To price recipes per amount of the ingredient used not the whole cost of the ingredient?

[pontipinemum]

I'm in a 'budgeting' group. I've posted many recipes in the past. But on one recently someone said it's stupid to list the cost of the ingredient used not the cost of the pack since you need to buy the whole pack. A few people jumped on saying yes it is very misleading and unfair to people that truly are on a budget.

Yes you do need to buy the whole pack but it's not like you throw out the rest once you are done!

E.g. the 1tbsp of curry powder needed for the whole recipe is 20c, whole tub €1. But I will not throw out the rest of the tub. I will use it again. Same with all the ingredients I use.

What do you think?

YABU - It is unfair to list the cost of the amount used and you should list the full cost of the ingredient

YANBU - It is normal to list just the cost of the amount of the ingredient used

It's annoying when recipes are priced per portion. If it comes to £1 per portion and serves 4, that's great and it looks cheap but then the total shopping list comes to £30 for one meal and it's no longer budget friendly

It depends. For regular ingredients that people will probably buy anyway and use the rest of the packet I think using the price of the amount is reasonable eg milk, pasta.

For more unusual ingredients that people will have to buy specially and may not end up using the rest of the packet, it's probably better to use the whole packet price.
Plus if people are really on a tight budget, they maybe can't spend the initial outlay on a packet that will then last them multiple meals, even if the cost per meal ends up very low. If you have a well stocked store cupboard and a reasonable budget, it's different.

Could you list both? I assume you know the packet price in order to work out the price of the amount you're using, so maybe list that alongside?

If it’s something the average family would have in anyway or would be likely to use the entirety of within a few days in the case of perishable ingredients you only need to include the cost of a portion but if it is something people are going to have to buy it would be better to include the whole packet.
So something like a splash of milk or one egg can be costed by the portion but something like curry powder or specific spices (beyond salt and pepper) should be costed by the container.

I do always roll my eyes at "fresh ginger 5g - 2p". Good luck buying that.

I think it's much better to not only price per meal but in brackets put price for the whole thing if someone needs to buy it. Much better for budgeting imho

It depends on the item as well.

We rarely finish a whole bulb of garlic. I would include the whole price in a recipe even though using a couple of cloves. Any other recipes using it are a bonus.

Long life items... its far enough, as long as they are versatile.

Alternatively where a recipe includes long lasting but unusual ingredients saying something along the lines of the initial outlay for the first meal will be £x however this will purchase you sufficient quantities of many ingredients meaning a number of further meals can be made at a reduced cost of £y, giving an average spend of £z per meal if you were to cook this meal multiple times.

I think the context is important. If it’s a recipe sharing group for people who are there to find multiple recipes so will use the ingredients up then yes - by portion.

If it’s some arsehole Tory wanting to ignore the upfront cost to start with these budget recipes, then it’s appropriate to make it clear that there is an upfront cost.

Mostly though, people need to grow the fuck up and work out themselves if there’ll be an extra up front cost. I’m tempted to say you could asterisk anything that is a bulk item, but then again - people need to grow up.

I don’t think it’s always easy to say which are the ingredients everyone has in. Two people on a short thread have mentioned milk. I never have milk, I got so fed up with buying a pint for a “splash” that I bought powdered milk! I’d tried milk ice cubes but didn’t work well for me.

For something like eggs, I can plan my budget to get through them and they last a while. But milk doesn’t last long enough to include in other recipes that we eat.

I do know we’re unusual on the milk, but I just think because you can’t please everyone, then people need to grow up and work it out themselves.

I've seen this on social media too. People being petty and saying that the punch of salt wasn't costed in the recipe.
I'm assuming that the herbs and spices are used are minimal and available in budget supermarkets like Aldi eg the curry powder that you mention. If it's a niche spice blend only available in Asian grocers or somewhere posh like Waitrose then I wouldn't have included it on a budget cooking page.

This.

Regardless of whether you'll use the rest of the ingredients at a later date, if the initial outlay is out of your budget then the price per portion is irrelevant as you're not going to reach that stage of the process.

