"Eat Well For Less?"

A question about : "Eat Well For Less?"

Just watching the latest BBC monry-saver offering, Eat Well For Less? and wondered what other MSE'rs thought?

I was pleasantly surprised to see the boys eating sausages with boiled new potatoes, broccoli & gravy, albeit with mushy peas , but was quite tickled to see top-up shops at Booths, a Lancashire chain similar in range & prices as Waitrose ...we can spend Јs in there quite easily!

The taste tests are quite revealing, and some results surprised those taking part...bet regulars on here weren't at all surprised

Best answers:

• I've got this onto record, although I've been keeping up with comments from various O/S groups I belong to. It's making me cringe personally. Don't get me wrong, we're a family of 4 (one is an infant) and I couldn't spend the Ј260 odd that some of them seem to be spending a week. But then at the same time I never really imagined that spending around 120 on average a week was also over the top for some os'er's!
  It's going to make me take a long, hard look at what we spend and where!
  x
• I found it a bit of a wasted show really. It didn't teach the viewer anything truly useful. And they plan to trot the same thing out week after week?
• I enjoyed it but mostly because I felt quite smug watching it. I didn't learn anything new except that morrisons cheapo cornflakes were as good as kelloggs! Who'da thunk it? Dd1 was cracking up at yer man with the jam though!
• I really enjoyed it and what a likeable family! The kids were so good trying things without whinging and for adults that are used to having exactly what they wanted I thought it was so refreshing not to hear exaggerated moaning about the swaps, albeit that they didn't know which was cheap or dearer.
  I found it very interesting to her the comments about concentrated orange and the different bread types. I also was intrigued by the Savers cornflakes. We will try those again and see what the verdict is.
  Glad I spent the time watching it. It reminds me that food hoarding can get out of hand, and having been there and done that I know. Only just coming to the end of my mountain of stocks now!
• Why is it that these type of programs always show a family with OTT spends and then the big drop.
  Cupboards/fridge/freezer overflowing with food.
  It would be more of an interest to see how people manage with a lot less.
  No mention of slow cookers, steaming veg or batch cooking.
• It's not teaching anyone anything unless they're complete half wits. How can anyone spend Ј13,000 a year on food and not even know that they're doing it???? That will buy 32,000kcals per day!!!! 8,000kcals per person per day, including the children!! They had Ј1000 worth of food in stock, that's nearly what I spend in a year!!
  About a year ago they had a program about eating on a budget in which they paired up celebrity chefs with people on low incomes to show them how to eat cheaply. One of the idiots blew the whole budget on one piece of fresh salmon!!! Another wandered down the supermarket aisle and said "Ooh, it's not easy buying the quantities you need, is it." Duh.
  A saving of Ј75 PW? If Wallace and his sidekick think they're good at saving money let's see them knock 29% off my bill instead. If that family were eating my diet it would be costing Ј63.50 PW for the four of them, a saving of nearly Ј200 PW.
• Haven't seen it yet, but OMG BoothsI live right near one, n it's a complete rip off
• I disagree that they were eating 'well' at any stage of the process. From the title I took it that they would be eating healthily.
• Judging by the trolleys ahead of me in the queue at the supers, I'd say there are a great deal of people that could benefit from that programme tonight.
  I know I'm certainly in the minority with my shopping habits in my locals but it would make interesting viewing to see just what they'd do with one of us, or even better, popping one of us into someones home doing a 'Super Nanny, Jo frost style food wise' with the parents to try and help them find their way.
  Do you think there'd be as much trauma for them as there was changing their parenting patterns?
• I liked that it challenged them to look at the brands that they were buying. He, no they, were quite biased about certain brands. I know they could do much better - but it they stick with it and continue to challenge the brands they use they will further improve. Maybe something else will spark them to start making more stuff from scratch and they'll look back on their original starting point in horror.
  I know most people here aren't brand snobs - but preaching to the converted. Others need a bit of nudging to try different brands.
  Yes I know they took an extreme family in terms of spending - but I think we are all guilty of looking at how something looks and judging it. He was convinced that jam was different and not up to standard - That was because of pre-conceptions. I think most of us not to have pre-conceptions that we could do with challenging. (may not be money saving, but may help another part of our lives).
