Economic woes = fake food?

[Bettacreek]

One thing that really hits me hard with making meals is depression. When I'm depressed, everyone knows it, because they tend to get easy meals (heated up canned foods, burgers, etc). I'm thinking that depression might be something that most people aren't even thinking about. If you're that far in the dumps with finances, etc, then more people are likely to become depressed, and have less energy to make foods, let alone do everything else.

Speaking of the side of an animal, it's another difficult one. Saving money can be hard if you're poor. Yes, you might not miss that spare change, but what if you don't even have that to use? What if you're saving up and all of a sudden, your vehicle breaks down? You're going to have to use that savings. As someone else said about "borrowing" from yourself, this is one that I guess I do more of. I'll buy one large package of something (sugar, flour, meat) and have to plan meals around that purchase or what's available until I have the next allotted amount of money in the budget to round it out again. This week, it's a lot of eggs, some cheap rope sausage and I'll be heading to Giant for their 2/$0.89 16oz cans of veggies. The BF prefers frozen or fresh, I prefer fresh, but it's so much cheaper to go buy those canned veggies. That $0.45 can of veggies will feed all four of us for a meal (with other items obviously), instead of paying $1.50 for 4 ears of corn to feed us.

 

[FranklinStreetWest]

I agree that cooking from scratch is Uber time consuming. But it really does save a ton of money if you want to eat better foods. Preparing and eating smaller portions and not using as much meat will cut cost and be healthier also. Buy the scrap cuts....shank bones, hocks, marrow bones, turkey backs, wings legs...not having any kind of snack food really cuts down on how much I eat! When we/I'm to busy, lazy or tired from working I just skip it or cook an egg or something.We make up for lost meals in winter though. Mike spends 16 hours a day cooking or planning to cook. Usually pastries, biscuits, cakes, brownies....he goes into full-on hibernation mode and takes me along for the ride, lol. I go into brew mode and turn the kitchen into a micro-brewery.

My other half has spent the last year doing most of the domestic duties and spends hours cleaning and preparing dinner from scratch. He was having a discussion with the girlfriend of his friend about cooking from scratch. She said it was WAAAy more expensive to cook from scratch and couldn't believe that a large stew pot of chicken and dumplings (that would feed us for at least 3 meals) cost about $6. But he (rightly) insisted that that's what it costs him to make it, AND he uses organic carrots, celery and flour. So she goes on to show him the price tags on the box of chicken stock, the deboned breast meat, bullion cube package, seasoning package, vegetables and herbs.... He laughed and told her that wasn't from scratch, because he picks his own herbs out of the garden fresh, doesn't buy prime cuts of meat and instead uses bones and gleans the small pieces of meat off, makes his own stock & balances his own seasonings. I felt so proud of him!

Another time, when his brother was over for dinner, I had cooked stroganoff. I only had fresh bronze fennel to use as a seasoning, and I like the savory bite that it imparts. His brother commented that he really liked it! Mid mouthful he gets this puzzled look and asks "what flavor is it??" as he tried to figure it out. He wasn't asking what the spice was, and I didn't understand what he was asking...I told him it was stroganoff....homemade stroganoff...Exasperated, he finally huffs and says "WHat BOX did it come out of...what flavor is it!". I laughed, he really thought that the only way to make stroganoff was with a box mix or seasoning packet.

 

[FranklinStreetWest]

I'm thinking that depression might be something that most people aren't even thinking about. If you're that far in the dumps with finances, etc, then more people are likely to become depressed, and have less energy to make foods, let alone do everything else.

Saving money can be hard if you're poor. Yes, you might not miss that spare change, but what if you don't even have that to use? What if you're saving up and all of a sudden, your vehicle breaks down? You're going to have to use that savings..

