Mass-produced food

[mamamea]

Isn't it horrible?

Unfortunately we've basically been upsold on everything. So if we eat standard spaghetti at 35p a packet the texture's all wrong because we're used to the £1/packet stuff.

Won't even touch those dodgy cheap sausages. Same goes for bacon, because we're used to the outdoor-reared one.

We bought a non-free range chicken from M&S, it was nasty (we usually get organic). The half-price New Zealand leg of lamb - tasteless (we usually get Welsh hill lamb, which has a nice heather flavour to it).

And as for those 2 pub lunches for £6 or whatever, just disgusting. I don't know how people eat such horrible rubbish.

I still like a bit of KFC though....

Sorry, not sure how you're expecting people to respond to you. Are you commenting on cheap food that you've just started trying as some kind of experiment? Are you looking for sympathy because it's not what you're used to? Have you lost your job and looking for sympathy because you can't afford organic or top-dollar everything any more?

v odd post imo

We used to eat cheaper food, just a bit of a warning that once you try it, you get used to the expensive stuff (like the spaghetti). Also a comment on the horrible meat people eatt.

mamamea, some of us can't afford the £1 pack of spaghetti, as awful as you think it might be, some of us actually do make do with it! & as for free range & organic, would you like my shopping budget for the next month & then criticise when you don't have a choice?

Fine if you can afford the more expensive stuff get it, but don't make out the rest of us eat rubbish just because we can't afford free range, organic, outdoor reared whatever.

A pretty insensitive post, mamamea. What were you hoping to achieve by this?

what are you trying to say?
That you are considerably richer than us?

We eat plenty of cheap cuts of meat, made baked beans out of pork hocks and dried haricot beans a couple of days ago.

I just think that reformed ham and the like are revolting. Even when we've been on a tight budget, we wouldn't eat that stuff.

I've lived in the third world, and they don't eat the shit that some people in the UK do, despite much smaller food budgets. Meat is expensive so people don't eat much of it. But what they do eat is free range and much better than the industrial meat you get there.

Yes, a lot of processed food is crap. But this isn't what you implied in your OP!

Frankly, if you've been paying extra for premium pasta then you've always been wasting your money. As long as it's 100% durum wheat, then it will be perfectly fine.

But I still don't understand what you're trying to achieve with this ...

me neither BIWI.

It looks like a criticism of those of us who can't afford more expensive food to me! & as for those 2 for £6 pub meals, they may not be great, but if we get a day off from the lo and we're a bit short on cash then we head to the nearest cheap pub for lunch & a £5 bottle of wine!

May not be the best, but it gets us out, we have fun & it's what we can afford. So what? No-one said you have to like it but you don't have to judge everyone else like that!

I am lucky that I can afford to buy good food but it has not always been that way, what a mean thread.

I do think that perhaps people could buy less food and buy better but I dont think that is what your thread is about.

Poor you for having to buy a non organic M&S chicken.

what a timely and sensitive post during a worldwide recession when people are losing their jbs and homes...god forbid they should treat themselves to a cheap pub lunch or non organic chicken

let them eat organic home made cake from locally sourced ingredients

Frankly, if you've been paying extra for premium pasta then you've always been wasting your money. As long as it's 100% durum wheat, then it will be perfectly fine.

Actually there are plenty of other differences.

"Low temperature. Slow drying process. Bronze drawing. Made according to the same recipe of 100 years ago. De Cecco's is the first pasta certified for the distinctive quality of many parameters such as: high protein quality (gluten index above 70) to ensure the perfect firmness of pasta during cooking; use of high particle size (40% with diameter above 400 microns), to preserve the wholeness of gluten; kneaded with cold water (under 15 degrees C), that assures a sweeter taste and a better firmness during cooking; slow and low temperature drying: for spaghetti shape above 18 hours in order to preserve the natural characteristics of our semolina; coarse bronze drawing to give the pasta the ideal roughness that makes it adhere perfectly... to sauces. "

It's half price in Sainsburys at the moment, I can assure you it's completely different from the Sainsburys brand (which is also 100% durum wheat).

There is nothing wrong with the Sainsburys one, we did used to eat it, but it's not as good.

I think there are two ways to cook:

1. on a budget with good-quality produce (such as the Sainsbury's spaghetti, which is perfectly fine, just not as nice)
2. with good-quality produce, not on a budget

We used to do 1., now we do 2., but it would be hard to go back to 1. Just a vague observation on the credit crunch or something I guess.

Are you MarieAntionette in real life?

Well that must be very nice for you not having a food budget.

as for 'let them eat organic home made cake from locally sourced ingredients ', organic is a bit ridiculous generally, I was looking at a recipe and it said '250g organic butter', '100g organic sugar', and I thought 'bollocks', and just put the non-organic stuff (which is what we have). It doesn't taste any different at all.

But chickens are animals and the way they are raised completely determines what they taste like. Which is why we don't buy mass-produced pork or mass-produced chicken.

And as for the chickens, you can get a decent whole chicken for the price of a couple of intensively farmed chicken breasts.

tsap . . . it'd be very nice not to have to budget.

you missed my point,but twinset got it

some people have no budget to cut and 1/2 price fancy shmancy pasta is still too dear

and actually we have cut back, I've declined to buy any rib-eye steak because it now costs £19.49/kilo, so I bought some oxtail for about £4/kg, put a couple of cans of kidney beans, allspice and hot pepper sauce, and made a Jamaican stew/curry instead. Very tasty, much cheaper, but not rubbish.

i do agree that non intensively meat and poultry tastes very different but budget wise it is abig difference
3 medium chickens for a tenner from asda, or one from the butcher?? sometimes price has to come first

some people have no budget to cut

Yes, that depends on your budget. A few years ago we spent £875/month on rent out of about £1500-£1600/month income, which didn't leave very much for anything else (council tax, heating, etc.), but still would not ever eat crap. Food comes first (well second after roof over heads). Cheap English food is just the worst in the world.

a thread about how to eat well on a budget would have been a better starting point i thikn

Lulu, I agree.

If you have something to share mamamea, share it without sounding judgey.

Like, if you can feed us for a month on £100 without buying what in your opinion is crap, then please, post me a shopping list & meal plan & I'll go get it when I get paid!

I am all for cutting bag, I no longer have foie gras on toast for breakfast, I now have a toastopper.

£100 a month i think would be poss if you were veggie? beyond my capabilities though,my dear!

well maybe.

Waitrose are generally a rip-off, but they have a great selection of cheap cuts of meat, which they call 'forgotten cuts'. Posh people like slow cooked meat. Much tastier than smart price chicken. Lamb shanks, brisket, oxtail, shin of beef, pork hock.

This is shin:

img6.imageshack.us/img6/9350/beefd.jpg

much nicer than smartprice chicken....