To get annoyed when people parrot that it's always cheaper to cook from scratch?

[Katypp]

Caveats: Home made food is usually:
A. Nicer
B. More nutritious
C: Made with proper ingredients that you can control
D: More filling
E: Not made with fillers, starch etc

But it's not always cheaper!

Time after time, when people post about food costs, the trope is always make it yourself, you'll save money. This post is in frustration after yet again, someone tripped it out on a budgeting forum. Someone commented that Tesco budget hummous is quite nice, to be told, as always, you can make it cheaper yourself.
You can't. Eastman's hummous 69p

Tesco chickpeas 60p + lemon 30p = 90p and that's before you add olive oil and tahini.

Yes I know you can soak your own chickpeas and buy in bulk at an Asian grocer etc, but that level of organisation for most people is beyond the effort of just picking up a tub on the weekly shop.

For the record, I am a very keen home cook and have also run a food business and written about food in the past. I enjoy cooking, but I am sick of people trotting out this line without thinking about it, especially on budgeting and money-saving forums.

@Comedycook you've admitted you and your friends are all middle class and you cooked for some working class people who had never eaten proper chicken or cooked a roast !!

I didn't cook for some working class people as you put it...I invited some new friends to my house with their kids for lunch. They are from a different background to me...that's fine. I have no need to only be friendly with middle class people. Yes, one woman did say her DC loved the chicken I had cooked and had never eaten chicken that wasn't breadcrumbed. Yes, that did surprise me. I had only roasted some drumsticks...they are pretty cheap to buy. Another friend told me she had never cooked a roast...yes, that did surprise me. You sound like you really want to take offence at what I'm saying and imply I'm a snooty cow, but I'm literally just writing down my experiences.

Erm there is plenty between that and artisan or homemade sourdough.😐There is a reason it's under 30p.
Have to say I was always fascinated by prices of bread here, coming from the continent. Some are just illogical imho and there is no reaaon why loaf of good (not talking some speciality god knows what) must be xx pounds.

I agree with OP depending on the meal. Agree with you also but perhaps cooking is a skill so for you perhaps you was taught to be a good cook. If you don't have that skill...

No. But I think it means not microwave meals and frozen. Although nothing wrong with a homemade dinner and frozen veg.

I don't think every single item has to be fresh tbh but there's a big difference between trying to cook from scratch and deep pan pizzas each night.

I don’t believe poor farmers had better diets compared to now , less processed yes but not very nutritious , for a very long time , spices were so expensive they were perceived as a luxury only the wealthy can afford, so most ate very limited heavy in fat , Bland food with very little seasoning.and that didn’t change for so many years

there are so many videos on YT that shows shopping habits in the 60s/70s/80s/90s . during the 80s it was mostly white food, butter , toast, cereals , sugar , processed meals, crisps, more cheese , yogurt, and fresh fruits than the 70s but very little fresh veg, mostly canned or frozen, in the 90s it looked much better with more fresh veg and fruits, less processed meals.

This thread has taken the usual turn about how much better home-made food is, which we all knew from the beginning!
It's obvious from this thread that some honestly don't have a clue what it's like to live on a very limited budget rather than just 'cutting back'.
On the same forum that instigated me to start this thread, there is a post from a woman who has £30 every week to feed her family of six. Where does bulk buying kilos of meat or olive oil or tahini fit into that budget?
I do generally disagree that cooking from scratch is a middle-class persuit though. Hobby cooking such as artisan bread and pesto maybe, but plenty of 'working-class' families cook every night.

Katypp, what are your suggestions for that woman in need? Buy ready meals? I have alternate suggestions which do not involve tahini, but I feel like that is the only answer that is acceptable.

I mean at the start of this thread a poster says how she bulk buys olive oil and it costs £26 as if that's a brilliant saving! Incredibly out of touch.

£30 for a family of six is not doable though. It really isn't. I know lots about food prices and cooking and cheap meals but that is too much of a stretch.

@LobeliaBaggins why do you think that? I certainly am not saying that. It's not about ready meals or nothing, or tahini for that matter! As I said earlier, this thread has taken the usual turn, but my original post was about the assumption that EVERYTHING is cheaper of you make it yourself when this patently isn't true.

@Comedycook i agree. And when you see budgets like that, it should be easy to see why people buy 37p loaves of bread or 75p ready meals. They literally have no choice. I will say it again - the privilege on this thread is clear for all to see.

I think the thread has turned into a binary really, either eat ready meals or make your own hummus. Most of us will be somewhere in between.

