The cost of healthy eating....

Paul. W

Paul. W

Paul. W

Associate
Joined
29 Dec 2009
Posts
522
Me and the other half were discussing last night at how expensive it is to prepare and cook healthy meals from scratch.

Now obviously there are cheaper ways of doing this, ie bags of frozen veg, cheap frozen chicken and turkey etc. But buying fresh produce twice a week lets say, such as peppers, onions, aubergines, courgettes, salad stuff (tomatos, cucumbers etc) does cost a fair bit. Then you have your fresh fruit ontop of that.

Its no wonder that when we get local kebab / fast food menus posted through our door, and you can get 'family deal' meals for £12.99 which include 2 large pizzas, fries and coke that more and more people are becoming lazy and choosing the easy option. Its delivered to your door, there's no washing up and is a similar cost.

Microwave meals are another one. Quite a few supermarkets now do 5 for £4. Again another easier, cheaper kop out.

Im sure you can see where im coming from with this. The population is generally getting fatter, in my opinion due to convienance and the cheap cost of unhealthy food, vs the more expensive cost of healthy eating.

What are your views?
 
Paul. W said:
Its no wonder that when we get local kebab / fast food menus posted through our door, and you can get 'family deal' meals for £12.99 which include 2 large pizzas, fries and coke that more and more people are becoming lazy and choosing the easy option. Its delivered to your door, there's no washing up and is a similar cost.
Click to expand...

You just need to be sensible with what ingredients you buy because £13 for a meal for 2-4 is quite a lot.

Paul. W said:
Microwave meals are another one. Quite a few supermarkets now do 5 for £4. Again another easier, cheaper kop out.
Click to expand...
That is pretty cheap, but not much cheaper than spag bol for 4. I also have never seen 5 portions for £4, and wouldn't buy such a thing as it must be absolute crap at that price.
 
Agreed on both points Disco. To set the record straight, me and the missus cook near every meal from scratch, and microwave meals are banned from our house :eek:

This thread is to highlight the general cost of fresh produce vs the cost of convienance, and why people are probably choosing the easier option.
 
We cook everything from scratch and find that it's easy and cheap to cook say a chicken & leek stew with the leftover chicken from the Sunday roast and a few extra breasts/thighs/drumsticks. This can last 2/3 days including lunch (we work from home).

We blitz it for soup, add a few spices and have it with rice, or add potatoes/split peas/lentils to fill it out a bit.
 
Ready meals are cheap because they are full of cheap crap.
Most junk food isn't just fried food, its fried crap full of salt and flavourings to make it taste nice. The best example of this is chicken nuggets or kebab meat.

The cost of meat is quite high really. I buy Tesco Finest sausages but I could get them for a huge amount cheaper if I dropped to an economy brand.
 
mglover070588 said:
Ready meals are cheap because they are full of cheap crap.
Most junk food isn't just fried food, its fried crap full of salt and flavourings to make it taste nice. The best example of this is chicken nuggets or kebab meat.

The cost of meat is quite high really. I buy Tesco Finest sausages but I could get them for a huge amount cheaper if I dropped to an economy brand.
Click to expand...

Next time you're there get Debbie and Andrew's 97% pork sausages, they are incredible and no more expensive (about £2.50 a pack, or often two packs for £4).
 
See: Economy Gastronomy (TheBrooder does something along the lines of the series/book).

Also there's things like buying fresh stuff that's in season as it's usually at it's cheapest, keeping an eye out for deals and so on. Things can vary quite dramatically in price depending on time of year.
 
Paul. W said:
Its no wonder that when we get local kebab / fast food menus posted through our door, and you can get 'family deal' meals for £12.99
Click to expand...

You're doing it wrong! As said above £13 is a lot for 4 people. I live with 3 other students and we share cooking. Every meal is cooked from scratch and we're all good cooks too. Yeah ok, we splash out now and then, but some stuff can be remarkably cheap.

If you have one soup a week, that can easily cost about 50p a portion with a roll.

pasta dishes are obviously cheap, grow fresh herbs and you're on to a winner. Don't buy jarred sauces, just keep it simple and combine combinations of cheese, garlic, onion, tomato, basil, oregano, thyme etc etc, you get the idea:) bacon makes everything great, buy value middle bacon, or pre shredded bags for pennies, it's getting chopped up anyway.

Make large quantities of everything and freeze. i.e. if the supermarket is selling two massive packs of mince for a reduced price, then get them. Make spag bol for 10 and freeze it.

Cut back on meat. It's expensive. I'd rather eat one nice pork chop a week than two scrappy, tough loin steaks with no fat on them.

