I am curious what percentage of the food acquired in this manner was packaged, e.g. canned, jarred, or wrapped in plastic, and from major brands. Any preserved/processed food from major brands can usually be found at discount if you look hard enough, since it has a long shelf life (from the processing), and there's usually lots of it in stock (from the large brand).
While it's great the author was able to include some fresh produce in his diet, since accomplishing that on an ultra-low budget is quite admirable, it still looks like this feat was pulled off thanks to the quantity of waste typical to mass-produced, processed food.
The picture from the original lifehacker story shows lots of major corporate brands, e.g Kellogg, Mission, Skippy, Quaker Oats, Place, Wheat Thins, and Kraft. http://lifehacker.com/5560305/eat-well-on-just-1-a-day
While it's great the author was able to include some fresh produce in his diet, since accomplishing that on an ultra-low budget is quite admirable, it still looks like this feat was pulled off thanks to the quantity of waste typical to mass-produced, processed food.