In Moderation
Providing health, nutrition and fitness advice in moderate amounts to help you live your best life.
Rob: Co-host of the podcast "In Moderation" and fitness enthusiast. Rob has a background in exercise science and is passionate about helping others achieve their health and fitness goals. He brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the show, providing valuable insights on topics such as calories, metabolism, and weight loss.
Liam: Co-host of the podcast "In Moderation" and new father. Liam has a background in nutrition and is dedicated to promoting a balanced and sustainable approach to health and wellness. With his witty and sarcastic style, Liam adds a unique flavor to the show, making it both informative and entertaining.
In Moderation
Cheap Eats: From Struggle Meals to Survival Dinners
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Ever wondered what people eat when money is tight or cooking enthusiasm is at an all-time low? This episode dives deep into the fascinating world of "struggle meals" - those budget-friendly dishes that keep us alive when times get tough.
From the humble can of chili (which gets our highest rating, especially when topped with avocado) to questionably "budget-friendly" dishes that require sautéing ginger and making a roux, we rate them all with brutal honesty and plenty of laughs. We discover that not all struggle meals are created equal - some are genuinely brilliant combinations of affordable staples, while others are elaborate recipes masquerading as simple solutions.
The humble egg on rice earns high marks for its simplicity and satisfying nature, while canned tuna emerges as the protein hero of budget cooking, making multiple appearances throughout our list. We debate whether frozen meals deserve their place in the struggle meal pantheon (they do) and share our surprisingly passionate opinions about frozen pizza brands.
What makes these meals so compelling isn't just their affordability - it's their ability to provide comfort during challenging times. Many represent culinary ingenuity at its finest: creating something delicious from whatever limited ingredients are on hand. These aren't just meals of last resort; they're cultural touchstones that connect us through shared experiences of making do with less.
What's your go-to meal when your wallet is thin or your energy is low? Share your favorite struggle meals with us - we promise not to judge if they involve copious amounts of instant noodles or questionable combinations of pantry staples!
You can find us on social media here:
Rob Tiktok
Rob Instagram
Liam Tiktok
Liam Instagram
Hey everybody, welcome to In Moderation, where tonight we give you a moderate dose of sleepiness because we're both really tired, Absolutely. It's just been a long week but Oakley's now in daycare full-time, which is very helpful. That is very helpful. It's great when you're not the only one that has to do everything. That's nice. You get other people's help the only one that has to do everything.
Speaker 1That's nice. You get other people's help. Anyway, I'm living in a society, a society with help and people relying on each other communism, that's what I call that. I I looked up, I was just kind of curious, like going along the lines of like oh yeah, everybody's poor, now we're all all looking for cheap eats. I looked up a list of struggle meals that people said they would eat and so I'm kind of curious. We look through them and see, you know, give them a rating. Do we like them? What would we do differently? Would we just say hell no, is there cottage cheese? That's the real question.
Speaker 2That sounds good to me and yes, we're being lazy, but hey, we're tired personally, I was.
Speaker 1I was at a funeral on monday.
Speaker 2That was like six hours out of town. So hey, give me a break this isn't lazy.
Speaker 1What are you talking about? Reading off a list as lazy this. With this, we are putting in the work. Okay, here, all right, does it, does francesca rivera, did, did. Did they put in a bunch of work too? Sure, maybe the person who wrote this article, but, like you know, we're doing just as much work by reading it.
Speaker 1That's the way I look at it, uh reading is hard, so yeah, yeah, reading it just reminds me of zoolander, it's like and the center for kids who can't read good, I fucking love zoolander. And the Center for Kids who Can't Read Good, I fucking love Zoolander. Man, there's those movies like early 2000s, late 90s that fucking get me every time man, zoolander, ace Ventura, what's the spy? What's Austin Powers? Oh, austin Powers.
Speaker 2I still do the head bobbing from Night at the Roxbury.
Speaker 1I have not seen that.
Speaker 2Oh really.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't think I've seen that one, but that's in that kind of era man, those ones just have a place. Joe Dirt Fucking Joe Dirt. It's stupid, but I love it.
