To think that having to wean your children off 'brands' is wierd?

[Umleila]

My daughter heard one of her new university flatshare friends say that her parents had "started weaning me off 'brands' a few months ago" in preparation for university. My daughter thought this was hilarious as we do not give a monkeys which brand of baked beans we buy - it's all about cost for us. Then several of the other flat sharers said their parents had done the same! Turns out they thought we were positively common not to buy our child 'brands'. Are there really people out there who just buy branded food and sod the expense? The food industry must love them!

I'm not sure about brands, but I know I check the additives bit more than the front packaging because of gluten intolerance. So if something more expensive/banded has wheat/barley/derivatives of etc then there's no point buying it, but if the supermarkets own doesn't, then it goes in the trolley.

I have terrible mental images of parents mixing half a can of Heinz and half a can of Aldi baked beans until their teen doesn't notice it.

We ate brands at home so what? - I went to Uni had a limited food budget and therefore bought cheaper own brand food....big thing to figure out for yourself! I must be a bloody genius! What on earth is going on that supposedly intelligent students need help figuring this out? Spoon feeding - quite literally.

they're all "brands" whether they're from F&M and hand picked by virgin fae or from some unrecognisable company stocked by / made for Lidl? Or are they growing their own (tricky at uni)?
Or is this clothes related? In which case you've got to be some sort of twit to pay a company extra to wear their name prominently.
It's the same as my advert obsessed exMIL who proudly proclaims something is "designer". I'm fairly sure every product has a design process!

For me taste is more important than cost, so if a brand taste better, I might buy it less often, but I still only buy than one. For example Bon Maman jam. I only buy that one, but I do it as a treat. The rest of the time I spread my toast with just butter. There would not be any point in buying a cheaper one as it would just go to waste so it would be false economy. There are plenty of other brands I prefer: Heinz ketchup- a bottle last about 2 months in my house, so how much would we actually save on 'per use' cost if we went for a cheaper brand?

Diet coke is about my only branded thing. Council estate kid here who thought there was something wrong with my beans when given Heinz for the first time

Clearly the OP's taste buds aren't up to much if she can't tell the difference in taste. Even DD can tell the difference between different brands, including different supermarket brands, of cornflakes.

We weaned ourselves off a lot of brands when I stopped working a few years back but it's always Heinz ketchup and salad cream and Yorkshire tea in this house.

I will try lots of own brand stuff to see if it's ok, we can mostly tell the difference but can't afford to buy too many brands so as long as something isn't awful we'll take it!

The main things that have been a disaster are 'wheat biscuits' (horrible), had to go back to Weetabix. And Jaffa cakes. My mum tried to fob me off with own brand ones saying they were McVities, outrageous!

Own brand beans, ketchup and stuff like that I've found to be fine. OP I'm sure your daughters friends will survive, as will the 'unweaned' kids, seems like a bit of unecessary preparation for uni life to me.

There are certain things I will buy branded.
Heinz for ketchup, beans and salad cream. Branston for pickle.
Baxters for soup.
Clipper for green tea. I like twinings too but clipper is always on offer when I shop.
Coke is coke and anything else tastes gak.
HP brown sauce, although I think the taste is different now.
I've gone off Cadbury since discovering milka.
Kallo for stock cubes.
I get excited when aussie hair stuff is on offer, I LOVE the smell and their 3 minute thing tames my wiry head mass into lushape shiny swishiness.

Most everything else is own brand.

I splurged recently on posh barbecue sauce, proper American stuff (thanks £20 off ocado) and I'm eking it out. I've never likes it much before and I love this one but at £5 a bottle I won't be buying it again.

People imagine that brands taste better but show after to show that when blind tested most people can't tell the difference and often get it wrong

The show were the bald guy helps families cut their shopping bill demonstrates this they all start off like many on the thread saying I will be able to tell and the kids won't eat it when the truth is they can't

I have been swapping mince for quorn for 6 months my beefy meat eating husband has not noticed he also swears he dosnet eat cod only other white fish I only ever by cod so like most who say they eat certain things he's full of horse shit

Oh I also have a friend who only eats free range eggs swears she can taste the difference made her a flan 3 weeks ago and she loved it ask what eggs I used told her free range said she should tell (I didn't I use tesco value eggs ) horse shit