[dredmorbius]

"Table crops" (vegetables, fruits) are not dietary staples, that is primary sources of calories.

Grains are.

Rice. Wheat. Maize (corn). Rye. Oats. Barley. Millet. A handful of others.

A 50# bag of rice (22.7kg) costs less than $20, and provides 17,800 calories, or about 900 calories per dollar, or about 0.1 cents/calorie.

I see chicken at about $2/lb, 102cal/3oz, or 544 cal/lb. That's 2.7 cents/calorie, 27 times more expensive than rice.

(And for the nutritionists out there: kilocalories are not all that food provides, but it's the most significant start. Macros and micros as well as other factors do matter. I've been told.)

Oh: There are also root crops, especially potatoes.

[JoeAltmaier]

I think the math isn't quite right: that's about 0.4 cents/cal for chicken? 200 cents / 533 calories

[dredmorbius]

Hrm: A third of a cent?

$ units Currency exchange rates from FloatRates (USD base) on 2019-05-31 3460 units, 109 prefixes, 109 nonlinear units

    You have: 2/544 kcal
    You want: 0.01/kcal
            * 0.36764706
            / 2.72