"Eat Well For Less?" - thoughts?

FrugalWorker

I liked that it challenged them to look at the brands that they were buying. He, no they, were quite biased about certain brands. I know they could do much better - but it they stick with it and continue to challenge the brands they use they will further improve. Maybe something else will spark them to start making more stuff from scratch and they'll look back on their original starting point in horror.

I know most people here aren't brand snobs - but preaching to the converted. Others need a bit of nudging to try different brands.

Yes I know they took an extreme family in terms of spending - but I think we are all guilty of looking at how something looks and judging it. He was convinced that jam was different and not up to standard - That was because of pre-conceptions. I think most of us not to have pre-conceptions that we could do with challenging. (may not be money saving, but may help another part of our lives).

candygirl

jack_pott wrote: »

Booth was the name of the family, they appeared to be shopping in Tesco.

I know but if you read the OP , you will see what we mean:D

[Deleted User]

I too watched and thought if they can't afford to spend less than £260.00 per week they must be overeating somewhere.True the kids seemed to adapt better than the parents.But not a gread deal of 'budget cooking and I didn't see much in the way of fruit and veg although tinned mushy peas is probably more of a local taste for many I have some in my cupboard that I bought for pennies when the big SM had a 'mushy pea war' last year and they were down to 3p a tin !!! I certanily spend less than 1K a year on food and eat well and have lots of fresh fruit and veg in my diet.True I rarely drink but I have always had the OJ from concentrate and I'm glad its shown what a waste of cash it is buying anything else I don't eat bread so only buy butter to make shortbread, and use Stork marg for baking.I make all my own cakes,biscuits and soup and have been cooking from scratch for over 50 years. be interesting to see how the programme developes

suelizab

£270 per week? and eating burgers, meat balls, spag bog, jackets with beans , and sausages twice a week? No baked fish, no chicken, no chops . It was all beef mince . Im sure you could eat what they had for lees than £100 .

candygirl

I'm veggie, so the food looked revolting to me, and very unhealthy!Weird to think the bloke fancied himself as some kind of chef though:eek: Nice kids though

Pollycat

I was really surprised to see how much food the boys were eating.
FOUR sausages each?
And a load of new potatoes!
Nice to see them eating broccoli though.

I found some of the comparisons strange.
The not Greg Wallace chap (no idea who he is) was comparing the price of a dozen sausages.
It would have made more sense to me to compare weight.

They talked about burgers from different places - they appeared happy with the burgers x 4 that cost (I think) almost £2.00 less than they usually buy but what about making your own?
You can buy (for example) 750gm of lean steak mince (5%) for £6 from Tesco. That would make fab burgers.
You know what goes in to them too.

Really surprised at that nutrition woman who appeared to say that even the cheap sliced bread was 'good'.
Very different from the advice given by Gillian McKeith in 'You are what you eat' many years ago.

And where was the meal planning?
The not Greg Wallace bloke's effort was laughable.
They didn't explain that buying (for example) a 750gm box of mushrooms and using them in different dishes was cheaper than just buying what you need.

I bought 750gm of mushrooms yesterday.
Some will go into tonight's tuna risotto, some into pasta & meatballs tomorrow and the rest into a beef stroganoff on Sunday.

Not really impressed with the program or the messages it gave out, tbh.
But then again, I didn't really expect that much.

Bobarella

I agree Pollycat regarding burgers. I did that this week. Bought a 500g pack of mince for £2 in T's which is even cheaper in L's £1.75 & then rolled 5 quarter pounder size burgers out of it which fed us all. With YS rolls for around 20p & salad plus home made chips the cost of burger and chips was around £2.50 per head.

It's things like that I've learned here. Just because it says mince on a pack doesn't mean it can't be used for a million other things.
I suppose it is about your general POV though. For me now debt is wrong and I want it gone yesterday so I will do whatever it takes. I think the average consumer sleep walks through life. That family didn't seem like they really needed the £4k their lifestyle shift would deliver them. It was just a nice to have.
And finally, I would love us to get to the point in the UK where saying 'I can't cook' is not considered ok. It's like admitting you can't tie your shoelaces. How are we failing so badly in such a huge life skill??

Maitane

I had a rant along the same lines of the comments about how much it really taught anyone a while back about Jamie Oliver's programmes. I'm not sure how useful set recipes are in a programme about saving money because those ingredients aren't always going to be cheap plus the hosts are never popping into the discounter stores for the Super 6 or for some lovely German hams.

A programme about the building blocks of saving money - cupboard audits, meal planning, making the most of offers, prepping food to avoid waste, batch baking and making your own portable lunches - along with tips and tricks for shopping, adapting meals to fit what you can afford or even how to spot the ingredients of a balanced meal in the reduced section of supermarkets would be much more useful.

It feels like if you took the good out of each format like Jamie Oliver's recipes that aren't olive oil heavy, Economy Gastronomy's meal planning, lists and uses for leftovers and the tips on veg from Greg Wallace then got a few OS'ers in for the tips on how to cook, you'd have the ideal programme.

rosie383

I think as other posters have said, for us it is not hoing to be very helpful. But as cheerfulness4 said, when you look at people's trolleys in the supermarket there are many people who will benefit. If it helps some families to have a think and save a bit if money then I am all for it.

prosaver

Pollycat wrote: »

I was really surprised to see how much food the boys were eating.
FOUR sausages each?
And a load of new potatoes!
Nice to see them eating broccoli though.

I found some of the comparisons strange.
The not Greg Wallace chap (no idea who he is) was comparing the price of a dozen sausages.
It would have made more sense to me to compare weight.

They talked about burgers from different places - they appeared happy with the burgers x 4 that cost (I think) almost £2.00 less than they usually buy but what about making your own?
You can buy (for example) 750gm of lean steak mince (5%) for £6 from Tesco. That would make fab burgers.
You know what goes in to them too.

Really surprised at that nutrition woman who appeared to say that even the cheap sliced bread was 'good'.
Very different from the advice given by Gillian McKeith in 'You are what you eat' many years ago.

And where was the meal planning?
The not Greg Wallace bloke's effort was laughable.
They didn't explain that buying (for example) a 750gm box of mushrooms and using them in different dishes was cheaper than just buying what you need.

I bought 750gm of mushrooms yesterday.
Some will go into tonight's tuna risotto, some into pasta & meatballs tomorrow and the rest into a beef stroganoff on Sunday.

Not really impressed with the program or the messages it gave out, tbh.
But then again, I didn't really expect that much.

I tried burgers with half pork mince and half beef ... put chilli in tooo and egg and bread crums of course..:)