What is going on with food prices??

[londongirl12]

A 500g packet of mince in Aldi is now over £5!! What on earth is going on???

I shop at Aldi and don’t eat a lot of meat so I haven’t noticed a great deal of difference tbh

It does @Wilfulignoranceabounds
I often roast extra veg if im making a roast dinner, makes it even easier. I regularly add pulses at the end too, from a can, so no cooking required.

Yeah, soups don’t fill me up unless I add beans and/or lentils, which is why I tend to use the pressure cooker, coz I use dried lentils. Good shout on roasting extra veg, though. One of these days, I’ll start batch cooking, too. What eludes me is a decent recipe for wholemeal bread that doesn’t include adding white flour. That would be a game changer.

Bread is one thing im happy to splash out on. I work opposite a very nice sourdough bakery, so tend to buy 1 loaf a week instead of trying to make it, so sorry I can't help you there @Wilfulignoranceabounds

No problem, thanks for your help.

Something I don't understand is why they don't actually make the majority of absent dads pay for their own kids. If they can't get them to admit to how much they earn they need to take it from them by making them sell assets or stopping their passports, you know, as they have a legal right to do. You get men to support their kids and women can afford to work, get off benefits and spend money, strangely enough. Would be a good start.

Thank you. It was me. I’m taking notes and sorting courgettes first I think as more than one person said they are reasonably easy. I am not green fingered but I think it would be a fab thing to do with the kids

I remember Delia Smith I think saying if the ovens on use every shelf. She was very frugal. So I guess if you think ahead you could do some batch cooking.

My DIL will make and freeze four meals for a family of four. Eat one, label and freeze three. She puts them in these square stackable boxes. The other week she made meatballs, a veggie curry, and two other dishes.

When we got married I was given an M&S freezer cook book which I used a lot. I must dig it out again. I'm sure you can still buy this type of cook book.

After work and at weekends. I work full time.

Thanks. I've actually had reasonable success with cherry tomatoes and herbs this year and have actually vowed to set up one of the composters we have again so there will be a supply of compost from next year.

For the tomatoes, I grew these in old flower buckets, which you can buy from Morrisons for 99 p for 6-8, depending on how generous they are feeling so I'll have a go at that again. I might also use the buckets for herbs as I think they do benefit from a larger pot too - these sit on a little patio just outside the kitchen door, although obviously might not work over winter.

So next year, I'll do the tomatoes again and I might have a go at potatoes in one of the buckets, just to see how it works, I could probably get a pound or two of baby potatoes, so it's just for fun really, rather than a serious food production/money saving exercise.

I know what you mean by just spending a few minutes each day keeping up with things, but it's difficult when you work long days and have other things to do, I found myself resenting the time it took to pot things on, or needing to water on a morning, because I hadn't done it the night before and if they were left any longer, they probably wouldn't survive a day in the sun.

Sounds like you've done great! But, if resented it, then perhaps not for you? It is supposed to be fun imo! Perhaps your green fingers will do better when things not so busy and hectic :-)

ps, You prob already know, so apologies if prattling on.. If you have a go at potatoes in buckets, they have to be fairly deep pots, no idea what the morrisons ones are like. When the spuds start to develop sometimes they are poking through the surface of the soil, so will need to be able to cover at the stem of the plant with a little more soil so they don't go green. Other than that, super easy and hardy, will withstand a missed day of watering no probs!

That’s absolutely fine if you enjoy it, but I would absolutely find no enjoyment in that. I want to use my weekends to do things that I enjoy because I’ve worked all week. My kids also do sports the weekend so I tend to bring them to matches, etc. I think people just need to realise that price is increase they always have and they always will, so let’s just get on with it.

That’s absolutely fine if you enjoy it, but I would absolutely find no enjoyment in that. I want to use my weekends to do things that I enjoy because I’ve worked all week. My kids also do sports the weekend so I tend to bring them to matches, etc. I think people just need to realise that prices increase they always have and they always will, so let’s just get on with it.

Many yse every last scrap of the kind of chicken you’re turning your nose up at because it was a stretch for them to manage even a cheap chicken.

This. The idea that the alternative is to spend a large portion of your weekly food budget and use every last scrap (they’ll be doing that already with their cheap one) is just wrong. Many people will just go without and eat even cheaper processed meats.

But many also throw away all but the breasts 'because they don't like dark meat' or CBA to pick the meat off the carcass.

There were people on that Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall programme who did just that. They said they 'couldn't afford to pay more than £2 for a chicken' but they weren't interested in making the most of the bird they bought at any price.

I was talking about people who eat massive quantities of cheap chicken to the detriment of their health-please RTFT before you comment

We're lucky living rurally and by the sea. Get offered game and fish in season. We used to keep hens and would eat the meat sometimes. Lovely eggs too. I've toyed with buying a few hens again, but with bird flu the rules are onerous every time the government declare an outbreak they have to be locked up which I think is cruel and pointless, especially when half the country has bird tables and baths that could be contaminated if you think about it.

Chicken these days just doesn't taste right. It's just a protein carrier for herbs and spices.

I'm reminded of a very lovely, very wealthy family member whose expensively educated son had a school project last year about how he was going to talk to people in food poverty (don't know how he'd find them) and devise ways for them to get their food scraps to go further.

I never did ask how that went.

Good god. I hope he was sent packing.
(Wasn’t related to 50p Lee?)

I don't think so, he was never mentioned. I think it was for whatever the subject formerly known as Home Economics is now. I suspect it didn't go anywhere.

There were looks around the table when it was mentioned. They honestly are lovely people, I promise, but my God. Nobody wanted to say it!

Home economics this takes me back to the late 60's. My teacher. If the ovens were on you utilised them for dinner and pudding. So on one shelf you'd have shepherds pie, or toad in the hole, or Cornish pasties. On another shelf you'd have a fruit crumble or pie.

You really worked the oven. No-one worried about carbs.

On the other hand we had lessons on nutritional value. Vegetables, dairy, being very important, we had exams on nutrition. Calcium, vitamins, etc. we learnt about milk, eggs, fruit, nuts. You have to remember that meat was still expensive then. Chicken was a real treat. Beef and lamb cheaper.

I was thinking about this too, I want to buy £1kg of 5% steak mince 🤷🏼‍♂️

I haven't been to a proper butcher in years and wondering if they're any cheaper than Tesco.

I'm considering looking for farm shops because I'm just pissed off and I'd rather have less but decent welfare and quality.

I remember my Mum stretching meat to extremes with dumplings, pearl barley and oats and I'm going to do the same.

I still adore dumplings, pearl barley . We had dumplings in soup. When I was a child then a cocoa. Winter broth mix at Asda I love. DH not so much but his family were wealthy compared to ours looking back.

All you mums with kids, hands up who makes dumplings and uses pearl barley?

Who uses suet?1