Food: quality vs quantity?

tori.k

Im another in the both camp, basic's like pasta, oat's, flour etc etc are always value driven but meat is always quality as most the time the end cooked product works out better value by the time the water pumped into the cheap meat has been removed

For hubby you could always add a meat heavy starter like oxtail soup and follow with a vegetable based meal or something like carbonara that's just shown the meat.

Cheapskate

I go for quality over quantity every time as well with regard to fish and meat, and bought bread. I do buy basics fruit and veg, and find that more of it is grown closer to home, Ald! fruit and veg is cheaper and fairly local, and I also buy cheaper versions of tinned and dried goods.

I use lots of eggs, too, we get FR ones from the milkman, sometimes a few FR from friends with chooks, which works out cheaper than even cheaper meat. Made some Scotch pancakes fro breakfast today, so eggs in there for the kids, better than just cereal for breakkie.

Like JackieO, I use lots of herbs and spices, makes the most boring food miles better!

A xo

amalis

Wow, you girls are all so amazing! I try to buy organic everything , eg. flour, pasta, milk, butter..I dont feel difference in taste, of course ,but somehow I was always convinced that this is better for my health. Its not that we can't afford it, we can, but I believe (after reading your MS forum here) that £70 per week for two peoples' groceries is a bit unreasonable. And we are thinking of trying for a baby and I don't know what it will be then. I also try to cook everyhting from scratch, I spend a good 2 hours almost every day in kitchen

Fairy_dust

amalis wrote: »

Wow, you girls are all so amazing! I try to buy organic everything , eg. flour, pasta, milk, butter..I dont feel difference in taste, of course ,but somehow I was always convinced that this is better for my health. Its not that we can't afford it, we can, but I believe (after reading your MS forum here) that £70 per week for two peoples' groceries is a bit unreasonable. And we are thinking of trying for a baby and I don't know what it will be then. I also try to cook everyhting from scratch, I spend a good 2 hours almost every day in kitchen

We also spend £70+ a week on groceries for the two of us (this does includes toiletries & cleaning products) and the organic produce we buy is butter, milk & eggs. I think it's more down to bad planning that I spend so much (that's why I joined here to get tips ) but I would prefer to buy better quality and pay extra than buy value meat. 2 hours a day in the kitchen is mad :eek:! Do you have a slow cooker that you could just bung stuff in to while you are at work or doing things around the house? Or what about at the weekend make a few things and freeze it for during the week? Saves you spending so much time in the kitchen on a daily basis!

-taff

amalis wrote: »

Wow, you girls are all so amazing! I try to buy organic everything , eg. flour, pasta, milk, butter..I dont feel difference in taste, of course ,but somehow I was always convinced that this is better for my health.

It probably is...while you can afford it and you want to, then do it. Invest in a slow cooker, spend less time in the kitchen sometimes...unless you enjoy it of course

ash28

JackieO wrote: »

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

I have a problem with good meaty sausages.....I don't like them and actually prefer the cheap cr*ppy ones.

Mad I know but there it is.

amalis

-taff wrote: »

It probably is...while you can afford it and you want to, then do it. Invest in a slow cooker, spend less time in the kitchen sometimes...unless you enjoy it of course

Nah, I hate it :-)
I do have a slow cooker, but somehow we dont get on with it. Despite several tries I did not manage to produce anything really tasty in it, so I gave up.

-taff

use it cook lumps of meat, they'll go really tender in there, or curries, or spaghetti bolognese, or something like that.
You do need to add more flavourings to it I've found.

System

Quality for me every time. Smaller portions but better quality portions.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Apart from talk of pensions on my apprenticeship in 1978, we also discussed Double processed food. That is food that had been processed once and then processed again, was expensive and bad. It thaose dark days at Find Us a better job, the talk was about the mixed veg! But it stuck!

So we buy best quality, but not organic. Most veg comes from W8Flowers, including their tinned Toms, Beans and SpagYetti. We did try years ago Mt T baisc and they were refused by the cat, a good teller of decent food.

Meat comes from the Butcher.

For the Yummy Mummy, we have a farmers market in Stroud, but we do not buy there as most stalls are commercial operations, and [STRIKE]would [/STRIKE] do impact on my local butcher, who is there 5 days a week!

As for organic. That is a falsehood, firstly that people think they are doing good, when in fact over years man (yes PC incorrect) has matured and fertilised the land to produce goods. Organic farming actually sterilisers the land. My point is that the UK has not been self sufficient in food, expecially noticed duiring the Great War (and subsequent events). We need to get as much from our land as possible.

Those who advocate Organic farming, do cause more foods to be imported as land becomes sterile, thus deying the Poor and starving in the world to eat.

Food I would never buy. French, Spanish. Nor goods from Africa, a continent adrift in its own starving, yet supplying us with the urge to greed.