"Eat Well For Less?" - thoughts?

Solstice_3

I just watched it on iplayer, it was an interesting watch and I agree with a few of the comments on here. I used to cook everything from jars too once, it's kind of nice to see how much I have changed and the things I have learnt over the years and MSE has helped with some of it.

I found the taste testing interesting, I think I'll try some of the cheaper brands out again. Heck at 29p a box I might give the basics tea a go!

fairy_lights

It would have made a much more interesting programme if the family were made to use up the £1000 of food already in their cupboards before they could buy anything else. The two celebrity chefs would surely have been able to come up with some recipes to use up what they already had.
I think Greg Wallace and the other bloke (no idea who he was) were a strange choice of presenters, as Greg Wallace is not know form budget cookery...someone like A Girl called Jack would have been a much better choice.

Pollycat

fairy_lights wrote: »

I think Greg Wallace and the other bloke (no idea who he was) were a strange choice of presenters, as Greg Wallace is not know form budget cookery...someone like A Girl called Jack would have been a much better choice.

Pollycat wrote: »

The not Greg Wallace chap (no idea who he is) was comparing the price of a dozen sausages.

redmel1621 wrote: »

Anyway, aside from the not Greg Wallace guy having a patronising voice and being crap at meal planning, it wasn't an awful programme but I can see it becoming a bit boring.

So just who is this bloke and why did they choose him as presenter?

Ken68

Chris Bavin


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0377vn8


But I think "the one not Greg Wallace" sounds better. lol

Goldiegirl

I don't think too much should be read into this programme - it's basically a show for entertainment purposes, and a lot of the situations, such as the family's surprise at spending over £150 in the supermarket were probably staged for the camera.


Don't forget, most people watching aren't particularly savvy about their spending, so A Girl Like Jack would probably be too extreme to engage the general public.


If the show has given the average person a few ideas about how to reduce their shopping bills, then that is a good achievement, in my opinion

suki1964

ash28 wrote: »

I thought the programme was quite interesting for what it was and I quite enjoyed it. It wasn't trying to change lifestyles, it was just demsonstrating that with a few changes you could keep your existing lifestyle and spend less money at the same time.

One of the first things MSE tells you to do is not to be a brand snob....that seems to be the message from this weeks programme and that brands are not necessarily the best, for instance the sausages, 44% meat by-products from a leading brand or 72% real meat from a butcher.

Years ago I used to be like that....3 kids and we both worked fulltime - money was not an issue, I always bought brands, I used packet mixes for casseroles, chilli, etc. Jars for curry and bolognese.....It wasn't until I was older and life was less frenetic that I started properly cooking from scratch. I still don't batch cook.

The first none brand I bought was a tin of tesco everyday essential baked beans...a friend recommended them as her son preferred them to Heinz. That was years ago and for years that was the only none brand item I bought. I went round the supermarket on a Saturday morning on autopilot. I knew exactly where everything was and I more or less bought the same things every week. I spent a small fortune and if OH was with me it was worse....he used to put things in the trolley just like the guy on the programme....if he fancied it, in it went.

With hindsight we wasted a fortune, there was not only the weekly shop but the visits to our local corner shop for milk, when something that should be a £1 ends up costing at least £10!

So, if that family can save £70 a week and not impact the way they want to live their lives, then that's a result. I'm not going to judge them for their eating or spending habits.......

That's what I took from it, they weren't there to change life styles, just show how brand name isn't always best and savings can be made by up and downgrading

The orange juice was an eye opener for me. I have been buying long life from concentrate for a few months now. As it's just for me I've not been able to justify the huge cost of the freshly squeezed stuff. It's nice to know that the fresh is from oranges as old as 10 months lol

What did annoy me was it was obvious which supermarket the family shopped in, yet the substitutes were from a number of other shops which I think made a mockery of the challenge. I myself don't have a choice of supermarkets and a lot of the value products I've tried from the one I do have have not been comparable at all

suki1964

fairy_lights wrote: »

It would have made a much more interesting programme if the family were made to use up the £1000 of food already in their cupboards before they could buy anything else. The two celebrity chefs would surely have been able to come up with some recipes to use up what they already had.
I think Greg Wallace and the other bloke (no idea who he was) were a strange choice of presenters, as Greg Wallace is not know form budget cookery...someone like A Girl called Jack would have been a much better choice.

Neither are chefs. Both are green grocers

Trying_really_hard

Having read this thread, I sat down and watched it on my lunch break.

Like many have said, it was nothing earth shattering and was filmed for entertainment. Although, the orange juice thing did surprise me (I wonder if OH will let me buy something cheaper next week if I show him this...?)

Some good tips for those who are new to the whole idea of brand-downgrading but for hard core people or for those who don't have that much to spend on food in the first place, it was nothing new.

mwddrwg

Maitane wrote: »

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.

Hi, what an excellent post! Have you thought about passing your comments on to the programme producers for consideration? I for one would love them to produce something like this

Nikkisun

Does anyone know what brand the ketchup was? We've tried loads of cheaper ones but always end up back with Heinz cos they don't taste right!