Anyway, I can and do make food that costs 40 pp per person- mostly veggie; I don't know how to cook meat- but I haven't estimated the cost of gas, the spice cupboard, the cooking skills etc etc. ( I do live in a small flat with limited cupboard or freezer space). So I will just say that cooking cheap food is privilege and agree that most people should just buy readymeals because they don't have a choice.

I've lived on a very low budget and hummus wasn't a priority for me. But I could buy the ingredients for a large bolognese one week, and then I'd still have stock cubes, tomato puree, garlic etc left which means that the next week I could buy cumin and chilli powder and then i'd have the ingredients for a chilli. The next week I might buy ginger, soy sauce and rice wine and then i'd have cupboard ingredients for asian dishes.

After a few weeks of doing that, I'd then be just replacing empties and perishables and I could have more variety because I had a decent cupboard store and herbs and spices go a long way and I didn't have to buy them every week like I would if I was using jars and packets.

It's how most people across the world, including people far poorer than in the UK, do it. There isn't any way out of buying an initial stock. I wish there were but you can't magick it out of nowhere. So posters saying "OMG you want me to buy cumin you snob!!?"" are missing the way it is done everywhere. Yeah, you got to buy the cumin. But cumin lasts for months.

£30 for a family of six involves a lot of bread. I’ve seen the government ‘explanations’ of how people were to supposed to live and eat on old-fashioned social security, and nothing has changed really.

Lots and lots of cheap bread. Cheap margarine.Tinned beans, tinned spaghetti hoops, tinned soup, tinned peas. A few ‘value’ fish fingers and sausages. Some potatoes for boiling. Milk and water, a few teabags. Cheap tinned rice pudding. Tiny portions. An assumption of free school meals for all the DC.

Not even the government food bods and spinners suggested cooking that lot ^^ from scratch (all that bread especially) because ‘unscratch’ would be over the food & fuel budget they calculate into SS (currently UC).

I will say it again - the privilege on this thread is clear for all to see

I think it's more nuanced than your posts imply. I think it's really important to listen to each other and try to understand things from a different point of view.
People can only do that by discussing their 'norm' and lived experience. Nearly every poster here is posting in good faith and trying to offer something.

But tbh, you keep popping up to police the thread and telling people off as the thread evolves to remind everyone that you're right, and shutting people down. It's actually pretty unhelpful.

Sorry my last post didn’t make sense at the end with ‘unscratch’ I suspect!

Fed is better than not fed, no matter what it consists of

Maybe. Making your kids overweight, sluggish, growing up with a narrow range of foods they will eat and a bit constipated as they don't have their 7 fruit and veg a day is only a bit better than not fed at all.

The nearest high street to me has no butcher. Or greengrocer. If the nearest place for you to buy your food is a supermarket, as you have to go on the bus, then you have to buy the smallest quantities you can, which will be a much larger pack - which is probably more than you need, or can afford. If you don't have a proper freezer, that's an additional issue.

I think some MNetter's privilege is showing. People won't be able to afford to batch cook for three hours (energy costs) or have the right kitchen equipment (blenders and air dryers have already been mentioned on this thread).

FFS air fryers

I've lived on a very low budget and hummus wasn't a priority for me

My go to lunch when my DC are at school and I'm home alone is hummus and pitta. A tub of hummus and a packet of cheap pitta bread comes to less than £1.20 and will do me lunch for 4/5 days. It's excellent value.

Someone from the govt should study Sikh temples and see how they distribute free and healthy food.

If anywhere near Central London, the Indian YMCA hostel does pretty healthy Indian meals for less than £4 per person on weekdays.

@RealBecca who would want 2 huge tubs though and it only lasts a few days in the fridge when fresh
Not everyone wants it everyday

I think some MNetter's privilege is showing. People won't be able to afford to batch cook for three hours (energy costs) or have the right kitchen equipment (blenders and air dryers have already been mentioned on this thread)

Most people know about energy issues now with cooking, but batch cooking doesn't need 3 hours. Vegetable dishes can be cooked in 40 minutes, then reheating is only a few seconds in the microwave.

A saucepan, knife and wooden spoon is what I use 95% of the time. My food processor broke and I didn't bother replacing it. Turns out I didn't need it as much as I thought.

I make a lot of stirfries which take 10 min and use one burner, and need no equipment beyond a wok and wooden spoon. Yes, they do need soy sauce and fivespice, but I don't believe they need mega cooking skills if DS can make them. Also cheap.