To think that cooking from scratch is becoming more and more unsustainable?

[AlternativePerspective]

I have always cooked from scratch, and I will be the first to admit that cooking from scratch has always been more expensive than buying e.g. jar sauces etc. However as things currently stand food prices are going up so much that cooking from scratch is becoming more and more unsustainable for many people who are struggling to make ends meet.

And in an era where we’re being told to live healthily, to cut out additives where possible, and to use the healthiest ingredients, while this has always been hard to sustain, right now for many it’s unsustainable from a financial perspective, and people are going to be forced to eat jar sauces, ready meals and various other foods with additives they didn’t want or need.

I’ve just cancelled my milkman because I can no longer justify spending the money, and it’s going to take a lot before I will ever eat ready meals or cook from a jar. But compromises are going to have to be made, and in many instances for some people, it’s not going to be possible to compromise.

Main meals are usually cheaper cooked from scratch. Admittedly cake is marginal but you aren't comparing like with like - shop cake isn't made just with butter for instance

But you can probably make several cakes if you buy those ingredients. A tenner would get you enough ingredients to make at least 4 or 5 sponge cakes.

Last night I made coconut dal and brown rice, i cost £1.50 approx allowing for 25p for the bulk spices. It fed 4 adults plus leftovers. I added sauted spinach (half pack so 75p) and aubergine pickle (50p for the aubergine plus 30p for the ginger and spices) so just over £3, round up to £3.50 to include gas. Lentils are nutritious and filling, learn to cook them if you don't already

I really think it depends, with a pack of mince, your preferred veg & 2 tins of tomatoes + pasta you've got a really solid base for £4ish for 6 portions. I add oats to my stews (sounds weird but you barely see or taste them) and can get that to 8 portions. I make mine with peppers, spring onions/onions & carrots and it worked out to 60p a portion for the sauce alone, then pasta was an added 15p.

Tbvh I agree that if you're struggling to put £££ on the meter, there's no way anything other than X on toast is cheaper to cook from scratch because of electricity costs.

But if we're talking about those that do have a bit of leeway to buy say 1 item in bulk per week and have a row of fridge & freezer space. It's probably cheaper to have 1 day where you cook your main meals for a week which means you only have your oven/hob on for 3-4 hours and can microwave to heat up later.

Also i've seen some ridiculous veg costs on here 48p for 1 pepper? Even my local coop does 3 for £1.20. The cheapest prices for veg are usually found at the veg market and meat at the butchers. You can also find bulk spices, beans & rice at your local ethnic store.

I think the reason i introduce the ready meals is because i can have jambalaya or biryani or sweet and sour which breaks up the stews and bolognaise etc. those things are expensive to make from scratch but you do miss them

A lot of cheap suggestions on here involve veggie meals and a lot of Dahl etc - this is all well and good if you are on your own or the family like this kind of food , but I'm the only one who doesn't mind it and believe me I've done quite a few veggie things over the years and I'm a good cook.

YABVU. It’s incredibly cheap in comparison to ready meals or even jars of sauce. Eg, a tin of tomatoes is 35p - much cheaper than a £1 jar.

One of my children is fussy but even making her chicken meals using chicken breasts is cheaper from scratch. Breaded chicken - slice chicken breast and dust in flour, egg and breadcrumbs made from blitzing 1-2 slices of bread in the blender. Homemade chips made with a couple of potatoes and then some salad. So many people buy ready made frozen chicken nuggets and chips as it's cheap and popular with kids. But you can can make loads with one tray of chicken and a few potatoes. Tastes miles better too.

She also loves carbonara. Doing a carbonara sauce is cheap and easy and a lot tastier than the jar stuff.

Fajitas - doing the spice and marinade yourself tastes 100x better than the kits and it is cheaper and all you need is a recipe. It isn't any harder or more expensive. Some chicken some pepper and onions and some wraps.

I don't cook from scratch because of the price cost though but because of the flavour. Food is a great source of enjoyment for me and I think I would be depressed if I had to eat the tasteless ready made food.

@VestaTilley ,well yes. And what are you going to add to the tomatoes to make a sauce? Fresh air?
I am not sure how picking random ingredients proves a point?

Have people actually read the original post? No-one is advocating ready-made as better, fresher, more nutritious or healthier. We are saying it is cheaper.
@Vikinga have you actually done the maths or just assumed, like a lot on this thread, that home-made is cheaper? Tesco: 2 chicken breasts 300g £3.40. Tesco 450g chicken breast nuggets £1.65. How is yours cheaper? I make my own nuggets too - they are much nicer than ready made, but they are not cheaper!

@strivingtosucceed my ridiculous price came from Tesco. But I concede you can get them cheaper if you buy 3, so that would knock 4p offmy half pepper in the pasta sauce post way back.

Definitely cheaper to Cook from scratch but you have to know what to make. If you look back to older recipes generally speaking, it’s more affordable. Pans of hot pot and Tottenham cake for example.

The best tomato sauce is a tin of tomatoes, butter, salt and pepper.

