Economy Gastronomy - new budget cookery programme; BBC

avinabacca

freyasmum wrote: »

Maybe because it might be too much of a shock for them if they suddenly drop from £320 to £80?

Babysteps

Bingo - got it in one.

[EDIT] "in two", as it were, when you consider that Spendaholic is of the same opinion......

ALIBOBSY

Well I enjoyed it more this week and really fancy that beef dish (and both the tumbledowns mmmmm).
I really think the point is to give people the tools to move from a wasteful expensive food lifestyle to a much cheaper, healthier less wasteful time.

It would be unrealistic to slash £330 down to £80, even the grocery challenge doesn't do that. Think diets the amount of callories you eat to lose weight is based around your starting weight and reduces as you go along.

I was glad to see more mention about stopping waste and liked the little bit where they showed the freezer full of little leftover pots .

They also showed a bit more of the mealplans which have breakfast lunch and dinner.

I thought they made a good cut in costs the first week and went on to cut even more. I suspect they would then be inspired to go even further. As others have said some stuff you might buy for the first weeks recipies but then use over a much longer time. Would be interesting if they went back next year to see what a new yearly budget is.

Would be nice to see at least one family before the end of the series who start on a lower budget so end up cutting things to the bone. But the important thing is the fact that the tools are all there for OS.
1)Meal plan and budget for the week
2)only buy what you need
3)Don't waste leftovers

If all this does is drum these lessons into the minds of the viewers it has done a good job. Scupper those big supermarkets don't impulse buy hahahahaha.

We are a family of 5 and I cook mostly from scratch, we have lived on under £50 a week, but now its probably more like £70-£80. We can afford a few treats and lazy nights so why not?
Mind you this week have only spent £10 as we had alot in the freezer/stores already.

ali x

Reverbe

Kayjay I also noticed the wine on a weekday... perhaps if they were really down to the wire to the point where they are selling their house they should be rethinking the empty cost and calories of alcohol.... They can make a whole meal for the price of a bottle as we all know on mse...I haven't had wine since Christmas...

Allegra

weezl74 wrote: »

I gat really angry with last night's show...

You don't need macadamia nuts in your brownies if your house is on the line!

I agree. Thing is, my impression was that, with the family income dropping by 80% overnight, the house was gonna have to go regardless, and no amount of savings made on food was going to make a blind bit of difference to that.

I am still very much onside with what the chefs are trying to do - show them they can still eat wonderfully well - pretty important in a time of stress, I'd say - and still save money. To my mind, the premise of the show is, don't give them a fish and feed them for a day, teach them how to fish and feed them for a lifetime. And both the families so far have certainly left the impression that this is working - the first family getting stuck into the make-chicken-stock and grow-your-own kind of thing, the second family with reducing their food bill even further once they were shown how.

Having said all that, though - £17k on food a year and all they were eating, pretty much, was chicken and boiled rice ? That takes some doing, it really does :eek: Plus the teaser for the next episode was edited very much in the best "car crash TV" tradition - "I love my waste disposal, me. Mwahahahahaha"....

Oh, and another thing - I wish they had started with the biggest spenders and then worked their way down, rather then the other way. It would just flow better that way, and show that once the all-important first step was made, there were further reductions to be made if one was of a mind to.

Allegra

avinabacca wrote: »

Allegra's "Let's-Buy-A-Big-Sack-Of-Value-Oats-On-Payday-And-Live-Off-That-For-The-Month" Recipe Showdown!

Now that's what I call a catchy title :rotfl:

freyasmum

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

Well I enjoyed it more this week and really fancy that beef dish (and both the tumbledowns mmmmm).
I really think the point is to give people the tools to move from a wasteful expensive food lifestyle to a much cheaper, healthier less wasteful time.

ali x

Me too, looked scrumptious.

Exactly - none of us became OS geniuses overnight :T

Dick_here

weezl74 wrote: »

I gat really angry with last night's show...

Unethical programme making in my opinion :mad:

Weezl - save money and gat less stressed by gatting rid of your TV

avinabacca

Now after having watched the show last night, something was gnawing at me. The bedrock dish of the week, a daube of beef, was made with chuck steak, and we saw the family tootling off to their local supermarket-where-they-pat-the-change-in-their-back-pocket to do the shopping.

But does said green-hued supermarket actually stock this cut? I wasn't entirely convinced myself, and so I did a bit of searching on their website.

Guess what I (never) found there?

Oooh - and good luck finding the brisket, flank and skirt cuts recommended by the butcher on the programme.......

dizziblonde

Maybe it was storecupboard wine? We usually have a few bottles of fairly decent stuff hanging around the place because we "liberate" it from oh's parents after they've done a cross channel restock trip!

To be honest I think the clinking a couple of glasses of wine together as they sit down to eat is more done for the cameras - wouldn't look the same with them clunking two tumblers of water or squash together now would it?

For most people - the idea of sitting down and planning exactly what you're eating is kind of ewwww boooring or just doesn't cross their minds - and in essence that's what this is trying to sell with the tumbledown gimmick just thrown in as sexed up leftovers (I've got a couple of cookery books bought by my mother trying to do exactly the same thing so it's obviously the in thing at the moment).

Trouble is - you're discussing this on a site where people delight in the challenge of feeding an army for a month on a single carrot (joke ;-) ). For that family - that was a sizeable cut in their food bill that kick started them on the way to cutting it a lot more... and got their poor mother the confidence to do something other than chicken and rice every night for tea.

I actually really like the female chef on it (is it Allegra - I keep getting mental images of the Austin Allegro coming to mind with her) - she's very down to earth and not at all faffy about with food - removes a lot of the intimidation factor (and I say that as a reformed kitchenphobic who only started cooking after the Jamie Oliver Rotherham stuff last year).

Although I'm beginning to wonder about the Asdas around here (both the shows so far are shot frighteningly near where I live - I'm awaiting Allegra and Paul knocking on our door to be honest!)... apparently the reason they're so hellish to shop in is because of the combination of people living there in a daze just randomly chucking food in, or whole families walking around with a calculator!

I'm quite fancying the sound of the muffins from the last show to be honest - and the bakewell tart - think I've got a nicer recipe for choc brownies already or I'd be tempted by that (mine manages to cram MOOOOOOOREEE chcolate in )

dizziblonde

I shopped for 4 years at the supermarket shown in at least the first show (suspect it's the same one in the second - even if it's the other one it could be I've shopped there a lot too) and you've got naff all chance of finding anything other than "steak" "burger" "sausage" "mystery meat to chuck in casseroles" in there on an average day.