Speaker 2No, that's one I haven't seen.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean a lot of people, which it's kind of more like a cult classic, but my wife loves it. We dressed up as Joe Dirt did the Joe Dirt thing for Halloween. That was a lot of fun, anyway. So these are the top ones. Canned chili with shredded cheddar that's great, right, like you just get those cans of chili. It's got like beans and shit and tomatoes. That's good for you, right? And then you throw some cheese on it. I love that. You know what's really good to put on top of it. You want to up the nutrition too. Avocado. Avocado on chili is fucking dope and I highly recommend it. I love the fact that you cut out, while you were telling me, the entire recipe, so I have no idea what the recipe was. But hey, it's canned chili. Everybody else is.
Canned chili to fancy tofu dishes
Speaker 1Everybody else is gonna hear it it's just canned chili and cheddar cheese and I like to add avocado. Oh, and like people do, sour cream, throw a little greek yogurt on there, more protein, whatever, like I like that sort of thing, but add sour cream and then you can add some like I'll top it with just like some like seeds, like whatever.
Speaker 2Whatever sort of like seeds seeds are nice thing to hide in things, pumpkin seeds, you know a little crunch, I like that, yeah.
Speaker 1So I give that 10 out of 10 canned chili.
Speaker 2Love it I give it uh, I didn't see it out of 10 that's, I just told you what it is, it's still not rating it whatever no uh, number two tofu dawn.
Speaker 1Tofu cooked in a mixture of soy sauce, mirin sake and sugar with onions. What kind of is this a struggle meal at a five-star restaurant? What like? Listen, I love tofu and everything, but like you're doing all this stuff to it, that's all. That's a lot, that's not. I don't think that's a struggle meal. One out of ten it's good. Sounds great, but no no, no.
Speaker 1Oh, with onions that were sauteed with ginger and garlic. Get the fuck out of here. I'm now chopping ginger and garlic and sauteing it for a struggle meal. No, this is like I'm giving something really nice for like a date night. Like what? No, get out of here.
Speaker 2That does sound like a good date night one, but struggle meal my butt, struggle meal no uh, my mom's struggle meal her unnamed soup.
Speaker 1It literally has no name it. It has cooked hamburger meat, canned green beans, tomato sauce, tomato sauce, beef broth and water. Sure throw, yeah, throw, yeah hamburger meat hamburger soup that's just one of those things like whatever you have, you're like oh yeah, just throw that in there. This pepper's going bad. Get whatever carrots yeah, those aren't looking so good, throw that in there, sure, yeah, I say yeah, stroke, yeah, yeah, the no name, the no name gets some ground beef pretty cheap.
Speaker 1I like that and this is like hamburger meat, like this. I like it, yeah, I like it. Uh, for number four, white rice and an over easy egg on top and oh, and they'll add a fear, fear of kake, you know, like the rice seasoning, if you haven't tried it. Like in like asian section, they have like rice seasonings, like seaweed I have not tried it.
Speaker 1I don't think oh, it's got seaweed, a bunch of different seeds, like like sesame seeds and stuff that's great to throw on top of it. That sounds amazing actually. Yeah yeah, it gives a little Asian flair. I definitely recommend it. Furikake, furikake. However.
Speaker 2I'm sure I'm not pronouncing it right, but whatever.
Speaker 1And then, yeah, rice and egg Like.
Speaker 2I got a rice cooker broke. I have to go find a new one, but it's cheap right, they're cheap, exactly yeah.
Speaker 1And then a fried egg all right, that I can do like you throw that in a pan, whatever, like, yeah, you got to cook a little, but I, I, I, 10 out of 10 hell you could do a fried egg in the air fryer if you want yeah, I guess, yeah, yeah, but yeah, that's that's a super simple meal.
Speaker 2I like that and nice cheap state. Well, I was gonna say cheap staples, but I guess cheap eggs aren't that cheap in the US anymore.
Speaker 1Eggs now because of bird food.
Speaker 2If you're in Canada, still good.
Speaker 1Everybody die Pita pizzas. They are fast, easy and can be a healthy choice, depending on what you put on them. Yeah, like pita or naan or whatever.
Speaker 1Any of those flatbreads, flatbreads, any sort of flatbread you know. Yeah, there's some sauce on it, cheese and then your toppings and throw in the oven. I did that recently for a video with, like a butternut squash. I had to cook the squash first, but that sounds like a great way to get that in there and then he blended I thought it was really cool blending the pumpkin. He blended a can of pumpkin and tomato sauce together and use that for the sauce.
Rice, eggs, and creative pasta options
Speaker 1Now we can get kind of the benefits of both the tomato and the right, yeah, and it doesn't really get much fiber. A little extra yeah, just micronutrients and all that, stuff like that yeah so I thought that was really smart.