I was thinking the same @Katypp my big bag of nuggets from asda is 9 servings and costs £2.50. 2 chicken breasts is at least £3 and does 2 servings, 3 at a push then you have the breadcrumbs and oil. potatoes Vs chips... possibly cheaper.

@motogirl where do you get £1.50 from? Unless you have the means to buy massively in bulk, you are looking at around £1.50 for the brown rice (100g pp) and lentils (500g for 4) alone before you add and spices, coconut or oil.

@Katypp - do you think @motogirl is just plucking figures out the air? I don't know her shopping habits but for example 2 kg brown rice is available at a major supermarket for £3 which works out to 60p for 4 if she is using your guideline of 100g/person. I presume that she's not using premium brand rice.

I think your point is taken that it can cost more to cook from scratch in some cases but to pick apart people's meal costs with your reported figures suggests that there isn't a myriad of range/costs of ingredients or quantities used in recipes.

home made cakes are far superior to shop bought ones

If you look at the amount of chicken in each nugget, you could eke out the chicken - a chicken breast goes a long way when you're cutting it up and putting in breadcrumbs. The ready meals I have seen are mostly cheap fillers.

I've just googled and Iceland's chicken breast nuggets are £5.81 a kilo and the same for its chicken breast.

I've googled asda chicken nuggets and they only contain 58% breast. So yes works out about the same when you are looking at price per kilo.

Yes you can do all that in a slow cooker, I have two.

Very easy soup - if you have a blender or stick blender.

Get one of those stew packs from a supermarket and a stock cube.

Peel and chop all the veg and put in the sc - add the stock cube and boiling water - the veg actually cooks quite quickly but you can also leave it all day and it will be fine.

I tend to blend it after 2-3 hours and then let it continue to cook. Even in my small slow cooker I get a few portions out of it.

Basically any root veg, peppers, onion, leeks can go in to the sc for a soup.

If you like chicken then a couple of chicken thighs (no skin or bone) a few sliced mushrooms, a small carton of creme fraiche and a tin of condensed mushroom soup makes a really nce creamy chicken, I do have a freezer so I will make this one day and then the left over goes into a foil tray with a pastry lid to make a chicken pie.

Back to the cost of living crisis.

I have arthritis everywhere so I can't always cook, I can get meals on wheels but they are £5 a day which soon adds up.

Because of other health issues I've been getting all my shopping delivered which means not using the local butcher and greed grocer and no yellow sticker food.

How on earth did it cost a fiver to make?

You must have bought the most expensive brands from the most expensive supermarket and made an enormous batch for it to cost that much.

What on earth did he use? Asparagus?

Carrots are 28p/kg, onions45p, tin of tomatoes 40p, 490g mushrooms £1. Garlic and a spoon or two of oil are literally pennies.

One way of keeping cake costs down yet maintaining flavour is to make your more strongly flavoured cakes (chocolate, coffee) with half butter half margarine - Stork has a good flavour, Aldi own brand a good 2nd. Keep all butter for the Victoria Sponge. Ditto buttercream icing, you can eek that out with some non-butter if you've chocolate flavour and nobody guesses, we do list it on our fact sheet but often people say 'ooh this is nice, is it made with butter?' and are surprised when I say half and half because they've never thought of doing that.

I bake cakes to raise funds for one of the activities the kids do. We sell the cake at £1 a smaller slice - we get 12 out of a 8" tin - than you might get in a cafe for £2.95-3.95. These are bought by the waiting parents (captive audience) along with tea or coffee (instant) £1 a cup. We make £9-£10 per cake, most parents have 2 slices and think our cakes amazing and great value, which they are compared to a regular cafe. We charge £1 for ease of change. Some regularly buy lots of slices to take home for family - we always sell out. Admittedly we're not charging for fuel costs, but I usually bake while using the hob for cooking tea so it's unused space (Rayburn, so the oven heated anyway). But the best profit to be had is the cup of tea, kettle boils aside - we decant the whole boil into a thermal jug, so we're boiling once for lots of cups. I find tea amazing profit - we pay about 1.5p per tea bag and a dash of milk can barely cost much more.
We use china cups so not paying for cardboard ones.

Now now @MintJulia , it's not like that at all.

You have to cost the chilli as if it was made with Mutti tomatoes, which are the only ones acceptable on Mumsnet now, even Napolina are 'complete crap' and for the carrots, garlic and oil, use 2 carrots, 2 cloves of garlic and 2 tablespoons of oil and throw the rest away because you won't be using them again this week and 'who's got space to have all that hanging around'?

If you want chilli, it's cheaper to buy the Asda Smart Price canned version for 71 p for two servings which actually looks OK as far as ingredients go.

@Vikinga poor people aren't looking at the 58% chicken in a nugget, it's how big it looks on the plate and how long it keeps your kid quiet for. so again, no one is arguing about the nutritional value of cooking from scratch, it's the cost

I'd love to know how you're supposed to make 58% chicken nuggets at home.