To think cooking from scratch is not always cheaper?

[IonaNE]

A few posts on another thread (not primarily about this) have got me thinking.

In my local ASDA Weight Watchers ready meals are £2 each. If I buy one for each night of the week (to make life easier for when I get home from work), that's £10 for a hot meal on every evening of the week. For this I get a balanced meal that, over the whole week, contains chicken, beef, prawns, pasta, rice and potatoes, vegetables and a variety of sauces. On top of that it's exactly as much as I need to eat, there are no leftovers, I am not using energy by cooling unnecessary stuff in the fridge. I don't need to keep a host of jars of sauces, oils and spices which would otherwise be needed to cook all this from scratch either. And finally, I am not using energy to cook all that from scratch, and then to wash up all that was used in the process. (I do use energy to microwave the meals, 5 mins each; and the microwave is very cheap to run.)

I can cook from scratch all that is in those meals. I don't enjoy cooking but I can do it if necessary. But I don't think that I would get that variety of hot food for just £10 a week. Furthermore, if I bought all the ingredients, they would be in portions much bigger than what I need for one supper. Then I would either need to freeze them; but also: does everyone who cooks from scratch only eat a WW meal-portion of everything before they freeze the rest? I find I eat larger portions if I cook. And while I'm not overweight, I really don't need to put on weight.

So I think eating ready meals is actually cheaper than cooking from scratch. It is also less time consuming (=more time for other things) and provided you choose the right ones and read the labels, not necessarily less healthy either.

The flaw in your plan is the assertion that the ww meals are proving you a good balanced menu.

Also agree that your not comparing like with like. Ready meals that are comparable to anything you'd make at home (even using the cheapest ingredients) are very expensive.

Ww portion sizes are tiny. 500g minced beef and some veg would make a dozen ww Meals (for the freezer) and wouldn't cost anything like £24

Thank you, OwlinaTree, the "those of us with tastebuds" kind of post do sound insulting.

I might add that I have only been trialling the ready meals for about 2-3 weeks. Previously I had been eating mostly grilled chicken with veg, omelettes and chicken liver stir fry through the week, with BirdsEye frozen veg microwaved, or with fresh salad. And on Fridays eggs and chips, with chips from a chippy. But it occurred to me that ready meals make the process of preparing a hot evening meal even quicker and more varied.

Definitely not always cheaper...you can buy a very good lasagne for far less than it'd cost to buy all the ingredients to cook a decent one from scratch.

But I wouldn't want to live on ready meals. They're all a pretty similar texturally unless you go for the more expensive ones. (Tesco's finest ham hock and potato gratin, cough cough). There are usually a lot of additives in them too. I'm single right now too but I can't bring myself to live off ready meals as I enjoy food (and DD wouldn't get a proper diet) and would really miss sitting down to a lovely steamed piece of fresh fish or a juicy steak. If expense is your only consideration, ready meals are probably the way to go, providing you stick to the cheaper ranges.

No, buying things ready made is often cheaper than cooking from scratch, if you aren't a big cook in the first place, as you have to go out and buy all the ingredients.
Example - my ds wanted to make a lemon meringue pie - by the time I'd bought all the things he put on the list, I could have had no end of ready made and extremely yummy lemon meringue pies from the freezer in Aldi. If, OTOH, her were making them everyday, then things like the lemons I had to buy a net of, and various other ingredients, might already be hanging in the fridge and you would only take into account a fraction of what you actually spend.

It also makes a BIG difference if you are cooking for one. We use mince each week, for example, but it's a cheaper meal for a family, but wouldn't be for a single person as you can't buy a pack of mince with only a portion for one in it. Apply that to all ingredients for all meals across a week, then - finance wise - you're probably right. I'm not sure I'd want a ready meal for every meal though.

*kind of posts

It might be cheaper but I would suspect there'd be a cost to your health - basically you'd be missing out on an opportunity for some nutrients. But far more convenient, for sure.

Personally I think food is one of the most important things to spend money on so try to scrimp in other areas.

you say that, but WW food is full of sorts of weird shit.

