Don't forget about beans. Particularly when mixed with rice, beans are incredibly healthy and dirt cheap. In fact there is new research showing that beans are great sources of antioxidants, in addition to the protein, iron, and other great stuff. They can be flavored with almost anything. Some people consider meat an important staple but it is absolutely positively unnecessary as a protein source and in tight times should be viewed as a luxury item. On a global scale, less meat consumption would mean less starvation, since many more people can be fed on an acre used to produce human food versus the number of people that are fed by animals raised on food grown on that acreage.