There is also the worry of trying new things or unusual ingredients that you haven't had before because if you don't like it or it doesn't agree with you then you've wasted a sizeable chunk of your food budget. You know those "what's new at xxxx supermarket" videos people do where people buy all the new products and taste test them for their SM? I saw an opposite one of those this week where this woman was going around Asda pointing out such-and-such a product which is new and sounds nice but she can't risk buying it in case it's not actually nice and this-and-that product which looks tasty but doesn't have an indication of how spicy it actually is so she can't chance buying it in case it can't be eaten. She ended up buying the same things she always buys because they're cheap, they're familiar and they're filling.

Sometimes budgeting groups forget things like this.

Milk is a particularly awkward one because whilst you could include the cost on an entire pint bottle however much you need the reality is that not only will most people who are not lactose free (and for whom normal milk prices are irrelevant in any case) have milk in the house they will have bought it in a bigger container that works out significantly cheaper per pint than buying it in pint containers.

I cook for 6 so there's no way on earth to go out every day and buy just for that meal. Plus we don't get paid per day so yanbu in my eyes. Who honestly gets paid daily?

I food shop for the week and occasional top up. I don't buy a oxo cube per day.

Plus eg fresh ginger is so cheap. If your truly buying it daily you shop off a tiny root. I buy a big root, freeze it grate it frozen.

I think if its pissing people off stop sharing. Bread is 55-75p a loaf. Beans can be bought under 50p a can. Marg can be £1 a tub. They can buy that each day. Stop buying the Marg on days 2-7. One loaf, two tins of beans. Day one really costs £2.55 to do four meals, 65p per head. Days 2-7 40p per head. Go the shops every day with your £2.55 as that's factual.

If its angering them and they shop daily, they need to buy to that surely? Not moan that they can't buy oxo cubes as they are say £2 and they have £2 to eat that day. It's beans on toast then or pasta with pasta. There will never be salt oil or spices. Unless they save for a month with change each day. That day, at the end of the month will cost them £20. If they don't want to adverage its use out

I like the budget recipe guides where they come up with 5 days/a week's worth of meals so they get around some of the "using half a packet" issues (as you'll use the other half up in another meal).

I do think for things like a jar of spice where you only use a teaspoonful, you probably need to list this separately e.g. say cost of the meal is £x but you'll also need to use a teaspoon of spice which costs £y for a jar if you don't already have it.

Some celebrity chefs are awful for a variant of this - assuming that people have multiple ingredients to hand in their "store cupboard" that they then don't include within the costings.

This is perfect.

Could you do a combination of both?
Price per portion and then potential additional costs for non-staples you may not have in the cupboard.

So £1 per portion plus, from the store cupboard, curry powder £0.xx a jar, rice £y.yy a packet etc

I would also suggest giving both - portion price and whole pack price with suggestions for using the rest.

Perhaps also suggestions of how spares can be used

Eg the curry powder lasts a while so the next time you make this , you won't need to buy this
Freeze the ginger grated into ice cube tray so that next time you make this ( or my other recipes Iinked here ) you won't need to buy this
Carrots will keep for a while but also use with lentils to make a soup

You need an agreed list of 'store cupboard staples'. Simple, right?

It sounds like this might be a fb group, I don't think agreeing a list would be that simple. I imagine that even just among the ~15 posters on this thread we'd disagree on what counted as a store cupboard staple, based on what we regularly cook.

It's incredibly irritating to see people declare their meal is 'only 24p per portion' when the initial outlay is £20+. Because you need that £20+ in order to have that meal.

This. It’s so misleading. To be fair I’d quote both figures. The total cost for the recipe and the “scaled” price per serve

Ok, well I do actually seem to post a mix of what you are all saying But yes for this one I would say you can feed two adults and 1 toddler for under €3.

I used all those other ingredients during the week again. Well apart from the curry powder, I didn't use that again during the week but I will use it again.

Tbh I kind of understand them. I think if you're going on budgeting groups for meal ideas, it's unlikely you're going to be able to manage the outlay of the purchase. I think people really forget what true poverty is like. When I was growing up there was no way I could've asked my mum for all of those ingredients, as esp something like curry powder would never get used again.

Hi Jack, is that you?

Sorry this one didn't post.