to try and settle the 'which is cheaper, junk or cooked from scratch' debate once and for all

[IceBeing]

I have seen both sides of this recently on MN and on the box.

So. submit your meal plans here.

1. Choose junk or home cooked

1. Give a shopping list plus price for a weeks worth of food for a family of 4, assuming no reliance on a 'store cupboard' and no meal sharing.

1. Give an estimated weekly cooking time plus shopping time.

1. indicate if your plan relies on a local aldi/lidl etc.

Lets sort this the JEFF out please.....

It's depressing that affluent foodies like Jamie Oliver believe themselves qualified to pronounce on where the revolting poor are going wrong, on the basis of swanning into somebody's living room with a film crew. He doesn't have a clue.

George Orwell could understand the basic problems back in the 1930s when he wrote The Road To Wigan Pier :

Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn?t. [?] When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don?t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit ?tasty?. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let?s have three pen north of chips Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and we?ll have a nice cup of tea [...] White bread-and-marg and sugared tea don?t nourish you to any extent but they are nicer (at least most people think so) than brown bread-and-dripping and cold water. Unemployment is an endless misery that has got to be constantly palliated.

ivy I'm starting to think I live in some weird black hole of cheap food in France. I don't eat at McDonald's either but I walk past the one in town and you can get a whole meal for ?4. I need to tell DH we're never moving!

Seriously, I'm going to have to stop generalising about France and food because clearly we are very lucky.

Bloody hell, MrsKoala, I think you are doing amazingly feeding anyone at all given that setup.

Is cycling a possibility at al,l or is everything completely car focused there? I ask because you can stuff a week's worth of shopping and a small child in a cheap trailer, if this is a possibility. If it's like the US though, this will be difficult.

In terms of equipment, a hand blender and some silicon baking dishes or loaf tins might open up a few more possibilities for you, as they are oven-to-freezer and also light to pack if you are bringing them back to the UK.

I suppose another possibility is hooking up with local foodie networks in case this allows better access to other people's garden produce and so on, but this might be a bit unrealistic, I don't know?

Anyway, I think you deserve some sort of home management medal at the moment.

PS An empty glass bottle makes a great rolling pin.

Silicon loaf tin

Hand blenders

Great quote, BOF

Thank you for that Orwell quotation. How sad that he nailed it in the 1930s and here we all are listening to the same old ignorant preaching at the poor all these years later.

It is a great quote.

Right, I've sat down and worked out a full meal plan for four adults for a week for £50. Enough protein, enough variety and just about enough veg (3 to 4 portions a day) and one piece of fruit per day.

Easy to cook, can make even if you only have an ice box in the top of the fridge. Basic cooking equipment only required plus hob. All priced from tesco online.

Will post tomorrow when I'm back at my laptop for it to be evaluated.

Have to say, pretty bloody difficult and it does use two packs of cheapo sausages which won't be to everyone's taste!

Also includes oil, herbs etc

Yes great quote. I hate all this 'well meaning' inverse 'let them eat cakery'. It just isn't realistic at all. It is dehumanising and patronising.

Thanks Boffin (hadn't thought of the wine bottle - don't know why as that's what i used at uni!) I have come from a very well equipped kitchen so it has been a massive shock for me here. I struggle to keep our food shop to under $300 a week. And it's easy for people to say shop daily, make bread etc, but when you don't know the area, have a demanding baby, have little space or equipment, need to get out to meet people and have human contact, your time and will is limited. If it was just me i would live on beans on toast/omelets. I think i have eaten about 4 pieces of fruit in 8 wks.

Racingheart - £20 for six family meals as you missed the £10 of meat out. Looks good though!

Mrs Koala that sounds really tough. Are there markets in Vancouver? Are they any cheaper? I agree the cheese over there is disgusting. Like fatty rubber. Didn't realise it cost so much though.

Over here you can order food in bulk on Amazon, but it looks like that is not possible in Canada.

shrinking Doh! I did miss out the meat, it's true. But still - it's fresh, good food, (except the sausages) and loads of people could make it stretch further. I just can't, as I have a big tall DH and two boys who eat as much as he does, so the portions are huge. (They can hoover up a 500g bag of pasta at one meal. I know families who eat half that amount.)

We don't do it all the time, but as we're freelance, it can be feast or famine, so I like to know it can be done.

Didn't allow for seasoning either, in that budget, and OP has quite fairly said you should. But mixed herbs, garlic puree and cayenne pepper work out at about £2.50 in total and last at least a month, so that's either an extra 2.50 on the budget or an extra 63p, depending on how you work it.

Will Spud accept an overseas credit card?

Spud

well i've fucked the carrier in my buggy, lugging spuds and thing across town so that was a false economy. Also bus fares are $2.75 each journey. which means if i can only get what i can carry the saving have to be worth it. The other day i walked for 4 hours to a market and back for cheap off cuts of fish to make a fish pie (ds loves it). But when the weather turns i wont be doing that!

Before I could drive I sometimes used an old lady style shopping trolley (although mine was wicker and reasonably stylish) and had DD in a backpack, when out foraging for food.

As i said nice mner is taking me bulk shopping this evening. i'm hoping if it's successful and i pay petrol and bribe with cakes she may take me monthly. then i can do fruit/veg from a market (2 bus rides away) weekly.

sorry, didn't see link. thanks for that. i'll look now.

That does sound promising. I hope you manage to find some nice stuff.

racing I don't understand? You think £20 for 6 meals can't be beaten? I showed a whole weeks worth of crap food for £28 (breaky, lunch and dinner)?

And I wasn't even shopping that bad boy at iceland...which would appear to be the king of bargain basement mwave meals....

Racing

iceland:

4 steak pies £1:50
400g chips 30p
400g veg 45p

large family meal £2:25 * 6 = £13.5

£13.50

In fact your cayenne pepper costs more than a decent sized family meal from Iceland...

I think the gavel moment is approaching....