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.

Ha, though the NHS suggesting 9-a-day......er fuck off, who the hell has that much veg and salad in the fridge who lives alone?

Buy frozen veg.
Do some batch cooking with the fresh veg on the day you buy it and freeze.

So you use baking block instead for a fraction of the cost.

I've never understood the idea that proper cooking is too expensive. Ready meals, jars, packets are all more expensive than ingredients, unless you purposefully buy the pricey stuff. It's far cheaper to make basic, cheap, homemade food than it is to buy convenience food.

They absolutely do not ….. they need the supermarkets to tell the truth about pricing….. if you actually look on the tickets at cost per unit cost per hundred mill cost per litre etc you will find that pricing is very different across the same products on the same shelves in order to create an illusion of a cheaper product actually being the more expensive option.

@BringBackCoffeeCreams I agree. I've been making changes more for climate change reasons, but they're helping keep costs down too. (Some ideas here: zerowastechef.com/2017/08/31/18-energy-reducing-tips-for-the-kitchen/)

I have been making more stir fries and Chinese food - more prep, but less time on the hob. Also cooking a bit more of something eg. grains or pasta, and then either having it cold the next day or just a minute in the microwave. I'm also experimenting with a baking day on the weekend where I make a few things in the oven all at the same time to last the week, a loaf of bread, a traybake, and a tray of roasted veg. Definitely takes more organising but then I only have the oven on once a week.

I've just joined the waitlist to get a Wonderbag, which is an insulated bag where you bring a stew or a casserole up to a boil on the hob, put the lid on and put it in the bag and it cooks for the next 12 hours like a slow cooker without any additional energy. I used to use a slow cooker many years ago but I never got on with it and gave it away, much prefer making stews in a pot in the oven but can't justify leaving it on for hours these days, even on low.

I can do more of these kinds of things now I'm WFH 3 days a week - when I was commuting daily, it was all about speed and convenience, but now I can plan a bit more to do more time consuming things eg. putting a curry or soup in a wonderbag in the morning.

the eggs are around £1.40 for 6

You can get 15 eggs in Lidl for £1.29. Now, they're not free range so there might be ethical concerns, but unless the equivalent shop made cake/ quiche/ etc is made with free range eggs, you're not comparing like with like.

@Nolongerteaching A slow cooker is a great idea for you , as is an air fryer. My slow cooker makes fantastic bolognese, chilli and stews. I tend to use it a lot more in autumn and winter if I'm honest

But why would you be using butter if you're trying to save money?

A cheaper, and healthier, example that I make: Brown bananas (you can usually pick these up severely reduced in supermarkets and grocers for pennies), cheap flour, 2 cheap eggs, veg oil or baking block, and a tiny bit of sugar. A whole healthy banana loaf for about a pound.

Stop!!!!! How do you make granola?

Erm, it's a bit of a "whatever's lying around" effort! Big baking tray, mostly oats and then whatever seeds, nuts and/or dried fruit you fancy. Put the oats, nuts and seeds on the baking tray (not the fruit else it burns), drizzle over oil of your choice and mix with your hands until it's coated. You don't need loads, just enough to stop it all burning.

Put it in the oven at 180C for 10 minutes, and set a timer. Give it a stir after 10 minutes (don't use your hands this time unless yours are made of asbestos!) then pop it back in for another 5-10 mins or until it's brown but not burning.

Leave to cool, mix through any fruit and store it in something airtight. I use an old jar.

World's yer oyster when it comes to variations and it's a good way to use up any odds and ends, or anything you find being sold off in a shop (desiccated coconut is nice but again, add it at the end else it burns). You could make it with just oats if necessary, they taste much nicer when lightly toasted in the oven. I make mine without sugar but you can easily scatter over some sugar/honey/syrup if you prefer.

A carrot cake or carrot cake muffins:

60p bag of grated carrot
£1 small bag of mixed fruit and nuts
£1 couple of small oranges
£1 good flour (extra £ for organic)
Bit of oil form cupboard.
£1.80 free range eggs
£1 brown sugar
£1 tbsp ginger
£1 tbsp cinnamon

Topping:
£2 Icing sugar and butter
£1 optional cream cheese

Half hour oven time.

Cost = nearly £10 for your cake!

This was the cheapest i could source online if you needed to get the ingredients in. I already have them as built up over time but as a one off this is super costly compared to a sainsburys carrot cake.

I think it pays to grab one cupboard staple a week, or a couple per month, so over time you have everything at hand at no extra cost. I do this and prefer it to shop bought but the initial outlay does cost.

(n.b. add the sugar and mix it in at the same time as the oil)

Baking is definitely more expensive than shop bought, which is sad really
easy no bake lemon cheesecake.

even basic shortbread which is just sugar butter and flour. costs £4 for the ingredients. You can make 2 x 24 portions before you have to re buy butter to make anymore.
A packet of shortbread costs 65p x4 (48 biscuits £2:60) and still costs less than the basic ingredients. and you don't have the heating costs or time investment.

The only thing I have found cheaper ( and healthier as you know what you put in it) is batch cooking stuff on offer, so planning menus around Aldi fruit and veg super 6, etc. Tesco 3 for 10 meat, etc. But you need a decent store cupboard of herbs. stockpots, vinegar, pulses, pasta, rice seasonings, etc. which isn't realistic for most people.
Took me a while to build up my store for batch cooking by buying 1 or 2 every time I went shopping. saving takeaway tubs, getting a load of slow cooker recipes that I could use.