I mean look at this lasagne ingredients
Water, Beef (13%), Diced Tomatoes (Tomatoes, Tomato Juice, Salt, Firming Agent - Calcium Chloride), Lasagne (9%, Durum Wheat Semolina, Water, Egg, Rice Flour), Concentrated Tomato Puree, Onions, Mushrooms, Red Wine, Cheddar Cheese (2%), Modified Tapioca Starch, Skimmed Milk Powder, Milk, Modified Maize Starch Whipping Cream, Basil & Garlic Blend (Basil, Vegetable Oil, Garlic Puree, Milk, Oregano, Dextrose, Salt, Red Chillies), Garlic, Cheese, Salt, Flavourings (contain Milk, Smoke Flavouring), Sugar, Pecorino Cheese, Thyme, Basil, Yeast Extract (contains Barley), Black Pepper, Spice Extract

What the heck is "modified maize strach" and "spice extract" and the THE MAIN INGREDIENT IS WATER?

and this salmon and broccoli melt

Savoury Sauce (Water, Skimmed Milk Powder, Modified Maize Starch, Milk Proteins, Vegetable Oil, Wheat Flour, Salt, Sugar, Onion Powder, Flavourings (contain Fish, Milk), Stabilisers - Sodium Tri- and Polyphosphates, Sodium Phosphate, Citric Acid, Spice, Colours - Beta-Carotene, Curcumin, Paprika Extract), Fried Potato Wedges (28%, Potatoes, Vegetable Oil, Dextrose), Broccoli (14%), Salmon (14%), Mozzarella Cheese, Breadcrumbs (Wheat Flour, Yeast, Salt, Paprika, Turmeric)

if you were making this at home, you'd make a cheese sauce, with flour, milk, butter and cheese. cook some salmon. cook some broccoli and bung in some potatoes.

it would taste nicer, and be better for you.

Ps I know you didn't ask me for that last opinion!

Weight watchers ready meals are all under 400 calories. My DH needs 2500 a day if he isn't going to lose weight, and he shouldn't lose weight as he's skinny already. £2 for such a small proportion of his calorie needs isn't very good value for money.
If I'm only having 400 calories for dinner I'm going to need another 1000 minimum from somewhere.

Main ingredient of most food is water.

I'd also worry about the lack of micronutrients in ready made meals. I don't know the exact science, but food which has been cooked, then chilled then heated in a microwave may, I'd imagine, have fewer vitamins and minerals than food cooked from fresh ingredients?

Those meals are only 300 calories though, so they're a very small part of your diet, so it depends what else you're eating, and as others have said you would either need to be on a diet or have a very sedentary lifestyle to make that a significant contribution to your daily needs.

For a child, or a healthily active person, you'd need a lot more calories from other sources, which most people do normally get in their main meal of the day that it's a substitute for.

Yes, living alone though, then cooking meals is not always as cost effective and does require you to either have lots of fridge / freezer storage or eat similar themed meals throughout the week as you suggest.

"sieves, graters, decent pots, pans, mixing bowl, colander, stirring spoons, chopping board, knives - this cost is quite substantial. And those are just the basics. "

I'm not sure much of that is a basic - you certainly don't need distinct spoons for stirring, or decent pots and pans, or a mixing bowl - a saucepan or a cereal bowl will be fine for that too. Things like sieves and graters are only if you actually cook those things, you don't need to.

Certainly 2quid for 3 hundred calories is not anything like I would spend when broke on a ready meal, you can get just as healthy meal easily much cheaper, but yes getting the variety is not so easy. It depends how important that is to you, of course not minding the lack of variety when you don't like ready meals is easier.

YABU for eating Weightwatchers meals, dreadful junk, there are "better" ready meals out there that you could cook some broccoli with quickly, that might be a better option.

To the original topic, it depends how you do it, big batch cooking and then freezing portions etc it can be much cheaper but it depends on time as well, if you don't have a lot of spare time, cooking from scratch, while it might be cheaper is "time expensive" as it were. Also if you don't like cooking it will turn into a chore.

