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.

@PeloAddict , I live near a town centre, and the shops are nearer than the supermarkets. The corner shop sells some loose fruit and veg.
You can buy celery and cut off as many stalks as you need, it keeps for ages in the frIdge. Even if you buy trimmed stalks, they'll keep for a bit. Peppers and other fruit veg keep for longer in a veg rack.

@PeloAddict

I note you say 430g of beef - is that a supermarket pack?

Standard packs of beef, lamb, mince etc all used to be 500g a few years ago, then some were a sneaky 450g, and recently I saw £400g - obviously no commensurate price reduction!

And I've just looked at my pack of light feta and it's 180g - it's usually 200g.

Just wanted to get that off my chest

It's 3 miles one way into town for me. £3 parking. One way system. Takes me a lot longer than driving 1 mile to Lidl with free parking or having shopping delivered

@QuattroFromagio you can freeze creme fraiche, it just needs a stir when it's defrosted. I freeze lots of things that I don't use straight away.

@Westfacing yes! Just bought from morrisons last week, I had to look it up online to check the weight and was surprised
I'm used to it being 250, 500, 750 and so on

@QuattroFromagio you can even use your carrots with hummus 😂

I don't always cook totally from scratch, maybe a piece of fresh fish i fry and add some curly fries for kids, thats cheap for everyone. Added couscous tonight which is ultra cheap and you can add in allsorts of things. Making bread and humous isn't for everyone and def not cheap!

@PeloAddict , you drive to somewhere only a mile away?

Oh shush!

i find cooking from scratch much cheaper and healthier.
That said…there are things that are much cheaper to buy. I also work full time, I’m a single parent to a severely disabled child. Sometimes I just want something quick and easy. I do have leftovers in the freezer but don’t always know what kind of day I’m going to have.

Your chickpea/hummous analogy doesn’t work though. You end up with 3 times the amount of the shop bought. So your comparison is with £1.50. Not 50p

Surely it depends how much you buy. I'd drive if I were doing a big shop. I haven't got enough arms to carry the bags. And bottles of milk, bags of pet food etc are heavy.

Dh does batch cooking in the winter, but it often takes him the best part of a Sunday and if it's got the merest hint of heat,or strong flavour, the kids won't eat it. Time is def the biggest issue with cooking from scratch.

My mum always used to cook, then do a big bake when the oven was on. But when she started working full time, we entered the wonderful (for teens) World of the microwave meal.

Gosh I think people are missing the basic point the OP is trying to make 🙄

When people say they cook from scratch, to me that is like using I. E. Making spag bol using whole tomatoes, boiling down etc. When in fact most are using chopped tomatoes or passata.

Cooking from scratch requires knowledge, lots of kitchen staples already owned and alot of time which alot of people just don't have.

If you have a few fresh herbs or vegetables left over, try dehydrating them. You can do this by simply chopping fairly finely and spreading on a piece of kitchen roll or oven paper.

I frequently dehydrate mushrooms, leeks and spring onions, thyme, mint and oregano. When they're completely dry, you can just let them rattle around in a jar until you need them.

A decent bit of the nutritional value is lost here, but it's better than nothing. You can then just shake whatever you need into a dish as it's cooking, add to instant noodles, etc.

Leftover stuff. No fridge, freezer, long cooking etc. required. Every bit of nutrition helps.

Cooking from scratch requires knowledge, lots of kitchen staples already owned and alot of time which alot of people just don't have

It doesn't have to, as people keep saying upthread.

Perpetuating this POV puts people off even trying.

Homemade is cheaper I find. Yes you can buy a ready made alternative but with a fraction of the meat and veggies and full of filler crap.

Ready made soup compared to homemade for example. Super cheap ingredients

Totally agree. We are not talking professional masterchef level. Some people are making cooking sound so complicated. It's a basic life activity. Imho it's basically like cleaning or gardening. It can be very simple. It's just something you do.

Can someone actually say what that "skill and knowledge" entails when we are talking about non professional homecook level? Skill and knowledge that is not accessible to absolutely anyone with internet or library?

OK so how long does it take you to make spag bol from scratch v the normal browning mince, adding chopped onion and a jar of sauce and boiling spaghetti.

Making pasta from scratch..... Not a chance, making a tomato base from whole tomatoes, fresh garlic etc..... My jarred spag bol is ready by time you've done that alone.

For me cooking from scratch is cheaper, I am talking a main meal. I find ready meals really expensive and make the same thing cheaper. Curry ready meals usually have 5 pieces of very small chicken bits. Each to their own.

It is not something worth getting annoyed about in my opinion. I agree that it is better for our health to cook from scratch. I suppose it depends on the competency of the cook though. I don't think it is necessarily always cheaper.

Making pasta from scratch..... Not a chance, making a tomato base from whole tomatoes, fresh garlic etc..... My jarred spag bol is ready by time you've done that alone

I haven't commented on which would be ready to eat quicker. That's a completely different point.

I replied to this:

Cooking from scratch requires knowledge, lots of kitchen staples already owned and alot of time which alot of people just don't have

I think it's a really unhelpful message to perpetuate.

Oh yes Hummus comes from Tesco but when you are talking about a whole meal homemade is always the best for all the reasons you cite.

We’re trying the carnivore diet, mainly because we both suffer from auto immune conditions.

Have to say, we are saving money, there’s no wastage, packaging is minimal, we both feel so much better for it, and guess what…. It’s cheaper…. Steak takes about 4 mins to cook so energy wise it’s damn efficient.

Never eaten so well, or cheaply for some amazing, albeit a little repetitive.

I think it depends.

I can batch make my lunches for work (I have a bigger lunch and smaller dinner) for around £1.30 per day. If I bought lunch, it would be at least £5.

I think the likes of making pizza, bread etc, it may be more expensive initially when buying the ingredients, but when you buy those in, they tend to do you a while.

I've stopped baking though as the cost of eggs isn't worth it anymore, may as well buy a pack.

I think it depends on what you're cooking obviously, I do tend to find that cooking from scratch is cheaper (with some exceptions obviously). But if you factor in the cost of fuel to cook with then it could end up being the same or even more expensive to cook from scratch vs heating up a microwave meal for example.