I know exactly what you mean about saving and having to scrounge every penny to cash in when something unexpected happens! Both our cars blew their engines, one car is only 5 years old. And that was just the beginning of a series of unexpected events. We save all the metal cans that food comes in as well as any other piece of metal so we can scrap it. We have bottle deposits here, so we hoard bottles, mostly ones that friends leave over here, Mike had to give up soda and I gave up ground coffee and designer coffee. Now I'm always looking for ways to pinch pennies a little tighter. Find another corner to cut. Put just a little more away just in case. I find myself standing in front of the meat counters staring sometimes....trying to figure out a way to buy a roast....or a small steak to split...or even just some 80/20 burger to have hamburgers for dinner.....but I know if I spend that $8 on one big meat meal, we'll be eating plain pasta with herbs for days. It does get depressing and then it gets infuriating when I see people toting two mega carts overflowing with crap complaining about their lives. So I try to stay positive and turn it into a challenge.....and every once in a while it gets too challenging, and I sneek off in the morning and buy a greasy, unhealthy bag of kettle chips from the dollar store with change scraped up and eat the whole thing! Then I feel better, lol.




I figured it out once...I bought an average of 1.5 cups of coffee a day at about $2 per cup. That is $1095 a year just in take-out coffee. I usually spent another $12-18 in grounds per month. Mike would get 1 two-liter of soda and two energy drinks on work days, so that was another $1000-$1500 a year. I couldn't believe how much the little things added up. I look back and remember going out to eat for nearly every meal on the weekends. And ordering in on weeknights....or cooking lazy pre-jarred spaghetti sauce and pasta....the money I coulda stacked up!!! Coulda, shoulda, woulda.... I'm beginning to see how my grandmother must have felt in the Great Depression as a teen!

 

[Steveca]

My thoughts on this; It's OK to start smaller, if you need to. Instead of buying a 25# bag of split peas, buy a 5# bag. Instead of buying a side of beef, buy a roast that is double the size you are going to cook and put half in the freezer.

There are also time saving devices, like slow cookers and pressure cookers. Split pea soup can be made in a pressure cooker in a half hour rather than hours on end of slowly simmering those little buggers and smelling up the house in the meantime.

 

[Steveca]

Also, I don't particularly like spending more time in the kitchen than is necessary either, so when I cook something, it is usually enough for about 3 days. Cook freezer friendly foods if you're squeamish about having something in the fridge for a couple of days or think you will get tired of something too fast. I'm single and don't fuss over eating something for 2 or 3 days in a row. That is what I call convenience food.

Canning is another option but requires some investment in a canner and jars, lids etc but there's nothing like being bushed and just opening up a jar of soup and warming it up on the stove for a few minutes and having a meal that you cooked.

 

[heatherlynnky]

it took getting used to but honestly I now find that my money stretches so much further when I am making real whole food. At first i was really overwhelmed with all the cooking but with help from others who have been at this longer, even that has gotten easier. Its so natural for me to make bread now, I can do it without even thinking. 5 am and half asleep and the bread or cinnamon rolls come out perfect. I don't even remember making them. The cost savings is very real though but it took a while to get to that point. At first it was a bit of a strain and I thought our budget really only worked with cheap fake food. Everyone seems much more satisfied though and not looking for snacks which probably saves a good bit too. I think Economic woes + lack of knowledge= fake food.

 

[me&thegals]

What many people don't realize is that a meal of something like hard-boiled eggs, veggies and dip, and bread and butter is a perfectly balanced meal and takes very little time to throw together. If I want a hot quick meal in the winter, I make a big egg fry with cheese and veggies and meat. Add potatoes or bread and there it is.

Absolutely!

For the record, I've worked anywhere from 24-70 hours per week while raising kids. The first 10 years were strictly from home and only up to 24 hours per week, but no childcare. Now that the kids are older, I work away from home 18 hours/week while they're at school or at nighttime during the summer.

Anyway, regardless, eating from-scratch food has always been an extremely high priority of mine. During summer when I'm CSA farming and working 12-hour days, we STILL eat great. It may only be fried eggs, toast and a mountain of salad and veggies, but it's nutritious, cheap and fast. It doesn't need to be that hard.

In wintertime, I make huge vats of soup absolutely loaded with veggies. Again, cheap, super nutritious, delicious and not much time when you factor in the fact that it stretches out 4-8 meals.

Cooking doesn't need to be hard. I used to put in a LOT of time for it, but the better our food got (home grown), the simpler my food prep got, as the fresh organic food doesn't need much help to make it delicious And I'm just not willing to designate as much time during the busy season.