Actually, the protein content in ready meals like the ww is normally woefully low whilst the sugar content is very high

owlina perhaps, technically, but how many othe rlasagnes list their main ingredient as water???

I don't know why people assume cooked from scratch tastes better. I have friends that consider themselves amazing cooks but I'd avoid eating anything they've cooked wherever possible.

I'm not sure that they're cheaper if you cook wisely. I tend to cook big batches of things, so it lasts a month. For example my chilli would have a large packet of lean mince, a few onions, beans, mushrooms, a few tins of toms and chilli mix or chilli powder. It makes about nine or ten portions, which go in the freezer and last us (obviously along with other meals!) all month, so they would work out less than £2/portion, I expect. They are also as quick to reheat as a ready meal (apart from cooking the rice). I also have bolognaises, curries, shepherds pies, stews and veggie options in single portions in the freezer. I tend to make one thing each weekend, I'm not a mega cook, but find doing a few staples is fine..

Plus, basic cooking equipment is not expensive nowadays. There are good value cheap basics at supermarkets and IKEA, for example.

I occasionally eat ready meals at work, but they're not half as good. The meat and fish will be pretty cheap, battery meat and there is a lot of hidden salt, sugar and crap in them. I prefer to know what I'm eating.

I don't know 001, my dh would cook a lasagne!

Cooking from scratch is expensive at first, but once you've got a decent back up supply of the basics (herbs, spices, rice, pasta, tins of tomatoes, frozen veg etc.) and you have the equipment, it's cheaper in the long run.

I think over a long period, it's cheaper to cook from scratch, but over a week or fortnight ready meals work out cheaper. But not everyone has the initial lump sum needed to buy the basics, or even the equipment. And not everyone has an oven or decent freezer space required for batch-cooking.

There are lots of good ready-to-cook meals around though. Not ones that are pre-cooked etc, but ones that come with the meat and the sauce/topping in the packet. As well as some much more home-made style ready meals.

I find that for just cooking for one person, those are probably just as good value. You can't always heat things nicely as leftovers, or have space for them, or it gets dull. And even when you do make something with four or six portions, often they still don't use all the onion/pepper/herbs etc that you've had to buy to make it, but by the time you are ready to cook again, it's all gone off, or you don't know what else to make with the leftover bit. You kind of get out of the habit and if you're not a very good cook in the first place, it becomes a bit of a pain. And waste, at times. Especially if you don't have access to a market - many of the supermarkets (at least the smaller ones near me) sell things like onions 3 in a bag, when you only want one. Same with courgettes, peppers, avocados etc.

So yes, I think in many cases, ready-made can be cheaper, and it doesn't have to mean poor quality.

If you have decent sized kitchens, whole families to feed, lots of equipment, access to markets, space to grow herbs, plenty of containers and freezer space, car to do larger shops, ability and interest in cooking, time, etc. it becomes easier, but in other situations, it isn't necessarily, so just making comparisons on cost per portion isn't always helpful.

0010001 Modified maize starch is just a thickener, lots of people have some in there cupboards (larder / pantry, wherever you keep your ingredients) It's normally sold in packetsin the UK under the name "cornflour".

I think the initial outlay is expensive but you just keep using the remaining ingredients over and over. A full stock of dried herbs and spices lasts a long while, same with frozen veggies. I think it's an excuse that cooking from scratch is more expensive. You can always make a bit of extra for the freezer.
Besides how much of ready meals can you really eat before getting sick of it.

I think cooking from scratch can be more expensive, depending on what you're cooking. For example, it is cheaper for me to make my own batch of pasta sauce using cheap tinned tomatoes, onions and garlic than it would be to buy a jar of dolmio sauce. On the other hand, a shop bought jar of pesto is much cheaper than buying the ingredients to make my own and lasts far longer.

It's a good point about battery meat and sugar. It's scary how much horsemeat was found in ready meals during the horsemeat scandal and the amount of sugar in ready made food is basically the reason why so many people are developing diabetes in the UK.

coveredinsnot It might be cheaper but I would suspect there'd be a cost to your health - basically you'd be missing out on an opportunity for some nutrients.
No, I would not. I don't only eat once a day.