly then.

Are you implying that the only way to 'bulk' is to eat tuna straight from the tin?

It's certainly something I'd like to avoid doing. I'll need to look into sauces to go with it which are pretty 'clean' yet please the pallet!

Rach* - Isn't turkey more expensive?

Edited by chinesechicken on Thursday 15th July 21:42

[Rach*]

I thought turkey was cheaper in the supermarket, worth a look though

[ukwill]

chinesechicken said:

ukwill said:

chinesechicken said:

ukwill said:

tins of tuna and do what the rest of the world does: neck it with a pint of water (sometimes pinching your nose so as not to gag)

I'm currently at a stage where I'm eating healthy and very much enjoying the food that I eat.

I'd rather not feel that eating high protein is a 'chore'.

Good luck bulking cleanly then.

Are you implying that the only way to 'bulk' is to eat tuna straight from the tin?

It's certainly something I'd like to avoid doing. I'll need to look into sauces to go with it which are pretty 'clean' yet please the pallet!

Rach* - Isn't turkey more expensive?

Edited by chinesechicken on Thursday 15th July 21:42

Not really, but many, many do. You'll find a lot of people trying to get 4k+ calories consumed per day (let alone 2xBW of protein) don't pay too much attention to how they take their protein after a while. When you're on a bulk, and eating as much as you have to, thinking about new ways to do your food just gets in the way. Eating becomes almost machine like. In fact, I'm just off to polish off a tin before bed

fwiw, if I can be arsed to spice it up a bit I stick half a pot of sainsburys salsa in it - couple of grams of fat and plenty of tomatoes.

[Matt_N]

Turkey breast is cheaper than chicken in the supermarket.

Other cheap sources of protein are:

Tuna - as mentioned
Quorn - not as much protein per 100g as chicken, Quorn is around 17-20g per 100 iirc, but its about half the price of chicken. 500g of quorn pieces is about £2 or so

Beef jerky is expensive but is a nice high protein treat every now and then.

[okgo]

This is where shakes come into play.

You'd be a fool to not get in on the shakes.

[chinesechicken]

okgo said:

This is where shakes come into play.

You'd be a fool to not get in on the shakes.

As per the original post, I'm already taking 2 a day (60g)

I'd rather not be stting liquids and I'd like to keep to 3 'meals' a day (if breakfast counts)

Edited by chinesechicken on Friday 16th July 09:48

[dirty boy]

I've just started boiling eggs and taking them to work, I just lob them in the pan whilst i'm having breakfast then eat them throughout the day (well, all two of them)

I also take a tin of tuna (in springwater) and quite enjoy eating it straight from the tin, much to the amusement of my colleagues!

An apple and a banana complete my daytime intake.



Last night, I had a LUMP of RUMP baby!

Literally just lobbed a honking great bit of rump in the pan, 30 seconds each side, cut up some chicory, cut the rump into bite size pieces, lobbed some honey/olive oil/dijon mustard as a dressing, lovely!

[emicen]

If you can get a Costco card buy your chicken from there.

Typically in a box you'll get one fillet less than the price (as in 12 fillets ~ £13) but they arent water pumped rubbish like you get out of Tesco and sizewise are massive (the size of a hand in handshake formation is not uncommon).

[okgo]

Look at weight not amount of fillets, anyway.

[spikeyhead]

There's no cheaper protein source than tinned pilchards.

[Lunja]

Cottage cheese would be another good protein source. It's quite high in cassein protein (I believe...) which is slower releasing, so it's good to have before bed.

Another trick I'm using at the moment is to mix skimmed milk powder into a pint of skimmed milk to increase its protein value. At the moment it's working out cheaper than the more popular whey protein shakes (pint of skimmed in 45p,and milk powder is between £2-£3 for 500g) and mixed with a teaspoon or two of Nequick is tastes really good. the only downside to them is that they contain more calories than a specially designed shake mix, but if you're aiming to bulk then it shouldn't matter too much.

[Arese]

emicen said:

If you can get a Costco card buy your chicken from there.

Typically in a box you'll get one fillet less than the price (as in 12 fillets ~ £13) but they arent water pumped rubbish like you get out of Tesco and sizewise are massive (the size of a hand in handshake formation is not uncommon).

This. I picked up a pack last night for £14. It's lovely stuff. Seperate into foil-wrapped fillets, then just bang in the oven with a sprinkle of herbs.

[chinesechicken]

right

now I just need a costco card..