Gaining

With inflation being what it is, groceries are a lot more expensive now, so a lot of people are finding that their budget is the biggest obstacle to gaining. Previously safe bets for putting on weight like fast food and weight gain shakes might not be great options anymore if they are relegated to being an occasional treat. The best foods for gaining now are really just whatever food you can afford. That's why we need to look at the number of calories you get per dollar. It's not complicated to figure out. Just find the nutrition facts, take the number of calories per serving, multiply that by the total number of servings to get the total calories, then divide that by the price to get calories per dollar (which I'll call CPD for short).

I looked up a bunch of different food items, I used Walmart to find all of the grocery store items and tried to stick to the house brand (called Great Value in this case) instead of name brands, since that's always going to save you a few bucks. Of course, all of these numbers only apply when you're buying in person instead of having food delivered, as delivery fees will cause it to plummet. Also, packaging and quantity matters. The bigger the volume of each item, the more money you save, and try to go for things in plastic bags when you have a choice, since it's the cheapest form of packaging.

Back in my college days, I discovered that the highest volume of food for the cheapest price in the cafeteria were packs of generic Oreo-style sandwich cookies from the vending machine, and I'd sometimes just get one of those for lunch. Checking the price today, they offer a very nice 1066 CPD.

Once, when they were on sale, I had gotten boxes of snack cakes in every flavor and would eat a box of them after dinner every night. What I had were Little Debbie big packs, which normally cost $5 when not on sale. They range from 456 to 768 CPD, with the biggest ones being Oatmeal Creme Pies, Nutty Buddy, and Star Crunch.

Ice cream sandwiches were 600 CPD, and tubs of ice cream were close at 630 CPD.

I found the cheapest heavy cream I could find, and it gives you 659 CPD, but that's not much of a surprise that it's more.
The bigger surprise was that Boost VHC only gets you 219 CPD. A lot of people swear by Boost. Mass gainer protein powder was nearly as bad. I looked at several brands, and they were all around the 250 to 290 mark.

A 7" birthday cake is 346 CPD, and sheet cakes were slightly less.

Chocolate pudding cups were 338 CPD, and a tub of Kosy Shack tapioca pudding is 171. The difference is probably due to the name brand.

Getting a dozen cream-filled donuts at Krispy Kreme gives you 211 CPD, with their glazed donuts being even less, at 152.

A plain tub of frosting from the baking section is 980 CPD. Brownie mix was a substantial 1428 CPD just on its own.

Breakfast cereal depends on the flavor, but it ranged from 566 CPD up to 850, with the big winners being the generic versions of Fruit Loops, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Captain Crunch. Instant oatmeal was higher, at 914 CPD.

Frozen waffles are 439, but pancake mix was a huge 1600 CPD.

I looked up various things in the candy aisle, and it's a wide range from 161 to 628 CPD, with the clear winner being generic gummy bears, with Whoppers, Milk Duds and Reese's Pieces being the runner ups. Again, the gummy bears being house brand is probably why they're the highest.

Honey roasted peanuts were 1187 CPD, with creamy peanut butter being much more at 1575 CPD.

Potato chips were 742 CPD, cheese puffs were 800, generic Doritos were 636, but pork rinds were only 444 CPD.

Frozen pizza was 404 CPD.

Frozen French fries were 379 CPD, stuffed potato skins were 247, instant mashed potatoes were 266, but fresh Russett potatoes were 596 CPD.

Fresh avocados were much less at 137 CPD. Eggs are about the same at 132.

Ground beef was 272 CPD, but ground pork was 380.

Breaded mozzarella sticks were 363 CPD, onion rings were 323, and garlic bread was 581.

I looked up common meals at most of the popular fast food places, and they were all within a range of 102 to 170 CPD. For example, a McDonalds Big Mac and an order of fries comes to 103 CPD in total, while the actual high quality equivalent at my local diner is just shy at 87 CPD. At this point, fast food is getting so expensive, it doesn't make much sense anymore.

Chicken fried rice was a paltry 91 CPD
Instant ramen packs were 506 CPD

Canned chili beans were 420 CPD. Dry beans were a little more at 520, but who wants to bother with cooking dry beans for a measly 100 extra calories?

Canned soup was all fairly low, with the highest being potato soup at 300 CPD, and clam chowder at 280.

Butter is 800 CPD, but lard was a whopping 1995 CPD.

But by far, out of everything I checked, the absolute winner was dry rice with an enormous 2424 CPD. While that's truly impressive, there's not a lot of rice dishes that are like 90% rice, so it will probably take you a long time to work through it.

For my money, pasta is really the king of cheap calories since it's easier to go for big stuffings. Dry spaghetti was 1600 CPD. Boxed macaroni and cheese was 1260. Alfredo sauce was 217 CPD, but I don't want to do the extra math of trying to add that together with something.

Soda is obviously going to be the sugary drink of choice, with root beer coming in at 1080 CPD. Chocolate milk didn't come close, being only 600 CPD.

For shits and giggles, I decided to look up iceberg lettuce, and it's only 52 CPD for a head, which seems like the least efficient food for getting fat, at least until I looked at royal beluga caviar. It's 0.05 CPD.

So what do you think about all this? And are there any other foods you're curious about?

I think this is a good way to put things into perspective.

