home made vs supermarket

ejsmith

When I went shopping last week, or to be more specific, when I mooched round Asda picking up things, seeing the price and saying "I'm not paying that!" and putting things back on the shelves, I decided I really need to review what I buy. Now I've always bought ingredients rather than packaged 'foods', although if something like a ready-meal is dead cheat I buy and freeze - because I live alone and can work out cheaper. I like cooking but before I decide to go the whole hog and bake bread and cakes etc I wanted to try and price up the whole production costs. Is there anyway I can find out how much the oven & hob costs (gas) to be on for x hours? Am I right in thinking that the microwave, slow cooker, food processor etc cost pence to run?
When I use the oven I always try to put more than one thing in - you can stick in a cake, pud quiche etc.

Anybody any ideas? What I will have to do is make sure whatever I make is suitable for freezing else I'll munch my way through the lot and I really, really can't afford to buy a whole new wardrobe!

Elizabeth

PS. Just thought, when I went to some local shops they were selling cinammon sticks, fresh, about 10 sticks of 30cm length for £1.78! Anybody know if I can store them and keep their flavour?

JennyW_2

For me it's not really about how much it costs to run the oven - it's more about knowing what's going into your food. Ready meals are just packed with artifical baddies, high salt and high fat. I live on my own all week with hubby returning at weekends and I make batch loads of food, ie spag bol, mashed potato, pasta sauces, soups etc. They all freeze very well. I've now invested in a bread maker and haven't bought shop bread for a couple of months now - I even make cakes in it. Again it's all about knowing what's going into your food. My loaves of bread only contain 1/2 tsp of salt and sugar and my cakes contain grapeseed or olive butter - and not full of fat and sugar as shop cakes are.

margaretclare

I agree with Jenny W. It really is all about knowing what goes into your food, cooking it yourself so that you know that there are no artificial additives, flavourings, preservatives etc. There HAVE to be these in so-called 'ready-meals'. To make and sell them so cheaply they have to be manufactured in such huge quantities that they need a 'shelf-life', things to make them look attractive and taste appetising over a longer period of time than you would contemplate in cooking for yourself, at home. Even if you cook in batches for the freezer you don't need to add all that sugar, salt, E-numbers and the rest.

When I lived alone and was away a lot I used to buy a freezer pack of assorted meat from the local butcher. Sausages, burgers etc (made locally by the butcher) I used to separate into little sandwich bags and freeze them. 2 burgers and a tomato made a meal for me, with some fresh green salad. The butcher would cut a chicken into quarters for me and I would pack the quarters in sandwich-bags. A quarter-chicken made a meal for me. And so on.

I think it's even more important as we grow older. Quality before quantity is so important. I have been horrified by the amount of sugars, salt etc in almost all processed foods.