Poverty Nutrition: A Fugue in Egg Minor

As the recent recipient of a shiny new PhD, I’ve spent almost 20% of my life so far as a member of the impoverished and undernourished graduate student demographic. One of the things I wish I’d figured out earlier is how to eat well on a stipend—especially when it comes to breakfast, the neglected meal. For this guest post, I’ve compiled three breakfast options that cost less than $1 each, can be prepared in the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee, and contain only basic, cheap ingredients. I won’t bore you with the calculations, but I can certify that each breakfast comes in easily under a buck.

All three of these recipes feature eggs, which is no accident. The egg is the unsurpassed king of breakfast foods. It contains all the necessary materials to build a chick, which is composed of essentially the same materials as a human; even chicken beaks and feathers contain the same proteins—keratins—as human fingernails. Yes, the yolk contains cholesterol. No, don’t throw away the yolk. Egg yolks also contain the emulsifier lecithin, which is critical to the success of these dishes, and they’re full of fat-soluble vitamins and nutrients that are likely deficient in the average grad student diet of Little Debbie products purloined from seminars and symposia.

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Peanut butter magic danish

• 1/3 cup or 100 grams peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp sugar or honey

Warm up the peanut butter in a small bowl in the microwave for about 10 seconds. Beat the egg and sugar into it with a fork. Eventually the peanut butter and egg will come together into a sort of “dough”. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl so that the dough forms a cohesive blob. Microwave for about 1 ½ minutes. The magic danish is finished cooking when the outer edges have solidified into a bread-like texture so that you can pick it up like a danish, while the center remains slightly gooey to serve as the filling.

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Frankenquiche

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 slice stale pizza, chopped
• pinch of salt

Beat the egg and milk together with a fork in a large cup. Add the pizza and salt. Stir well and let it sit for a minute or two so that the pizza crust absorbs some of the liquid. Microwave for 1 minute. Stir the quiche, then microwave for 1 more minute or until set. This dish is essentially a savory Italian french toast quiche, proving that a couple of eggs can turn just about anything into breakfast.

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Nearly-instant oatmeal custard

• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp raisins or other dried fruit
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/3 cup plain quick-cooking rolled oats
• 1 tsp sugar or honey

Beat the egg thoroughly in a bowl with a fork. Add the remaining ingredients and stir well. Microwave until semisolid, about 1.5 minutes, stirring halfway through. If you have even a modicum of self-respect, you’ll never go back to the gloopy so-called oatmeal that comes in a packet.

It may be tempting to skip breakfast in favor of a few more minutes of sleep in the morning, but remember: good science happens with a clear mind and a full belly. I hope these recipes stimulate you to get out of bed and into the kitchen.

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.Dr. Barrilleaux is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Davis, in the laboratory of Dr. Paul Knoepfler. She received a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Tulane University. She has eaten nearly 2000 breakfasts as a graduate student, many of which involved sniffing a gallon of milk to decide if the expiration date was serious or just a suggestion. She is also an occasional contributor to the Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog.

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For more Poverty Nutrition recipes, see Beans & Rice (And Their Infinite Variety)

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