Who buys this stuff?

caffeinehit

Maybe I'm reading too much into the existence of pre-packed jacket potatoes, but it strikes me that for a lot of people, 'cooking' involves doing exactly what it says on the back of the packet...combine that habit with multiple food scares all over the media and it's very easy to lose confidence in your own ability to knock up a meal from scratch.

The whole trend of outsourcing all the thinking to someone else seems to extend to almost everything...for my part, I'm too scared to mend my bike unless I've got a step by step guide in front of me, so I generally just end up taking it to the bike shop and paying through the nose. I'm sure in the past most people would just have had a tinker until they worked out what to do.

Yes, there's a trade off between price and convenience. But higher disposable income and no little encouragement from supermarkets, bike shops and the like mean that we've got out of the habit of even considering the DIY option.

Always100FC

all this talk of food is making me hungry.
I'm off for a rustlers burger... nought to tasty in 70 seconds!!!

TerminallyShortOfCash

OMG I feel like such a terrible person!! I HAVE bought the M&S jacket spuds, but can sort of justify it in that there's only me in the house that likes them! I Freecycled the microwave because it was never being used and it seems like such a waste of energy to put the oven on for the hour and half it takes to bake spuds really nicely! Obviously, if I'm doing a roast on a Sunday morning for Sunday tea, I'll pop spuds in the oven to do at the same time and have them for lunch. I do all my own cooking otherwise - own roast spuds, veg etc. Only other ready meal I ever bought was a Tesco Finest shepherds pie about 6 weeks ago because morning sickness was so bad I couldn't cook. It was revolting!

goonlord

I have two worries about all this pre-prepared stuff (aside from the MS implications):

1) You don't know what's in it if you haven't made it yourself (well, you do if you read the ingredients but that's usually pretty scary - if it's been made, distributed and is sitting on a shelf waiting to be bought you can bet it's full of preservatives at the very least)
2) All the extra packaging that goes into landfill.

Don't want to sound like a hippy about it all or anything but it breaks my heart to see those little plastic meal trays going in the bin!

morganlefay

Trouble is we could go on at length about what other people buy. I hate the roses flown from Kenya, and beans likewise. And all the organic stuff which has been imported from Israel or S America. I'd rather have a carrot which was grown locally and is fresh but has a bit of pesticide than an organic one which has flown a long way to get to me. When I see people buying huge bottles of diet coke, Krispy Kreem doughnuts, and ready-made things (especially my pet hate - ready made Yorkshire puds) I want to lecture them. But I don't. I wish people wouldn't buy all the sorts of things which have been discussed on here, and my own pet hates too because then stores would stop stocking them, but it doesn't seem likely does it ? And it seemed to me that people on here tended to be people who were doing their best, rather than sneering at others so I have found this thread a bit disturbing. Do you think supermarkets have whole departments dreaming up ever more ghastly things to put into bags and sell us as convenience foods ? I love the idea of a competition to identify the most pointless (those chocolate cereal tubes you suck the milk through would be high on my list) but then I bet someone on here has a child who will only eat those. I think I probably live in a glass house, so I'm trying not to throw stones

Bambywamby

Only really buy premade yorkshire puds as mine always end up like biscuits.

goonlord

I don't think the tone of this thread is sneering at all - it's just a bit of a rant about the world we live in today.

I'm sure we would all admit that none of us are perfect - we're all just trying to do our best in our own little ways ;-)

bobbadog

I popped in to M&S at lunchtime today to buy some fruit (I LOVE M&S but it IS a treat for me!) - but anyway, they were selling 6 x lemon and sugar pancakes, ready made in a packet, for £2.49. People were buying 'em by the bucketload! Presumably, beings you still would warm them, it's no quicker than knocking some up at home for the price of 28p?!

I check M&S for offers. When their Oakham Chicken breasts are on offer, they're worth it. They do ace posh breads and sauces for those naughty nights where what you REALLY want is to eat out. And I love their crunchy brown rolls at 29p.

peb

I buy grated cheese! nothing to do with arthritis (lucky not to have it) but if I am batch making, say lasagnes for a dinner party I prefer that my guests are not eating any of my skin got in by mistake. TBH The cost (I do unit price) difference was marginal coz the grated is constantly on a 2 for offer at Morrisons. NB have just treated myself to a food processor so will try making it in there.

gerretl

Busybody wrote:

The other day I saw a great big articulated container van which was carrying ICE cubes. If the planet is in such a bad way why don't they put a stop to things like that?

Yeah, but due to global warming, the ice machines can't make the ice fast enough, so they do it at a big factory and transport it, causing more carbon dioxide which leads to more global warming, meaning they need a factory to make ice cubes.... I think you know where I'm going with this.