The True Cost of Cheap Food?

fizzel81

Value food is something which needs to be picked wisely, i do buy many value products but do not buy anything value thats processed, its your procsessed food whatever the range thats full of crap so to speak

i never used to be so wise when i was first married, if it came from iceland it was in the trolly, when i then spent 3 years in germany and found this board i started cooking more properly, i had not been brought up on convience food my mum couldnt afford it, a stew was cheaper to bulked out with pulses than fish fingers and chips

the only real way to get the nation eating better is to remove the ubbish from the shelfs, but all the time money is being made and the products are being brought then they are going to be sold, past generations managed without as it never existed, there is far more ready foods in the supermarkets than raw ingredients, i found it really sad the other week when my ds1's teacher told me that my son was the only one in his reception class that ate the brocolli at lunchtime simply as many eat takeaways/ready meals, where i live now there is more takeaways than anything else and 5 nights out of 7 you can have something different take aways wise (sorry going off topic here)

bottom line if it was removed we would simply have to eat better

geordie_joe

buxtonrabbitgreen wrote: »

That was an interesting article. Mostly I cook from scratch using basic ingredients. But he was going on about the pig skin in sausages. Well if it is full of protien and you can't see it, I have no objection to it.

Well said! I'm sure many people will disagree with you, but I think that is because we are so far removed from our food these days.

These days our food comes from shops, often pre-prepared in boxes. But I can remember the days when out food came from the hutch at the bottom of the garden, or the pen in the allotment. We didn't buy food in those days, we grew it, sometimes we planted it and sometimes we just fed it until it was big enough to kill.

I remember eating pigs trotters and heads! Tongue was lovely too, but I hated tripe and flatly refused to eat brains. Apparently sweetbreads were nice, but grandad got one and dad got the other :mad:

These days people search the internet to find the best way to make pig skin crispy, then complain when it is in a sausage!

There was a program on TV not long ago complaining about using a pigs/cows @rse. Why not, it's meat? My mum and dad used to fight over the parsons nose when we had chicken!

The presenter said it was the last thing on the cow/pig before the tail, and tried to make out it was something bad. He's obviously never had ox tail soup!

I just don't see a problem with it, as long as it is made clear what you are getting.

Sosh

geordie_joe wrote: »

What chance has a young girl got when she, and her mother, don't know if a vegetable on sale in the vegetable section of a supermarket is edible!

I agree, DD recently had a friend over for tea. She turned her nose up at my hm nuggets because they had "orange bits" in them. I tried to explain they were carrots, but she'd never had them before.

She was also amazed to watch me peel the spuds to make chips. She didn't realise that chips were made from potatoes.

DD now wants to go to her house for tea! :eek:

VfM4meplse

Food that I would normaly walk by without a second thought (chocolate, cakes, biscuits, anything covered in sugar, you get the picture :rotfl: ) suddenly become super-attractive when sold BOGOF or half price! Why is that?

I have to remind myself I wouldn't buy it normally, why would I pay for the privilege of poisoning myself with sugar?? ('Cause I love it really).

geordie_joe

Before xmas I was in Morrisons and bought two loose pomegranates.

At the checkout the young girl picked one up, looked at it as if it came from Mars. Looked around, I suspect for a colleague she could ask, looked back at the pomegranate, then looked at me and said "What's this?"

I said "A pomegranate"

She said "Oh, right" then looked them up on the list and rang them into the till. She then turned to me and said

"Sorry about that, I didn't recognise them as I don't eat vegetables"

KimYeovil

I like the check-out operators who can't tell the difference between cherries and grapes.

AirCooledHeaven

KimYeovil wrote: »

I like the check-out operators who can't tell the difference between cherries and grapes.

Kindred spirits no doubt...

betterlife

what did you all think!

maypole

betterlife wrote: »

what did you all think!

The small shops are fine for meat and fresh produce and I do use a proper butcher. But where would we buy our cleaning items and toilet rolls and things, it's not practical to be travelling all over the place looking for all the different things, especially if you live in a small town or village that don't have many shops.

I always make my own food from scratch, I never buy pies and things.
Interesting programme though, especially about the water they put into chicken:eek:

mouseymousey99

Nothing startling? Had seen most of it coming - buy cheaper and it hasn't the same nutritional value, stands to reason? Some things I won't buy (frozen mince) and I'm very suspicous of cheapo sausages. The plumping up chicken I had seen before. Interesting to see people going back to cooking from scratch again & I thought the little boys were charming.
Interesting too now that we have so many many outgoings every month the one most people pick on is food shopping to cut back on. Maybe its the most obvious one? I watched a bit of the Victorian Farm & the lady was saying how the washing took all week. Then I thought, well hang on - ok I'm not having to boil washing every week - but - I load/iron etc etc every day of the week - what have we lost and what have we gained. Will it be women who end up with yet more work in the end?