Food: quality vs quantity?

amalis

Hi all, I would like to discuss what do you choose when planning meals for your family : quality or quantity? For example, when I was single I always preferred to buy high quality products,only organic and only the best. If I could not afford it I simply would eat smaller portions or would not eat Meat or fish at all. Now, this is not working when I am married. My husband, like most man, prefers to have big portions of meat ,and he cares little whether it is organic or not. To feed a family you would look at cheaper cuts of meat, cheaper veggies ...for now, we compromised on quality of food.it is cheaper to buy ordinary large chicken than small organic. But I wonder is this the right approach? How do you solve this problem in your family?

aliwali

Personally I go for quality pretty much all the time. I love meal planning and I work really hard to have meals that are healthy, filling and don't have too many ingredients. Then I can buy good quality meat to go in them. I feel we are also able to do this because I buy hardly any processed food. I make all my own bread, chips, cakes, puddings and biscuits. I bulk buy through a food co-operative on staples such as oats and bread flour aswell. I spend about £80 a week on groceries for 2 adults 3 children and most of that is free range or organic. In conclusion I think with careful planning in all areas of the grocery shopping I can fairly easily find more money to buy good quality meat.

trolleyrun

I'm only feeding myself so I don't have to have any major discussions about this. However, although I'm not bothered about whether meat and veg is organic, I only buy good quality meat from my local butcher. Sometimes I buy meat on offer in Waitrose, but not often. I try to buy local vegetables and fruit but I don't have a market near me, so I scour the supermarkets for produce from the UK.

I'd rather eat less meat than to eat poor quality meat from dubious backgrounds, and bulk up on lentils, beans and eggs for protein

AnnieO1234

Quality for fresh produce and meat; but no qualms buying value pasta or tinned toms, oats etc.


X

Peggybabcot

Quality over quantity every time. We don't buy organic but I won't buy processed/cheap rubbish either. I make everything from scratch and would rather make a small amount of meat go further by adding veg etc than having cheap nasty fatty meat. We bought some basics/value Aldi mince once as they didn't have the steak mince in that day and I cooked a casserole in the slow cooker. After about 8 hours there was an inch of fat floating on the top and it smelled and tasted disgusting. Never again! For the same amount of money I could have had about a third of the quantity of the quality mince but at least it'd have gotten eaten and not ended up in the bin x

-taff

Quality for me, but I don't feed a family very often.
You can compormise in some areas, cheaper cuts of meat, longer cooking, more inventive with the herbs and spices, cheaper tinned bulk items, cheaper bulking ingredients, like carrots, lentils, etc.

If you do meat and three/two veg, it's more noticeable if there isnt a big hunk of meat...if you do stews/pies/curries/spag bog etc, not so much.

HappyMJ

amalis wrote: »

Hi all, I would like to discuss what do you choose when planning meals for your family : quality or quantity? For example, when I was single I always preferred to buy high quality products,only organic and only the best. If I could not afford it I simply would eat smaller portions or would not eat Meat or fish at all. Now, this is not working when I am married. My husband, like most man, prefers to have big portions of meat ,and he cares little whether it is organic or not. To feed a family you would look at cheaper cuts of meat, cheaper veggies ...for now, we compromised on quality of food.it is cheaper to buy ordinary large chicken than small organic. But I wonder is this the right approach? How do you solve this problem in your family?

I'd go for quantity...but the quality has to at least be reasonable. There is a lower limit I won't go below. i.e sausages must actually have a significant amount of pork in them and burgers should be 100% beef...no filler. I buy large barn raised chickens as they are cheaper and a true free range organic bird is very expensive...many chickens sold as free range are really just a barn raised bird with some access to outdoors and not what I consider free range to be...I'd rather have a good cut of beef steak for the price . Minced beef I try and always buy lean minced beef rather than the high fat value mince.

Geri32

I think it's possible to balance the two- quality counts for meat but on pulses, grains, pasta and rice I generally use value brands and use them to bulk up the meal. I defy anyone to honestly tell the difference between tinned tomatoes once they're out of the tin and mixed in with garlic and herbs! I'm also a big advocate of frozen veggies as there is less waste and I do love using my slow cooker for making cheaper cuts taste good.

maman

I'm assuming your question is budget driven.

It's perfectly possible to have a healthy, filling meal very cheaply. Your DH may prefer to have loads of meat but if money's tight then he needs to look at the budget with you and decide where he can cut back to 'feed his habit'. If the situation is that you can easily afford lots of meat as long as it's cheap meat then that's another decision to be made as a family. Are you prepared to go along with that considering your own preferences?

Here we have healthy meals bulked out with loads of veg and a small portion of meat. Tonight was a typical example: one chicken breast between two of us (thinly sliced when almost frozen) to make a stir fry with masses of veg and rice. Tomorrow is spaghetti Bolognese (lean steak mince) but the sauce has diced courgette, onion, carrots, peppers and mushrooms in it giving 5 portions from a 1lb of mince.

[Deleted User]

one of the quality products I will buy is sausages I just would rather do without than buy cheap pink bangers I don't mind paying a bit more for my sausages as thena pack of 8 will do me for four meals as I only have two at a time.I can understand women with families having to feed their children with cheaper stuff though as I had to back in the 1970s when the mortgage rate hit 15% it was hard to fill the family up.but I have always made two courses for dinner either soup and main or main and pudding so I could streeetch the meals and make them a bit more filling then.
Now I live alone I use a lot of herbs and spices and can extend meat with oats or lentils ,but I do like a decent banger with onion gravy and creamy mash ,lovely stuff on a cold chilly day

Fairy_dust

I go for quality every time. I will buy outdoor bred pork/free range chicken over the cheaper stuff but buy basic veg, pasta, etc. 1) as the animal will (hopefully) had a happier life and 2) a lot of the value meat is injected with water to make it look bigger or sausages have loads of fillers in them.