The True Cost of Cheap Food?

onetomany

omg i love this thread ive been cooking from scratch but still will buy the value tomatoes etc because needs must

Reverbe

nesssie1702 wrote: »

The presenter, Jay Rayner, is Claire Rayner's (agony aunt) son! I wonder if he's ever been told that he looks like his mum?!

I wont mention I was once engaged to an American lad who at some stages looked quite like him then:rotfl: :rotfl:

God I love this thread - loads of hilarity here from the OSers. as the channel says go on laugh daily nice to know humour is still to be found and totally free.. INteresting points made here by some btw also.

jennet1

MrsE wrote: »

I confess I spend £100+ on our weekly shop (for 3), but I buy mostly preimum meat/poultry/fish. I can't understand how you can get nice meat & a low food budget, because I don't buy much made or processed food & I can't get my shopping below £100. If you want organic/free-range/low-fat/low-salt/etc you pay well for it!

I get an organic veg box with 6 eggs and 2 pints of milk, free range chicken from a local farm and then buy value porrige, fruit, tinned toms etc plus cheap cuts or decent meat (hearts, belly pork,stewing steak, rabbit) and just meal plan carefully and it comes in at around £50 a week for 2 adults and 2 toddlers so I was qiute shocked at their budget at the end, how they spent so much in value products

geordie_joe

Justamum wrote: »

On the farming programme on Radio 4 at the weekend they said that about 10% of all British flour has rat poo and hair in it! :eek:

How do they know?

And if they have really founbd it in flour why don't they just tell the authorities and get them to make the flour producer stop the rats getting into the flour.

Justamum wrote: »

Can't really win can we?

You can if you throw 10% of the flour you buy straight in the bin.

The trick is throwing out the right 10%

Essex-girl_2

Kentishmaid wrote: »

Sorry but brawn isn't unmentionable bits, it's made from pig's head and there isn't much grissle left and ends up in disolved the jelly. I doubt if your Granny would have used grissle/cnnective tissue as butchers dispose of it and the rest of the family would complain if they had chewy bits in there meal. The only part of a pig you can't use is it's squeak!

Kentishmaid

Thanks for that, as I kid I hated the look of it but the tripe she loved as well used to upset me more - more so since I saw Hugh washing out a cows stomach:eek: . Im not normally squeamish, love liver, kidney and heart but couldnt eat tripe or brawn if you paid me.

hardpressed

I haven't read all the thread but did watch the program, the thing that really impressed me was how much the children of both families appreciated the food their parents had given them. They were really tucking in, the parents should be very proud of them.

geordie_joe

I've been thinking......No, don't log off, I'm still sober so I may make sense.

Fans of "What the Victorians did for us" will probably already know this.

Basically, in Victorian times the shopkeepers would do all manner of nasty things to the food to make it go further and so make them more money. Things like buying the sugar from factory floors, sweeping it up and making sweets with it, and whatever else happened to be on the factory floor. I won't give any more examples, but basically they padded out the food with anything to make it go further and make them more money.

Obviously people distrusted shops, and this gave rise to the brands. They sold foodstuff in sealed containers that the shops couldn't tamper with. And this bred trust and they became household names people could trust. Heinz, Rowntree, Keloggs, Homepride etc. Loose flour sold in a shop might contain 30% chalk dust, but you could trust Homepride flour.

So for generations we bought big brand names because we trusted them. Recently the shops, who have grown into supermarkets have started selling their own foodstuffs again. And what do we find? They are back to their old tricks of adding cheap stuff to the food to bulk it out so it makes them more profit.

OK, these days they are not as bad as they were in Victorian times, at least they only add edible stuff, and they do call it "value" so you know. But they still make a lot of money from selling you something that is not quite what you think it is. A sausage that contains more skin than meat, a pie that is all gravy etc. etc.

These days they are a bit cleverer too, they spend a few years persuading people to buy value items, then at the first thing they can use as an excuse they put the prices through the roof!

My old mother had a saying, can't remember it word for word, but it was something about a big cat not changing it's spots.

MrsE_2

jennet1 wrote: »

[/b]

I get an organic veg box with 6 eggs and 2 pints of milk, free range chicken from a local farm and then buy value porrige, fruit, tinned toms etc plus cheap cuts or decent meat (hearts, belly pork,stewing steak, rabbit) and just meal plan carefully and it comes in at around £50 a week for 2 adults and 2 toddlers so I was qiute shocked at their budget at the end, how they spent so much in value products

I guess it depends a lot on where you live in the country.

I've read many posts on here where people (not in the south east) can go to local farms & get cheap fruit & veg & free range eggs etc.

In Surrey those farm places cost more than Waitrose:rolleyes:

I often think to myself if they dropped the prices a little they would sell a hell of a lot more;)

oystercatcher

I watched the programme last night and was annoyed by the loaded questions they asked the people in the street "Do you think supermarkets should use better ingredients and absorb the cost?" of course people will say yes !! They won't like it when the supermarkets make less profit and make staff redundant though!

I noticed the families were based in Leeds and had a wide choice of shops but even so the woman who was asked to avoid supermarkets said it took her much more time to do her shopping. Where I live there just isn't the choice. There aren't any farm shops, the outlets for locally grown organic produce are horrendously expensive.

I also noticed they were comparing things like protien in the pies and sausages but they didn't mention how much protien a person needs daily. As far as I am aware the average person consumes far more protien than is needed, I don't think these foods are going to cause people to end up with malnutrition. The biggest nutritional problem among poorer people is going to be affording fruit and vegetables.

It was an interesting programme though, I too was surprised by the difference in nutrients in the tomatoes. I've bever bought value pies or sausages anyway and have stopped buying the chicken since the price shot up so much. I'll make DH veggie eventually, little does he know it !!! :rotfl:

Oystercatcher

gailey_2

I watched it and was shocked how much they spent weekly on food,even on experimnet seemed more generous although they did have 2 older kids.
Neither family from look of their houses were exactly poor but with credit crunch everyones cutting back.
I was impressed with both on how they cooked from scratch and how non fussy kids were wish my stepson would be more like that he veiws homemade with suspicion.

we have many supermarkets nearby cheapest place for cleaning stuff i pounstretcher or pound shops.
We have butchers and green grocers which i keep meaning to use more.
Sadly no goof food market but do have farmers market very pricey and farmshop again nice but pricey.

We now try to do sainsburys/morrisions and lidls and cook from scratch and freeze.
We never buy cheap frozen meat,only free range/freedom poultry so hope we doing well.

I love cooking and its readymeals/convieniance that costs more.
Wish familes woud wake up to how importnat diet is especially with kids best start in life.

The obesity and heath of nation wont change unless people change attitudes

Some value stuffs fine its just about using common sense I quite like lidls fresh veg.

I think us old stylers mostly cook from scratch anyway.