The True Cost of Cheap Food?

betterlife

yes i thought it was really interesting. i do buy basic but mainly things like toilet roll, sacs, cling film etc. veg was surprised about the tomato bit! i`d never buy basic pies etc not that i knock anyone that does, im just to fussy! i like to see what im eating and with 4 young children i like to no they are eating well so i make most things from scratch. i must use local butchers more, hopefully they don`t pump there meat with water.

geordie_joe

maypole wrote: »

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.

That's a good point. I live in a small town and it's very difficult to get non food items. We just don't have the shops that sell them.

Our Woollies has been bought by Iceland, and many people at work are excited about an Iceland opening up in the town. But not me, I don't do Iceland. Well, I haven't been in one for over 10 years and I don't think they will sell anything I would buy. Apart from Bird's Eye frozen peas that is.

maypole wrote: »

I always make my own food from scratch, I never buy pies and things.

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Me too. I also cook several meals and freeze them Six or seven years ago I used get home from work and take a box out of the freezer and put the contents in the microwave/oven/pan of boiling water. Now I do much the same thing, but now it's tupperware containers or polythene bags full of home cooked stuff. And I reuse the packaging.

orchid-96

It was quite interesting to watch, especially as they used families that were cooking meals more or less from scratch, wereas in the past I have seen similar programmes about cutting costs but the families have all seemed to rely on convenience stuff (I agree about those little boys, they were really sweet an lovely to their Mum ahh)

I have been meaning for ages to use one of the butchers near me, have had a few bits in the past and have been impressed, so when I need meat I will do that...

I also agree about pies/sausages, I buy the odd pie (for dh) when they are reduced but only the better quality ones and ever since seeing a programme about sausages, I go for the ones with at least 80% meat, which I do seem to find reduced quite often....

Larumbelle

I was a little shocked, but unfortunately not surprised by the differing nutritional values. TBH what shocked me most was that that family of four spent £150/week on their shop at the beginning of the experiment :eek: and the people I was watching with (I was at a friend's house) didn't find that in the least bit out of the ordinary :eek: I think I've been hanging out on the OS board for too long

BB1984

It didn't tell me much that I didn't already know, to be honest - although I was surprised about the tomatoes. I never buy the really cheap mince, sausages etc anyway, and don't buy much processed stuff.
As long as people are prepared to buy these foods, the supermarkets will be prepared to sell them. As their spokespeople said - it's there on the labels for all to see. I'm not saying it's "right", but it's up to us as consumers to vote with our feet.

BB

nixinix

I missed it.....please can you say what happens to tomatos??? Not something I thought could be 'messed' with. Thanks.

katholicos

It was an interesting show, but i don't think it told us anything we didn't already know ourselves. No disrespect intended for anyone who eats value products, but I wouldn't buy them.

Once 'value' is applied to the food market then you just know you are going to be eating snips, n snails and quite possibly puppy dogs tails in your burgers and sausages and pies and the like.

Frankly i'd rather have a couple of rounds of toast and a tin of beans for a meal, than a value 'hunt the meat' pie, on any day of the week.

Beki

i was totally shocked that the lady who was buying all the butcher meat, veg from greengrocer etc found it difficult to stick under budget in her first week! i was thinking "i could do 3 or 4 weeks shop on £95 from the butcher/greengrocers!"

and i couldn't believe their original budgets... i almost choked! lol

betterlife

basically basic tomatoes had half the anti oxidant/goodness as such compared to the dear ones, mainly because forces on and not left to ripen properly.

Vibrant

The chap seemed rather obsessed with meat and the families seemed to eat it at every meal, which cant be very good for you and isn't eco friendly.
Rather than complaining about the meat content in the cheaper items, perhaps he should be applauding that they have cut their meat consumption.

The presenter was also very naive, when he kept saying, it's only an extra 0.5p per item. I used to work in the packing industry and 0.5p is a lot per item at the manufacturing end.
Also the supermarkets will never absorb any extra costs, anyone who has dealt with them, will know that they continually pressure suppliers to cut the cost of the products.