Supermarket 'Value' ranges

[YaddaYaddaYadda]

Did anyone else read this article at the weekend? What really shocked me was not the rubbish that goes into value foods (pig skin in sausages etc) but that for such a minimal amount the supermarkets could improve the quality. It really upsets me that in the current climate there are people who have no choice about buying value ranges for their families and the supermarkets don't appear to care about the quality of the food.

Dodgy, cheap meat and the way it is reared (BSE/CJD being the extreme end of this) are the reason I am vegetarian. I've read the reason so many Italian meals are vegetarian is that they will not cut corners on the quality of their meat and simply go veggie for a lot of the time instead.

These look good

tasteful?

I think i'll get my dh the valentine one. He'd actually find that quite funny. Are they real.

Elfrida, I think there's something in that - my Italian BIL won't touch meat from a supermarket (even scorns Waitrose). He buys half a cow every six months and shoots rabbits. (I am veggie but find it hard to argue with his style, tbh.)

edam, lol at the idea of someone buying half a cow! Which end and where does he store it?

when i was growing up my mum always bought half a cow, a lamb and half a pig to stock the freezer. i've bought a lamb in the past, it works out really cheaply and obv the farmer has it butchered before delivery.

We mainly eat chicken at the moment as I do them myself. When we move I hope to buy half each of a cow and a pig and maybe a lamb. Its definitely the way to go and a great excuse to get a sausage making attachment for my kenwood chef

My mum always stocked up with half an animal here and there. This has just reminded me of once when I was a teenager and came home from school (we lived in a rural, farming area where people were always dropping things off for each other, cake here, rabbit there etc) and my mum told me (she's foreign and speaks excellent English but just occassionally gets things a bit mixed up) 'oh just so you know if you go in the downstairs bathroom, I've got a couple of peasants hanging in there that so-and-so dropped off earlier' My poor mum, she's never lived it down! (Was horrified when we told her but took our teasing well though) Sorry, that was a tangent.

But yes, I'm less shocked by this - it's the reason we eat vegetarian meals a lot of the week.

Does no one else find that cheap vegetables and fruit go off much faster than the the slightly more expensive stuff? I used to buy cheap peppers until I ended up cutting all the rotton bits off and that was half a pepper.

I was at asda today and only put a specifc amount on my card so I had to go around totting up the totals.

I got value carrots, bin bags, cottage cheese,

Elf, I haven't asked which end! He buys from a farmer he knows, has it butchered, and keeps it all in a freezer in utility room. Not v. nice for my vegetarian sister but high quality and MUCH cheaper than buying regularly from the supermarket.

well, all these posts have made me embarrassed about my lack of awareness of this side of life. I honestly didn't know that you could buy whole/half animals. Must be a rustic rural thing, and it does sound healthier than packaged up sections (although neither appeals to me as a veggie!).

i am not a rustic, i'm strictly a townie. most butchers would be only too delighted to sell you half a cow. particularly you, given that you're a veggie.