cooking from scratch or buying ready made?

want2bmortgage3

i was thinking about the pros and cons of making everything yourself from scratch or buying mass produced ready made meals, sauces, etc

from a social point of view isnt it better to say have one big factory producing food for the masses with heavy duty machinery, than every single person having their own tools and going out and buying individual ingredients?

doesnt it make things cheaper if they are mass produced? i often buy ingredients for a recipe and it comes to a lot more than a couple of ready meals would. the end result isnt always much better, but i am no chef!

i know ready meals quality and size isnt that great but there are some newer ones which are definitely better and fresher tasting on the shelves lately. there is also the cost of energy in the home to think about using gas and electricity for cooking instead of 20 mins in the oven or a 5 mins microwave for a ready meal.

can you taste the difference between a curry paste in a jar and one you have made from 20+ ingredients? then you have to be sure all the ingredients are fresh and in date to get the desired result. just my thoughts!!

Penelope_Penguin

Here you go - why Old Stylers cook from scratch

I may have some sympathy with your arguement if it were cheaper to buy ready meals. I almost had a heart attack when buying some ready made pasta sauce for DD to take on a DofE expidition - £1.50 for one person :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: She said she ate it as she was starving, but it was salty and tasteless :rolleyes:

And all the packaging - it's a disgrace :mad:

And breathe........................:cool:

Penny. x

Triggles

I do try to make a lot of our food from scratch, but I'm not militant about it. There are some things (like certain jarred cooking sauces) I will buy as a bit of a shortcut here and there. Often we use those types of things when it's been a particularly busy day or when DS is particularly clingy and I just don't have the freedom to stand out in the kitchen chopping up vegs or other things. I don't think there's any huge harm in it, but I wouldn't make every meal that way.

Essex-girl_2

I dont think that its just about cost - I know exactly what goes into my home made meals and I enjoy making them. I personally can taste the difference - lasagne for example - I make mine the way we like it - lots of meat and lots of cheese - cant compare it to any of the ready made ones I have tried.

However in certain circumstances ready meals are good - my Nan lived on them for quite a while - she lived on her own and couldnt stand at a cooker for long. She bought them from M&S & although they seemed dear her weekly shopping bill actually wasnt - there was no waste and a lot of the supermarket packs are aimed at families.

When you think about global warming and carbon footprint how far do you go - for example I was watching the opening ceremony of the Para-Olympic games yesterday - the Olympics have a massive carbon footprint though do we want it stopped???

lynzpower

i know ready meals quality and size isnt that great but there are some newer ones which are definitely better and fresher tasting on the shelves lately.

the key word here is fresher "tasting" We all know that readymeals cant be fresh, in any sense. I used to work in a supermarket and know that the meals would be n a box in the back for at least a week, with them on the shelf for a few days, then in customers fridge for a few days before eating. So if its chicken in black bean sauce youve bought, god only knows when that chicken was actually slaughtered.

there is an issue of overpackaging too, what does the world do with all these plastic trays- certainly recycling them is nigh on impossible for most of us, so they end up in landfill, either here or the developing world.

Some things boil down to more than price. Although it IS cheaper a lot of the time to cook from scratch. With the rising cost of butter I dont think baking is cheaper to be honest.

A taste the difference sainsburys lasagne is 2.69. serves one. http://www.sainsburys.com/groceries/frameset/navigation_frame.jsp
One would probably need something else to go with that, maybe a salad/ garlic bread. For a family of four, is 4 of these lasagnes, plus a posh garlic bread say 2.00 plus salad - leaves in a bag, plus the other stuff call that 3.00. Therefore for one evening meal its 15.76. I could do that same meal from scratch for less ( with a handmade posh garlic loaf, REALLY fresh salad - I have a couple of seed trays of spinach/rocket/ leaves on the windowsill, cost less than 3.00 to get the soil/trays/seeds) than a fiver for four, using taste the difference mince to boot! plus I know that it wont have 30grams of fat per portion ( extra fat & salt needed to preserve the meal for the 3 weeks or so it needs to get to table)

Oh has high cholestrol and he has been told in no uncertain terms that he must avoid ready meals and MUST avoid hydrogenated fats. The body simply cannot process hydrogenates. Many supermarkets are emblazoning no hydrogenates on this that and the next thing, but notice the packets that DONT contain this info and you wil see what does.