 

[moolie]

Depression, or even boredom, are both huge when it comes to meal planning and prep. There comes a point every winter when I just want to snuggle into bed until spring comes, because I'm just so tired of it being cold. I don't feel like planning and cooking meals some days, so I ask my family what they'd like to eat over the next week and they always respond with , "I don't know, whatever". Which is absolutely no help at all. I'm fortunate that I've built up a few year's worth of old weekly menu plans in a binder, so I can just recycle things based on what we have on hand, but it still just gets boring.

No money is also a huge issue, been there a few times. Pinching pennies that just aren't there is tough. The car DID break down and we went without for a while. In the winter. We cut out all unnecessary costs and played the, "this month we'll pay the gas bill and next month we'll pay the electric bill so neither of them cut us off" game. We ate a lot of beans and rice (I now know a ton of ways to make beans and rice taste different from how we had them the day before).

It's that last sentence that is what counts--"I now know a ton of ways to make beans and rice taste different". You gotta do whatever it takes to feed your family, and if you need to do it on the cheap, you need to learn how--and fast. If you do the cost-per-serving analysis on packaged food vs. cooked from scratch, the best way to go becomes obvious. And I don't mean cheap junk like Ramen noodles or Kraft Dinner macaroni and cheese--neither of those is actually food.

the library is full of "how to cook" books and all manner of cookbooks--many of them are about eating on the cheap, and you can take them home for 3 weeks at a time for free (or in my city for $12/year library card cost). Libraries are my favourite places--chock full of entertainment (books, CDs, DVDs) as well as free info on every subject available. There is (usually) free internet at the library as well and it is easy to go down there with a pencil and pad of paper and copy out all the recipes you can find in a quick google search if you can't find a cookbook that does it for you. You can even watch "how to cook" videos while you are there.

But it takes time, and work, and patience, and not giving up. Time to build up your bulk food stores, time to watch for sales on the things you buy, time to buy/grow in season and preserve that food for when it is expensive to buy, time to learn new skills--it takes a whole year to get organized to live a new way. And some people can't seem to find that time.

Something's gotta give. It's one thing if you and your spouse both work two jobs to make ends meet--been there. That really makes it difficult to find the time to get things done. But I'm so tired of people saying how "busy" they are when they live perfectly normal looking lives, what the heck is everyone doing with their time? Yeah, you work all day, maybe you deal with time commuting to and from work, and yeah your kids might need you to get them to and from their activities. But there's still the mornings and evenings and weekends. If your life is so programmed full of activities that you can't cook a dinner and all sit down together to eat it (even if you only have a short time to do it in before someone needs to be somewhere else) then it's probably time to learn how to prioritize the rally important things in life, learn to budget your time, and give some things up to make your life less "busy".

I don't mean to get preachy, I get "busy"--it happens to all of us. But you can't allow it to be a constant in your life or you won't live long at all, no matter what you eat.

 

[ORChick]

Something's gotta give. It's one thing if you and your spouse both work two jobs to make ends meet--been there. That really makes it difficult to find the time to get things done. But I'm so tired of people saying how "busy" they are when they live perfectly normal looking lives, what the heck is everyone doing with their time? Yeah, you work all day, maybe you deal with time commuting to and from work, and yeah your kids might need you to get them to and from their activities. But there's still the mornings and evenings and weekends.

As my DH's boss used to say: :There are 24 hours in the day .... and, if you still need more time, you can always work nights!"

Unfortunately, for a lot of the people who, in my opinion, need most to know about cooking from scratch, they have never learned how, and can't imagine that they could do it. As an example, my mother was a good cook, and I learned a lot from her, but she never made cakes from scratch; good pies, but no cakes. I grew up believing that cakes must be really difficult as my mother never made them. Then I wanted to impress my new husband with a homemade birthday cake, and it was easy! I never learned why my mother didn't make them, but my point is that until I had the gumption to try this "difficult" task I didn't know to even question how hard it was.
I just recently learned that the Master Food Preservers in our area sometimes give basic cooking classes at the local food pantry; I think that is such a good idea.

 

[Denim Deb]

ORChick, for me it was popcorn. I can remember asking my mom for popcorn when I was a kid and being told it was too late. And since it wasn't really that late, I figured popcorn must have been hard to make and take a long time. I'm not sure how old I was when I learned how easy it was to make. I think, for my mom, it was more that she didn't feel like making it.