Speaker 1Blend tomato with pumpkin. Use that as a tomato sauce. Tomato pumpkin is cheap yeah, it's usually like a dollar two. Like tomatoes are cheap too, so they're probably around like the same area. But, like you know, you get the benefits of both. I I recommend it. It works well. I know this. Uh, the core pasta, oh, the core pasta. Sides alfredo and creamy garlic shells. Just cook pasta according directions and throw in some fresh or frozen greens, what, what? We just like canned alfredo sauce, I'm assuming, because I ain't making no afraid of sauce, I'm not making a room or anything but like, can't, but like, yeah, pasta out of a box with some cans, with some sauce, sure, and then like, oh, you get like the broccoli, right, the frozen broccoli, like you throw that in with the pasta, right, like two minutes before it's done cooking, you just toss the broccoli in there.
Speaker 2Love that, that's good, I'm with that yeah, just yeah, just add what you need to the pasta. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1So yeah, as long as it's camp house, because I ain't making all that. I've become a little obsessed with bulldog Bulldog ramen I don't know how to pronounce it Bulldack, bulldog, probably bulldog ramen, right, I don't know. I don't know. I've always had two soft boiled eggs, green onions, maybe some torn seaweed sheets, jeez and sesame seeds. I mean like ramen, I think it was. Was there somebody who recently made a video that they're like new pores talking to, like old pores, and like the old pores are like what do you want to add to your ramen? And the new pores like what do you mean? You add stuff to ramen? Like, yeah, you take your ramen, you put stuff on it, that's what you do, and they don't even know. Like you take whatever. You have Corn, fuck it, sure. You have corn fuck it sure. Throw that in there. Eggs, sounds good. Seaweed, perfect, so you just take the ramen.
Speaker 2You can just um. While you're cooking the ramen, you crack an egg right in there I always because they run up.
Speaker 1I always just ate the ramen, right, I would use like two packets. I didn't realize those things were like 500 calories and so I eat like a thousand calories of ramen and probably three days worth of sodium or whatever. It was like just so much, oh man, the times are tough, man. A 25 cent packet of ramen, that'll get you, that'll keep you alive, and that's what's important, right? Or maybe it's not, depending on your outlook on life, but we're gonna say it's important. Um, oh, this was just a full-on recipe. It just says hamburger stew. That's literally all it says is hamburger stew. And then there's just a bunch of things for like 80, 20 browned and drained sweet onion, garlic, all that sort of stuff. Hamburger stew, then? I mean, you're chopping onions and garlic and fresh thyme. Is that three fourths a cup of flour? And we're doing ruched like no, this is not a struggle meal. Get the fuck out of here with your struggle meal and fucking chop your shit and make a roux. Uh-uh, uh-uh.
Speaker 2Brown onions and all this fancy stuff.
Speaker 1Zero out of ten, that ain't no fucking struggle. Meal let's see Barilla spaghetti. Oh, and a can of sweet chili tuna I can see spaghetti and tuna spaghetti into it, like my uh, you know tuna, mac, tuna, max.
Speaker 1I think my wife makes it a lot. I've talked about that a bunch. So sweet chili, tuna with pasta. I'm intrigued by this. I'm intrigued by this. I like this. Intrigued by this, I like this. It's interesting. So I love sweet chili, I love like the spice and like all of that. I think that that sounds pretty good for the sauce, I mean I just do.
Speaker 1What do you think? Do you think they just do like marinara and then the sweet chili? Or is it just the sweet chili like tuna? Because I feel like it'd be kind of sauce or something.
Speaker 2Yeah, you need a little sauce with the pasta.
Speaker 1I'm going to say it's a little bit of sauce and then like a sweet chili tuna. That again intrigued. I give that an intrigued out of 10.
Speaker 2I mean, I've often had like pasta and salmon, just not tuna, and it's definitely not sweet chili, but that's interesting.
Speaker 1Number 10 and 11 are both tuna mac. One is just tuna mac and cheese and the are both tuna mac. One is just tuna mac and cheese and the other is tuna mac and cheese with peas. That's the literally the only difference. 11 just adds wow. So I guess I'll go with you like I guess that's pretty struggle meal, right like my. My wife doesn't really cook, she doesn't, she's not, she doesn't really clean either. She don't do those sort of you don't really do those, that's okay.