Im not perfect myself, and there are lots of things I do buy ready made, biscuits and cakes ( my baking skills not up to much plus we have a very crap oven) and the occasional bag of oven chips or vegetarian bits such as linda mccartney pies or sausage rolls for lazy days. If we buy sausages we only buy the 90% meat plus or we go without and have veggie ones instead, if the posh ones are not on offer. ( good deal in M&S recently so stacked the freezer) We dont eat any other processed meat at all- im simply not happy with the quality. Reformed meats have to have added fats and other nasties like Xantham gum to bind it all together.

can you taste the difference between a curry paste in a jar and one you have made from 20+ ingredients? then you have to be sure all the ingredients are fresh and in date to get the desired result. just my thoughts!!

Generally yes I can, thats why when Ive been to the likes of harvester, I can tell straight away that its come out of a microwave tray. Ensuring your ingredients are in date isnt difficult really if you meal plan and only buy what you need in when you need it and monitor waste closely. Ive taken to buying lazy chili/ garlic and also dried shallots and dried garlic flakes, so I always have them in. Garlic when its sprouting can be planted clove by glove in your garden, and it will grow you new bulbs later. Likewise, sprouting potatoes can be put in a bin of soil, and you can then constantly crop them ( not got round to this yet, but we use up pots when we have them especially as they are too getting more expensive) .

Hope this helps, if you are buying RMs for the wehole family you coudl be saving yourself a total fortune by cooking from scratch.

Pink.

Hi want2bmortgage3,

There was a fascinating thread on this last year (including costings of ready meals verus homemade) that should interest you:

Is OS *REALLY* cheaper?

Pink

annie123

want2bmortgage3 wrote: »

from a social point of view isnt it better to say have one big factory producing food for the masses with heavy duty machinery,

that would work if all the workers were from this forum:D
then everything would be fresh, healthy, suitably packaged and tasty;)

Cornishpixie_2

Sounds a bit mad, but for me with cooking from scratch, its the convience of not having to get up and go to the shop, often with kids in tow. E.G. my DS3 didn't like the plum and lemon tray bake I made, he says rosemary(even finely chopped, doesn't belong in there):D So I rustled him up a syrup and oat tart, and a jam one. I think once your organised its easier. I have a 5 week menu plan which I can mix and match, depending whats going on. I shop on line, then pick up fruit and veg from local greengrocer, as I have to go through town to pick up DD3 from nursery.Lot less hassle and money:D

Woodyrocks

I had a really mad dream last night that I was on a mission to make home-made ice cream and started talking to someone that suggested putting things like carrot and grapes in the mix when all I wanted was rum & raisin! I did buy one of those i/cream makers off amazon so might get it down off the shelf and read the instructions and give it a go. It can't be that hard, surely?

jo1972

I want to get to the stage where I can make everything from scratch, but building up to having a self-sufficient cupboard full of staple ingredients is very expensive! I was guilty of eating a lot of convenience stuff most days, I do make roasts and that sort of thing myself but the kids would have a microwavable pasta dish or pizza etc.. I also use pasta and curry pastes from jars purely because I think I've never had the money to buy the tons of ingredients I'd need to make the home-made equivalent (I'm talking here mainly about curries).

I am getting there though, building up quite a few herbs and spices, I'm now growing basil and actually bought some cornflour yesterday :cool: so bits and pieces are coming together. I plan to buy a slow cooker this week as my last one broke (although it was only a small one anyway and there's 5 of us!) and cook lots of nice hearty winter food for a fraction of the convenience price :beer:

Pitlanepiglet

Cornishpixie wrote: »

Sounds a bit mad, but for me with cooking from scratch, its the convience of not having to get up and go to the shop,

This is one of the key points for me too We make all sorts of things that previously I would have gone to the shops for and as I'm basically very lazy I prefer to be able to whip something up at home without having to change out of my manky jogging bottoms!

Plus, I know exactly what is in the things I am eating, and I don't have to buy huge amounts of shopping as the basics, flour, eggs, butter, rice, pasta, soya milk along with a freezer stocked about every 8 weeks and then over filled with my cooking means I've always got the ability to produce food easily and quickly without having to dash to the supermarket.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no domestic goddess and never will be, I'm still learning and I learn a huge amount from these boards and the lovely ladies and gents who share their advice and experience, I lost my mum when I was 12 so missed out on a lot of the things I might otherwise have learnt (although she was no domestic goddess either, I don't think it's in our genes!)

I used to compare prices of home cooked food to packaged food but then it struck me that the food I make has good, natural ingredients in it and the food I was comparing it to was full of additives, trans fats, hydrogenated fats and all sorts of other things that actually I don't want to eat.