Buy cheap cuts of meat if you are slow cooking... Morrisons always does beef brisket for about £5 a kilo IIRC. It comes in a big slab, cube it up and be generous with vegetables and you can feed a lot of people if you cook it for a few hours with some left over wine/beer.


My view is that the most important thing is to enjoy it:) Treat it as a hobby, cook for fun at the weekends (cakes, meals you haven't tried before, grab a few recipe books) and you won't want to hit the ready meals.
 
Just over £3 gets you enough good quality Chicken Breast from Morrisons for a meal for 2 (due to the usual 3 for £10 offers they always have on the chicken).

The vegetables needed to not cost that much either, you can make it as chicken salad (in which case you need just normal salad vegetables) or add to that some rice or whole wheat noodles (not that expensive really)
 
one really good bet is to scout your local supermarkets and shops like co-op at 6pm ish, find out which has the worst stock management and then profit.

The tesco near work must have an incredly bad butcher manager as there is LOADS of reduced meat. Last week i came out with about 15 rump steaks, 6 fillets, 6 rib eyes, loooooads of pork chops and steaks, lamb steaks etc, all at ~60% off retail because it was going off the day after. Ate one pack, stuck the rest in the freezer and ive got a good few weeks (maybe months) worth of good meat for not much money at all.
 
rG-tom said:
one really good bet is to scout your local supermarkets and shops like co-op at 6pm ish, find out which has the worst stock management and then profit.

The tesco near work must have an incredly bad butcher manager as there is LOADS of reduced meat. Last week i came out with about 15 rump steaks, 6 fillets, 6 rib eyes, loooooads of pork chops and steaks, lamb steaks etc, all at ~60% off retail because it was going off the day after. Ate one pack, stuck the rest in the freezer and ive got a good few weeks (maybe months) worth of good meat for not much money at all.
Click to expand...


sounds brilliant. Another little tip is to goto chinese/oriental supermarkets for rice/noodles and loads of other lovely stuff. just keep and eye out for decent prices.



rotters
 
Yes it is more expensive, but can you put a price on good food and good health?

Sure you could eat microwave meals all week for £1 a day but that is a terrible diet.

I have been annoyed recently at the cost and quality of fruit. I enjoy fruit and am happy to eat it over more unhealthy snacks but it isn't cheaper and the quality can vary greatly compared to a chocolate bar that is always going to taste the same.

The problem really is that convenience food is unhealthy and cheap. So people question why they should spend more money and more time when all they want is something to refuel them after work.

Unfortunately that is just the price we pay, not just for buying the produce but also to make time for cooking & shopping, storing products and also the disappointment that fresh fruit and veg can sometimes taste nasty.

However you're going to live longer, be healthier and hopefully happier as well. If you can budget well it doesn't have to be overly expensive either but if you like your food you tend to spend well on it.
 
I guess it can be expensive, it depends how smart you are about it though, if you sit down and plan out the week you can buy ingredients that can be used in multiple meals, sort of balances out the cost per portion. Usually find that (for me at least) There will be leftovers, that usually become next days lunch... :D
A decent batch of soup is something that's good to make at the start of the week, awesome way to start off a meal and very easy to make a cheap, good tasting soup that's healthy.

The microwave meal thing, they are extremely cheap and convenient but the portion size isn't that good. Taste is always a bit off also...
I can imagine that for many people it's too much of a hassle to think about cooking things, microwave/frozen food will always seem a better deal in that situation. Just depends on what people value most I guess, their "lazing about" time or their health.
 
Disco Boy said:
Next time you're there get Debbie and Andrew's 97% pork sausages, they are incredible and no more expensive (about £2.50 a pack, or often two packs for £4).
Click to expand...

Another fan of the D&A sausages here.

We make everything in our house from scratch. We normally make large amounts and portion off and freeze. We don't own a microwave and I think we probably spend less than other couples and get better food for it.
 
mglover070588 said:
Always buy economy veg.

A value carrot is value because it has a funny kink in it, which makes no difference at all when it is cut up and on your plate!
Click to expand...

We buy a lot of economy veg like that but some things we will buy organic. We use a lot of celery for example and always buy organic as we don't like the idea of how non organic celery is grown.

Potatoes (which we don't ever eat) are one thing which you should buy organic as well. Pesticides are retained under the skin so much better getting the organic equivalent.
 
rG-tom said:
one really good bet is to scout your local supermarkets and shops like co-op at 6pm ish, find out which has the worst stock management and then profit.

.
Click to expand...

Im also a fan of the bargains like this.

And save your leftovers, theese can be made into a nice meal the next day
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom