Food snobbery

[Feckingfeck]

DM always buys "good eggs" I mean nearly £4 a box from Waitrose. I ate one. Wasn't really too impressed- I mean not sure what I could hope for from an egg really?!

What things do you insist on buying branded?

Are there things you simply wont skimp or get own brands of?

AIBU to think any free range egg is just the same as the next?

I think this is nonsense.. “High quality” food is likely to be as fresh and as close to the original ingredients as possible. This wouldn’t necessarily make it taste better or nicer though ie things taste better with salt, sugar or fat added.
Once those things are added how would you know if the tomatoes, eggs or flour for example was high quality or not? It would be about the processing skill.

But also countless experiments have shown the fussiest of people can’t even spot their favourites in blind tests.

It is not a snobbery. You can't taste the difference, most people can. I buy own brand free range for baking and Burford brown for eating. My toddler knows the difference and wouldn't eat £1 eggs unfortunately.

We do blind taste tests to decide branded or not. DS loves it. The only brands we buy are Tabasco, Lea & Perrins and coffee. And I buy 'bakery bread' not sliced blotting paper. 😫

I cook from scratch, we don't buy breakfast cereals or processed stuff. Meat and dairy are always British. Eggs are free range.

If these are burgers brown eggs (which happen to also be available in other stores too) from Clarence court? my DH and I both think they taste better - plus the chickens are also organic. . So best of both worlds. We do eat a lot of eggs, so very much worth it to us. O

The chickens still get sent to slaughter all the same when they're fucked. Its humane washing really.

Higher quality tinned tomatoes really do make a difference but that's the only thing I get which I could sub for something cheaper.

Birdied brown eggs are delicious.

Mutti chopped tomatoes- very finely chopped. They are great.

I am snobby about butter and always looking for ones that are organic, grass fed and very lightly salted. Calon Wen is my current favourite, and it’s a Welsh farmers’ collective too.

My eggs are £5.50 a box. I get organic green range pastured eggs. I am a food snob in every way - we eat completely organic now after a lot of research on our food supply and how it affects our health.

i choose to spend money on good quality food and forego eating out, nails etc for that. Rip me apart all you like but really it doesn’t affect anybody else and I am comfortable with my choice.

@MintJulia what does your DS have for breakfast? I’d love to come away from cereals but my DC get their own breakfast so it’s convenient. I cook breakfast for myself and DH every day (WFH) but that’s not until after the school run.

@lightisnotwhite i have just read a book about the gut microbiome which discusses various studies. there are genes that some people have that make them ‘super tasters’, apparently it goes back to hunter gatherer times and checking out which plants were safe to eat. So, it’s not rubbish at all. Fussy eaters aren’t necessarily super tasters - most super tasters are sensitive to things like the bitterness in sweeteners for instance. All of the fussy eaters I know won’t eat a vegetable!

No eggs are free range at the minute. All chickens are being kept inside I believe, due to bird flu.
Anyway, for me it's bacon. I buy the 'outdoor reared' stuff. We only make a bacon sandwich about twice a year and I want to know the pig has been raised with high welfare standards.

I can taste the difference and will occasionally spend the extra money on better quality eggs as a treat but I can't afford to do that regularly. I'm happy to eat own brand on almost anything, with the exception of tinned tomato soup. I will only eat Heinz because the other soups all taste different.

O no food snobbery 😀what a can of (organic free range) worms. I'm probably a bit of a food snob and do think organic eggs taste better. Generally the more you spend the better it tastes but not always and it often depends on where you get things. Not always where you'd expect! I find Waitrose too expensive and their veg isn't markedly better than tesco say, however their grapes are sooo much nicer! East end tinned tomatoes to me taste nicer than others even though they're the cheapest (not always easy to find though)! Tesco tinned toms not nice, too acidic. Morrisons Bran flakes nicer than Kellogs. Jordans branded granola nicer than supermarket own. M&S food mmmmmm but £££££. Love their Swiss roll, grapes, raspberries. Best butter: Yeo Valley Salted.

It's whatever works for you. I'm hungry now.

No eggs are free range at the minute. All chickens are being kept inside I believe, due to bird flu.

This ended last week, I’m pleased to say.

I'm not too fussy about anything in particular in terms of brands but I am a snob in terms of eating seasonally in terms of fruit of veg.

And I do always stick to free range & organic eggs. I try to do the same with veg, friit and poultry where possible/budget allowing.

I also try to stick to the Naked brand for bacon, as it's nitrate free. And I like Kallo organic stock cubes.

But it's a massive privilege to be able to shop this way.

I get my eggs from local farm..some may say that’s snobby but I can get a whole tray (24 eggs) for a fiver & they are free range. You can even walk through and ‘visit’ the chicken although you get mobbed by them!

Not food, but I only buy branded washing powder and dishwasher tablets. Cheap knock offs just aren't as effective.

I also try to buy local/UK produce & seasonal fruit & veg grown in UK (carbon footprint) or produce from local farms etc but I don’t think that’s snobby. I think buying organic from supermarkets is the biggest load of bs & total money spinner for them.

She says the oranger yolks taste nicer... any thoughts?

I agree. They do.

Not actually more expensive but I won't but chilli powder except from the world food aisle, the little glass jars are not hot enough!

Did anyone see the programme where Rick Stien did a blind taste test with an expensive organic chicken and a supermarket bird? He and his staff had to guess the most expensive and he got it wrong and they were correct. He was absolutely fuming, it was very funny.

We used to keep our own chickens, you cannot beat those eggs, they’ve now gone and we are very fussy about where our eggs come from. Clarence Court are the nearest you can get to your own eggs imo.

We’re also fussy about meat, chickens are organic/free range and also corn fed if possible. Other meat is form the local butcher , where the beef is grass fed and outdoors. It’s not snobbery, it’s standards. Other people have much nicer cars than ours, I prefer good quality food to a new car.

If there's one characteristic that will always put me off a person, it's food snobbery. I can't bear it! Whatever you eat, it ends up as shite.

Blind taste tests are great.

We've done a few over the years. The funniest one was ketchup. My ex was absolutely determined that Heinz was best. He was absolutely certain which one was Heinz. We tried 4. When he rated them, Heinz came second, and the one he thought was Heinz was from Lidl. He was annoyed at is because he thought we were winding him up.

You can of course eat whatever you choose but supermarket organic isn’t really organic in the true sense. I know this because my PIL run a small holding that supplies pork produce & as long as you meet requirements (which are easy to say the least) you can be certified organic but ultimately it really isn’t.