Can't believe the "food" you can buy now

Wirenth

Curry_Queen wrote:

... those microwaveable burgers!!! :eek:

Bleurgh. Yerugh. Yak.



Also premade mash. Basically anything processed is vile, especially the stringy cheese! :eek:

nearlyrich

Murtle wrote:

boil in the bag rice.....

my friend used to buy this as she didn't know how to boil rice. I told her you measured it out and put it in a pan with measured water....she never knew....

It is really expensive, I noticed it last week when I was buying noodles for my DD I think it was £1.67 for a one portion pack :eek: Uncle Ben's, no thanks I use Auntie Delia's Perfect Rice recipe, never failed yet...

johanne

Murtle wrote:

boil in the bag rice.....

my friend used to buy this as she didn't know how to boil rice. I told her you measured it out and put it in a pan with measured water....she never knew....

i recently just moved out my mums and still havent had a coooker after over a month! (must kick OHs bottom to get him to hurry up about sorting his uncle out to come and fit it :rolleyes: ) Until about a week or two ago i was buying them pouches of Uncle Bens rice the ones that go in the microwave..cos didnt have a hob.. they are £1.11 for one serving?

Then out of interest i picked up a pack of american easy cook in Tesco.. there was microwave instructions on it! :eek: 1kg (about 12 servings?) for 80p!

Then i scanned the shelves and found "normal" american long grain rice (not easy cook) and that was 1kg too but only 68p for a 1kg bag! :eek: :j

So by just having a look on a packet i discovered i could cook 12 meals with one bag of rice... for 68p. OR pay £13.32 for 12 meals using the express stuff! :eek: :eek: BIIIG difference!

calleyw

nearlyrich wrote:

My all time fave is ready made ice cubes, for heavens sake how hard is it to freeze some water? I doubt I could get them home from the supermarket before they melted what a waste of money LOL

I am not afraid to say that I have bought pre-made ice. Very handy for when having a party or a BBQ. As I only had about 3 or 4 ice cube trays and it would take weeks for me to get enough to fill the same size bag. And not enough room to put the trays flat in the freezer.


Yours


Calley

bargainaddict

Frozen chopped cabbage, looked urghhhh and that was just in the bag!!
Frozen sprouts, tried them once and pure mush, prob the most disgusting thing I have ever tried (apart from school dinner liver and onions). :eek:
Ready made jelly in pots, how hard is it to dissolve jelly, put in pots, put in fridge?
It was the frozen omelettes in Iceland that really got me. I think it was £1.50ish, I just couldn't believe it.

foreverskint

Another thing i can't understand is ready made chilled gravy. I mean how hard is it to chuck flour in the roasting tin, and add some water/ stock/wine?

And as Ticklemouse said, portion sizes are so small, with my brood I would be in serious financial difficulty if I tried to feed them. They would need at least two packs each, and Mr FS would probably want 4. (he's known to eat the contents of a slow cooker himself if he's not reined back to the table:rotfl:

I remember a while ago buying some frozen cottage pies from Asda, as we needed something quick. We ended up just eating some veg, as they were just so awful.

but at the end of the day I think its down to the education of children to learn to cook at school. We have a whole generation of parents who have lost touch with real food, and we are in serious danger of the next generation having no idea at all.
The supermarkets and manufacturers have taken over the role of educating our children, and parents allow their children to dictate what they want to eat.

I'm 41 and grew up surrounded by home made food and learnt to cook from an early age. My children are the same.
Too many children never see real food, or enjoy the pleasure and acheivement of cooking from scratch.
But put any young child into a kitchen and they love to cook.
It's so sad really.

Murtle

I buy bags of ice in the summer too for BBQ's etc, no not to put on the BBQ, to put in peoples drinks.....:o

filigree_2

This thread reminds me of an advert a few months ago for one of the supermarkets (maybe Asda) where the voice over enthused "Tracy loves cooking Sunday dinner for her family" but in fact all Tracy did was open endless foil trays of ready made stuffing, ready made roast spuds, ready made sausage/bacon rolls etc etc. Every time that flaming advert came on my blood pressure shot up! :mad: And the grand finale was Tracy throwing huge amounts of packaging in the bin "and she doesn't even have to wash up afterwards". Aaaargh! Reheating ready made processed food is NOT cooking!

I will 'fess up to buying yorkie mix though. Asda Smartprice mix at 10p is actually cheaper than buying the separate ingredients because you only add one egg and water, whereas the proper recipe demands half a pint of milk which costs about 16p. I virtually never use flour these days so if I bought 1.5kg for 29p, then 1.4kg would go in the bin months later thus wasting about 27p.

I do buy a certain amount of easy-cook processed food for the occasions when Useless Husband has to do the cooking, because if I don't provide idiot-proof meals he just gets a take away which is even more expensive.

competitionscafe

foreverskint wrote:

..grew up surrounded by home made food and learnt to cook from an early age. My children are the same.
Too many children never see real food, or enjoy the pleasure and acheivement of cooking from scratch.
But put any young child into a kitchen and they love to cook.
It's so sad really.

Me too - I don't even know if ready meals existed when I was a kid (and I am only 34) - every meal was cooked from scratch and a take-away or meal out was a very occassional treat.

When I see something like 'Honey wer'e killing the kids' or whatever it was called on BBC3 last week (wasn't actually watching it, TV was on while I was reading posts on here) and heard the mother say she had never cooked a meal from scratch (and she was a dinner lady!??); I am gobsmacked, it just seems such an obvious and natural thing to do.

I remember at uni too - I would say the majority of people (of both genders) could not cook anything more advanced than pasta with dolmio sauce, some couldn't even boil an egg, and yet they could do advanced maths and physics calculations or deconstruct Shakespeare!

bargainqueen_2

Wow, I'm 24 and if I told my parents I loved and lived on convenience food they would ...me. Like squeaky I can't think of the word- disinherit? They would take me off their will.
My dad and I spent ages in the kitchen when I was little making anything we fancied, I loved it! I used to bring friends home from school and beg my mum to bake with us. There was once a study conducted (in Germany) asking children to draw a cow. 96% of kids painted a purple cos, because the advert for Milka chocolate always has a purple cow in it :eek: :eek: :eek: And between convenience foods, GM manipulated foods (don't get me started) and a lack of education, I really feel that the future generations may end up not understanding this thread. How sad.