@BrightYellowDaffodil

that sounds delicious, @BrightYellowDaffodil

i must be able to make that in my convection microwave? I will try🙂

I think it depends very much on your starting point and the level of poverty you're at

If you're in "heat or eat", genuinely, then yes it costs less to buy a tin of stewed steak & instant mash or a kettle meal.

Conversations like this can be a bit meaningles when our experience or expectations of "poverty" differ. Never helped with those who chip in with tales of their mother feeding 8 kids with a bag of spuds in 1956.

Everything is expensive. Baking is no longer a cheap thing to do with the kids. Cooking from scratch is still cheaper if you've got the means and there's no knock on effect of using the fuel to cook & store.

Tough times. Different for us all

Because I can't stomach margarine or alternatives if I can see it go in! I couldn't eat a cake I've put marg or stork in.

If I haven't made it, it bothers me less. Unless it's on a sandwich.

So I would not bake rather than make that swap

I made some cupcakes with butter icing with DD and they used a whole packet of butter plus nearly a whole box of icing sugar. Neither are cheap and it's not "tiny amounts".

We can afford it and it's one of DD's favourite things to do but it would be much cheaper to buy them from the corner shop! It's definitely comparable to e.g. swimming lessons or Beavers (I know things like Stagecoach are very expensive classes but baking is definitely NOT a free hobby for a child).

I think fuel is going to be the most important factor.
I've been re-thinking about what kit I use for cooking. When the oven is on, I've always cooked everything possible in it.

I used to use my pressure cooker for meat stock, & oxtail;
slow cooker for some casseroles;
air fryer mainly for chips;
microwave for bacon, scrambled egg, & de-frosting.

I use all of them much more now in an attempt to save money.

@Sleepingb

i agree but I would also say a lot of our grandmothers knowledge has been lost.

it’s about having a working kitchen (pans, pots, stove, containers, spices, stock, measuring jug, etc) plus a fair bit of experimentation with what you have and eating it regardless. My grandmother would probably think we have it too easy !

but those things don’t have to be Instagram designer stuff - old containers store stuff, lots of spices etc are very cheap in Turkish supermarkets - there are ways to do it.

I think that people recognise the difficulties other may be experiencing and rightly recognise that not everyone can afford the initial outlay but that doesn’t alter the fact that home made is better and cheaper when budgeted.

Baking is definitely more expensive than shop bought, which is sad really
easy no bake lemon cheesecake

No it isn't, when you compare properly. You can definitely make a whole no bake lemon cheesecake for less than you can buy a ready made one (except maybe a very poor quality frozen thing from Iceland or whatever, which is not really the same thing at all.

Cream cheese from Aldi is about 50p. 3 of those, 89p for cream, 50p for 4 lemons, and a pack of digestives 39p, 25p for a 3rd of a tub of baking butter. You can't get a cheesecake that size and decent for that cost.

@Sallygoround631 that's wrong.
I get 70p for 1.5kg if self raising flour. You're not going to even use a quarter of that fit one cake.
£1.85 for 12 medium eggs. You'll probably use 4 for a large cake.
£65p for 1 kg of granulated sugar. You can pay more for other sugar.
£1.75 for 250g of butter or £1.80 for 500g of fairy free spread (which we buy)
1kg of carrots costs 40p

I could go on but you get the idea. It's way less than £10!

I made some cupcakes with butter icing with DD and they used a whole packet of butter plus nearly a whole box of icing sugar. Neither are cheap and it's not "tiny amounts"

Ah come on, you're not even trying. Yes, it was pricey because you CHOSE that. You could have made icing with icing sugar and lemon juice for a fraction of that cost.

Can't believe it has to be said that choosing to use expensive ingredients makes things more expensive, and you can choose to spend far less!!

If you are making cake as you have children, maybe think back to the 1970s and 80s?

My mum cooked from scratch then and cake was simple: Victoria sponge with jam only, marble cake with cocoa not chocolate, coconut cake with dessicated coconut were the main cakes. Carrot cake never had a topping. Icing was Christmas and birthdays and would be a simple water icing.

And it was soft margarine bought in bulk containers, not butter.

Also cake was a treat food, not a daily food.

Modern baking and cake culture bears no resemblance to even the quite recent past I blame Bake Off

I cook most our meals from scratch and it is expensive
This morning I cooked chicken thighs with cauliflower in spices
I don't know the individual prices
So I used cold pressed rapeseed oil
Two fresh onions
3 big fresh tomatoes
Half a cauliflower
Fresh garlic - one whole bulb
Spices to taste

Separately, I boiled basmati rice

Pan fried carrots, baby corn, green beans

Sliced potatoes to fry

That's just dinner for 5 people - 3 kids and 2 adults who all eat hearty

I do find cooking from scratch expensive but it does depend on the type of cooking and what you are cooking.

Unless you’ve never been taught to cook, or you only have access to a hot plate and microwave, or you don’t have a freezer or storage space for store cupboard ingredients and have to shop every day.

Then there’s no way on earth you’ll ever convince me that cooking from scratch is cheaper than a 30p packet of pasta with a 40p jar of sauce, or a couple of 89p Iceland frozen fish pies with a 50p bag of frozen mixed veg, either of which would make meals for 4 people.

Absolutely! I have a coffee/cake kiosk. It’s way cheaper for me to bake myself, and they’re much nicer too.

Cooking from scratch is usually cheaper for me but it depends on the ingredients. I did homemade pesto sauce the other day and cried a little 😬