Speaker 2Neither do you.
Speaker 1We can all see the background and we just kind of roll with the house you know, I make sure like I sweep, you know, and try to make sure the dog hair is not completely covering the floor and like we get by. But uh, to say, if she can make tuna mac, anybody can make tuna mac. So I, I do, get that pasta, add your two can of tuna, add cheese of some sort of or whatever. You can just do the mac and cheese thing like they were little packets. And then uh, yeah, peace, frozen peace, boom. So yeah, uh, 10 out of 10 with peace, 8 out of 10 without the peace. You need the peace to get the extra two points. I agree with that assessment. And then number 12 is I came down to say I came down to say classic tuna noodle casserole. Man, fucking, everybody's. Just like get your pasta and get your tuna.
Speaker 1That's like half this list now is just tuna with pasta.
Speaker 2I mean to be fair. The canned tuna is pretty cheap. It's protein packed.
Speaker 1And you open it up and you eat it. So you know, like I guess fair, we're going in all in on the tuna and the other ones we said fuck, you too were like the brown, your beef and whatnot. Like we don't want to do that. So I guess we're complaining. No matter what I was always I was taught to use everything because money was so tight. So if we roasted a chicken we also made soup, right, bone broth. Okay, like you use the whole if you buy the chicken, right, like it's cheaper if you buy the whole chicken than if you buy the parts. But then you do kind of have to figure out like all right, well, I'm using the breast for this, or, and then I have all this other shit. Like what do I do?
Speaker 2yeah, so yeah, throw it into like a giant pot, right, like that'll, that'll do something, that'll make yeah, the nice thing with that is, even if you mess up the butchering of it, if the meat's still on the bone you throw it in the pot. The meat's just going to fall off. Get a nice soup out of it.
Speaker 1Buy, yeah, whole chicken. Use everything, 10 out of 10. Yeah, number 14, basically getting very inventative with the few staple ingredients I had in the pantry, which was usually a packet of deli ham right, a lot of people have that Half a dozen eggs, instant noodles and a pack of microwave rice. So, instant noodles and rice, I'd make ham and eggs in different ways, right, ham and egg fried rice sure, fried rice is always classic. I like this. Yeah, having like a few things and just-.
Speaker 2Throw some frozen peas in there. I like, yeah, I like this, yeah, having like a few things and just throw some frozen peas in there.
Speaker 1I like, yeah, I think this is good. I like that you just make it a different way, so you use those things. That's how people win.
Speaker 2Like on cooking shows Frozen peas or canned corn Canned corn's another good one to throw in something like that.
Speaker 1I like canned frozen corn. Like any corn man, I love corn. The fuck is this. It just says. All it says is it's five ingredients, comes together in about half an hour and it's tasty comfort food. What is it?
Speaker 2Did they forget to actually tell you the five ingredients?
Speaker 1Okay, I lived in another country for a while and just started cooking. One night I came up, I cut up some chicken breasts and browned it in a pan. Bro, we're browning chicken breasts in a struggle meal.
Speaker 2Are we going for a Michelin star?
Speaker 1I added a can of cream of mushroom soup Okay, and some amount of milk, I guess that's and then you let it simmer. Microwave frozen broccoli All right, they're coming around. Okay, it's not. It's not too bad, but still like you're like browning chicken.
Speaker 2I'm like chicken breast is touchy. You can.
Speaker 1You can dry it out really fast uh, ground beef, spaghetti, noodles, fried onions, soy sauce and ketchup. Ketchup, all right, I mean that's, you guys have to cook the ground beef and you know, noodles, fried onions yeah, I'm iffy on that one number, 17, 17, though this is where it's at. This is where it's at Rice and beans. That's what it says Rice and beans, specifically basmati rice maple flavor brown beans Maple flavor brown beans Maple flavor brown beans.
Speaker 1Maple flavor brown beans. Say it five times fast. I don't think I've had maple flavor brown beans topped with shredded cheese and ranch. I live in.
Speaker 2Canada.
Speaker 1I don't think I've seen maple flavored brown beans Maple flavored everything else, just not brown beans Brown beans, that sounds good, honestly rice and basmati rice and maple flavored.
Speaker 2That sounds like it would go good with a maple glazed salmon oh, he's sounding good.
Speaker 1That does sound like it'd be good with salmon top with shredded cheese and ranch. I'm a little thrown off by the ranch. I'm not so sure about the whole ranch situation. Rice and beans ranch. I guess it's fine. I would like just the maple flavored brown beans and rice.
Speaker 2That sounds good I'm gonna have to look for that does sound good now I'm gonna have to look for these now.
Speaker 1I like that. Okay, here we go. All right, all right, here we go. Those frozen banquet salisbury steaks, instant mashed potatoes and a can of some kind of bean or pea, like green beans, field peas, etc. I usually just make it last night, I actually just made it last night and it never fails to hit the spot. See that, see this, see this is a person not intuitive, ingenuitive, whatever it is. They're a person figuring shit out. They go to the frozen section like, oh, I got this, and then I make some instant mashed potatoes. Oh, a can of whatever I have Peas, beans, whatever. I like this. 12 out of 10. This is my best rating so far.
Speaker 2I like this, yeah, yeah those frozen meals in the microwave meals and whatever in the frozen section, they can be pretty damn good.
Speaker 1You just add shit to them. I love this. I like, hey, hummy Swam, it's Hummy Swam, I don't know, but you got. You got your shit together and I like it A plus. And finally the last one Frozen stuffed crust. Pepperoni pizza, stuffed crust, pepperoni pizza, stuffed crust. Eh, just frozen pizza, man, like that's a struggle meal, right.
Speaker 2Again with the pizza. It's always a case of all the ingredients individually. We're like, yeah, that's fine, and then you suddenly throw them together and it's oh, it's bad for you. Frozen pizza, man, we just eat too much of it is the problem with pizza. Just watch how much you eat. Don't cook the entire thing. You can break it into quarters.
Speaker 1Have you found a good frozen pizza that you like?
Speaker 2I have. I can't remember the brand of it. Was it Giuseppe? No, maybe.
Speaker 1Just some like stereotypical Italian name. Yeah, it's Antonio's pizza.
Speaker 2Yeah God, you know what. I actually might have a box of it in the recycling. I could go and stick that out if you really want to know.
Speaker 1No one's in Canada, anyway, they won't even be able to find it. It's fine. I see no one's in canada, anyway, they won't even be able to find it. It's fine. Um, I see like I'll just typically go with like a di giorno when I'm not really sure. I've tried. There's like in the states we have like scream in sicilian, which is like a little bit pricier, but it's supposed to be like better. I tried it. I was like this is fine, but it's not like worth the extra money and everything it's. It's totally fine. It's not so much better than like a DiGiorno. What's the other one? Fruschetta or something.
Speaker 2I'm totally going to dig it out while you're talking about the second one.
Finding your perfect frozen pizza
Speaker 1Okay, but like the Red Baron and like all those super cheap ones, like I'll eat them if that's like that's what I've got. But I feel like it's worth the extra couple bucks or whatever to get the DiGiorno with the rising crust. It's got to have that rising crust I don't know what science-y shit Baking powder I'm assuming. I don't know Whatever they've done to make that crust go. That's where it's at. And then, yeah, you get the stuffed crust with the cheese in there too. Man, that's ridiculous. And yeah, you can just like add stuff to it if you want. I usually get like a little I'll do like those uh, frozen those salad mixes just to have one of the salad mixes with it it might be this one.
Speaker 2It's uh dr otker's casa de mama that's just like josephie's.
Speaker 1What's the difference? That's like, basically, that's exactly like what you said. Yeah, it's close enough, right, doctor?
Speaker 2it's one of those cases where I've, um, I've gone through and I've like tried different brands and um, there's actually I did actually quite recently where I tried a couple different ones, and so there's a bunch of different boxes in the recycling bin, but I'm pretty sure it's this one, dr Dr Oetker's Casa de Mama.
Speaker 1Dr Oetker, I would love to do that. I don't have enough room in my damn freezer to be like oh, let me try all these different frozen pizzas. I would like to do it like a head to head and be like what's the best frozen pizza? But yeah, that's our entire list. So you guys let us know your struggle meals and I want to know actual struggle meals and shit.
Speaker 2We talked about our stuff, not what you're cooking on Valentine's Day.
Speaker 1What about Valentine's Day?
Speaker 2Struggle meals not what you're cooking on Valentine's Day. Oh, not what you're cooking.
Speaker 1I mean, it depends, how bad things get we might all be. I mean yeah. It might not matter the day. In the United States we might all just be struggling and every