• I too watched and thought if they can't afford to spend less than Ј260.00 per week they must be overeating somewhere.True the kids seemed to adapt better than the parents.But not a gread deal of 'budget cooking and I didn't see much in the way of fruit and veg although tinned mushy peas is probably more of a local taste for many I have some in my cupboard that I bought for pennies when the big SM had a 'mushy pea war' last year and they were down to 3p a tin !!! I certanily spend less than 1K a year on food and eat well and have lots of fresh fruit and veg in my diet.True I rarely drink but I have always had the OJ from concentrate and I'm glad its shown what a waste of cash it is buying anything else I don't eat bread so only buy butter to make shortbread, and use Stork marg for baking.I make all my own cakes,biscuits and soup and have been cooking from scratch for over 50 years. be interesting to see how the programme developes
• Ј270 per week? and eating burgers, meat balls, spag bog, jackets with beans , and sausages twice a week? No baked fish, no chicken, no chops . It was all beef mince . Im sure you could eat what they had for lees than Ј100 .
• I'm veggie, so the food looked revolting to me, and very unhealthy!Weird to think the bloke fancied himself as some kind of chef though Nice kids though
• I was really surprised to see how much food the boys were eating.
  FOUR sausages each?
  And a load of new potatoes!
  Nice to see them eating broccoli though.
  I found some of the comparisons strange.
  The not Greg Wallace chap (no idea who he is) was comparing the price of a dozen sausages.
  It would have made more sense to me to compare weight.
  They talked about burgers from different places - they appeared happy with the burgers x 4 that cost (I think) almost Ј2.00 less than they usually buy but what about making your own?
  You can buy (for example) 750gm of lean steak mince (5%) for Ј6 from Tesco. That would make fab burgers.
  You know what goes in to them too.
  Really surprised at that nutrition woman who appeared to say that even the cheap sliced bread was 'good'.
  Very different from the advice given by Gillian McKeith in 'You are what you eat' many years ago.
  And where was the meal planning?
  The not Greg Wallace bloke's effort was laughable.
  They didn't explain that buying (for example) a 750gm box of mushrooms and using them in different dishes was cheaper than just buying what you need.
  I bought 750gm of mushrooms yesterday.
  Some will go into tonight's tuna risotto, some into pasta & meatballs tomorrow and the rest into a beef stroganoff on Sunday.
  Not really impressed with the program or the messages it gave out, tbh.
  But then again, I didn't really expect that much.
• I agree Pollycat regarding burgers. I did that this week. Bought a 500g pack of mince for Ј2 in T's which is even cheaper in L's Ј1.75 & then rolled 5 quarter pounder size burgers out of it which fed us all. With YS rolls for around 20p & salad plus home made chips the cost of burger and chips was around Ј2.50 per head.
  It's things like that I've learned here. Just because it says mince on a pack doesn't mean it can't be used for a million other things.
  I suppose it is about your general POV though. For me now debt is wrong and I want it gone yesterday so I will do whatever it takes. I think the average consumer sleep walks through life. That family didn't seem like they really needed the Ј4k their lifestyle shift would deliver them. It was just a nice to have.
  And finally, I would love us to get to the point in the UK where saying 'I can't cook' is not considered ok. It's like admitting you can't tie your shoelaces. How are we failing so badly in such a huge life skill??
• I had a rant along the same lines of the comments about how much it really taught anyone a while back about Jamie Oliver's programmes. I'm not sure how useful set recipes are in a programme about saving money because those ingredients aren't always going to be cheap plus the hosts are never popping into the discounter stores for the Super 6 or for some lovely German hams.
  A programme about the building blocks of saving money - cupboard audits, meal planning, making the most of offers, prepping food to avoid waste, batch baking and making your own portable lunches - along with tips and tricks for shopping, adapting meals to fit what you can afford or even how to spot the ingredients of a balanced meal in the reduced section of supermarkets would be much more useful.
  It feels like if you took the good out of each format like Jamie Oliver's recipes that aren't olive oil heavy, Economy Gastronomy's meal planning, lists and uses for leftovers and the tips on veg from Greg Wallace then got a few OS'ers in for the tips on how to cook, you'd have the ideal programme.
• I think as other posters have said, for us it is not hoing to be very helpful. But as cheerfulness4 said, when you look at people's trolleys in the supermarket there are many people who will benefit. If it helps some families to have a think and save a bit if money then I am all for it.