Of course, CPD isn't the only thing to keep in mind when getting food. Sometimes you gotta get something with a lower CPD because it's more nutritious, and you wanna keep your teeth in your head.

But, overall, it's a good way to consider the power of the dollar and make more strategic purchases.

And granulated, refined white sugar is apparently "2,161 CPD" at least from my local Wal-Mart, which assumes the 4lb size which for whatever reason, offers the cheapest cents/oz. ratio.

So what?

I.. gawd, where the hell do I even begin with this one?

I get it.. some items have experienced considerable sticker shock in recent years. Some folks might not have gotten a raise to match the inflation, and even if you did, there might be other expenses that went up faster. There does seem to be more who seemed squeezed than before.

I'm assuming the OP understands this clearly, but even if he does, my biggest fear is someone reading this thread is going to take this seriously in the wrong way, and attempt to prioritize CPD above all else.

That's absolutely the wrong way to look at it.

I mean okay, suppose you do eat nothing but white rice, or even white refined sugar? Health concerns and other problems aside (more on that later), you would get tired and bored of that. You would go insane, probably.

And yes, that would cause all sort of health problems. If you only have simple carbs without any fat or protein, I don't even want to theorize what would happen, but it's not going to be good.

Having nothing but sugar would pretty much guarantee diabetes, and I once heard of someone who's poor and lacks healthcare coverage, so to pay for $500/mo. on the insulin she needs, she forgoes rent and lives in her car. High fructose corn syrup, the shit that's used to sweeten soda in the U.S., causes sugar crashes that are at least 3-4x as bad, and in those large quantities would mean diabetes too. I still remember this 19 year old user who drank a 2 liter every day, and she was told she'd get diabetes if she kept that up. The only way she knew about it was she'd regularly get blood work tests done, as part of a M2F sex change transition program. That this almost happened to someone, especially so young, that's scary.

Also, such a diet will mean malnutrition, which is NOT a pretty sight or experience. Scurvy is only the tip of the iceberg.

I don't even want to theorize what kind of healthcare costs that might result in. Good grief. Even if you live in a country with free or virtually free universal healthcare coverage, you will still face costs.

Lost income from work, lost income from the time period to find work again, assuming you even can work anymore. How much is that going to cost you?

Poor quality of life because of severe malnutrition from a lack of vitamins, that you can't really quantify but is still extremely serious.

I haven't even touched upon digestion and digestion problems.

Not all calories are exactly the same, either. Sure, oil is one of the most calorie dense substances out there, but if you try to chug a bottle of that, it'll just run right through you, and you probably wouldn't even absorb most of it, most likely. Same thing could also happen if you have too much dairy fat at once. Different types of food can also take different amounts of energy to digest, too.

Go ahead and have those vegetables on burgers and pizza, drink fruit juice or if you do have soda, get the kind that uses real sugar. Junk food is often yummy of course, but try not to have too much of the really ultra-processed stuff. That's usually the stuff that comes in boxes and isn't refrigerated.

Certain canned good are okay, though a lot of them can have a lot of sodium that you might want to watch out for. While you do need sodium in your diet, odds are if you're a gainer you get more than enough of it.

Most importantly, if you can, try to have fun and just try to eat more. Do keep nutrition in mind, try to be at least somewhat balanced, and for the love of everything good, don't prioritize CPD to the exclusion of everything else. You will seriously regret it if you do.

I don't expect people to be complete morons who would switch their entire diet to be nothing but cooking oil or something. Anyone who would do that is already a Darwin Award waiting to happen.

I already pointed out pasta as the best gaining food despite lard and other ingredients having higher CPD, specifically because it makes an actual meal. I even mentioned that the rice would take ages to get through because there aren't a lot of dishes that are a majority rice. The implication is that people would be using this to make real food with.

This is intended for people who have a specific idea in their head about the correct foods for gaining (fast food, mass gainer, etc.), and show them there is a better way to get results that fits their budget. That's it.

I appreciate the clarification and you're right, you did mention that about pasta and rice. And I did say I expected you understood this clearly.

I just wanted to point out the other side of things because I never know who might be reading these posts.

This is definitely an interesting read, but I am a little confused about the CPD.

Let’s say that something that has a CPD of 50, does that mean I gotta pay $50 or maybe $0.50 on a certain grocery?? If that’s the case no wonder why people are so concerned about shopping for groceries on the news. 😅

Either way I’d like an explanation for that. Thanks!

CPD - Calories Per Dollar.

If a cookie has 150 calories and costs $3 from somewhere, the math is 150 / $3 -> 50 / $1, or 50 CPD. Most would consider this very expensive.

Imagine a box of cheese sandwich crackers, that contains 16 packages. Each package is considered a serving, 200 calories each. That means the entire package supposedly has 3,200 calories, because 16 * 200 = 3,200. Then suppose the package costs $6. 3,200 / $6 -> ~533.33 / $1, or ~533 CPD.

I hope this helps.

The upshot of this is that let's say you have a budget of $18 for a snack. If you spend it all on cookies, you'd get a total of 900 calories. But if you spend it on the crackers instead, you'd get 9,600 calories and a much better stuffing for the same money.

Ngl, this reminds me of what a lot of broke college kids would do to get the most out of their meals.