Shopping is becoming more of a chore than usual even with my giant munchkin to carry stuff lol. He eats us out of house and home when hes here , hes at the constantly growing hungry all the time phase of teenage life . So how do you cope with the hunger monster ? cheap cereals hes eaten endless bowls of cheap rice crispies , hes disgusted that they arent posh ones and i dont care . He trebles our milk consumption problematic because it never comes on the home delivery and he wont be here when i have to restock , ive noticed i had to buy sugar hes the only one who uses it . Popcorn ive been cleared out , note to self must order kernels as this is a great fill the kids up food . We had a whole argument over pop or soda , no he cant have the branded stuff i just cant afford it . You get a whole case of :Lidl coke for the price of a single bottle of Pepsi .
Now the great what if is how we get through the winter especially if your on a fixed income . ive seen all the stunningly naïve advice on line , shop cheaper brands , what if your already shopping basic brands anyway . Yes theres affordable food but the quality of some of it is appalling . Weird food fact , whats happened to Primula cheese in a tube? my little luxury for a whole pound , you cant get it out of the tube its so thick and it doesnt melt on your toast anymore , theres also bugger all but air in the tube these days , Crossed off the shopping list forever im afraid . Trying to find cheap cheese to cook with is proving impossible the big supermarket blocks have no taste at all when cooked , i had a whole cheese drawer in the freezer all yellow sticker weird stuff but its dwindling away and theres nothing to replace it within my price range . Forced veganism , all the yellow sticker stuff i come across these days are vegan offerings , so long as it comes in burger form himself doesnt object so long as it comes with a couple of strips of bacon he doesnt even notice . when you read the labelling it can be a tad scary sugared and salted to death sums most processed vegan food up . i did read the other day that there is only 2% vegans in the population so why is their so much vegan food in the supermarkets ? nobody appears to be buying it, vegetarians are ever growing mainly because people realise they dont need meat as part of their budget. Crops are rubbish everywhere this year and a couple of days rain is a huge help but a lot of stuff is beyond help im going to try and get some potatoes up now a fork will go into the ground but i would think they are tiny , still on an onion hunt im afraid so i may chuck some onion seed in while i remember.
The next question is what are you noticing on the food front ?
I found the primula to be exactly the same! Need strong man arms to squeeze it out of the tube. and I LOVE your point of 2% vegans yet everything is advertised for veganism! The 'PLANT BASED' labels make me chuckle - especially when on esomething like a bag of frozen chips! I always pick up frozen onions to keep in stock for lazy days and ease and they are fabulous! I've noticed that even yellow stickered stuff is expensive. The butter cabinet prices are what I've noticed a huge increase in. Would your hollow legged creature eat scrambled eggs on toast? Filling, fairly cheap and a bit healthier than the sugary cereal and milk?
ReplyDeletehe loves boiled eggs and pancakes have been a big hit
DeleteOne way to liven up the taste of bland cheese is to add a little mustard.
ReplyDeleteOr marmite
Deletenever tried mustard but im a yuck towards marmite
DeleteThe new order of things to come is to get everyone eating vegan and like you say most of it is filled with rubbish. I'm afraid we are all being gently pushed in the direction they want us to go and are hoping we won't realise. Using cards instead of cash is another one of the new things, notice how many tills are disappearing and card only machines are increasing. We can then be tracked on every move we make with the card, scary? I think so.
ReplyDeleteBriony
x
Briony is right. We are being herded.
Deletei suspect the loaded benefits card idea will shortly make another appearance limiting what you can use your money on
DeleteFeed that young person porridge by the ton :-) In Scotland they eat it made with water and salt... not my cup of tea but he might like it.
ReplyDeleteI'm vegan and I think the reason a lot of processed vegan foods are left over is that most of us eat very little of it. A vegan diet is like any other rubbish in rubbish out.
ReplyDeleteits all we can get on yellow stickers at the moment
DeleteA lot of vegans like to cook food centred around veg and beans and carbs that isn't just taking a meat dish and replacing the meat, but instead celebrates the ingredients we're using. And lots of people are becoming occasionally vegan or part vegan - I am myself - because it's a very cheap way of eating if you don't spend £3 on a couple of dubious burgers. I never liked meat burgers, so why I'd want to pay twice the price for a fake one I don't know - I think it's so people who live on junk food can buy a vegan version and feel like they're being healthier. Marketeers know this so they feel they can price them even higher than the meat they're replacing. Essentially it seems like a health food fad aimed at non-Vegans - like when everything was being labelled 'low fat' 10 years ago, even things that obviously didn't have fat in them, or the current 'high protein' phaze we're going through with protein bread and protein biscuits and cakes - the stuff you want to eat but also want to feel better about eating.
ReplyDeletei think youve hit the nail on the head
DeleteWould he tolerate porridge?
ReplyDeleteIt's patchy in supply but of course there's powdered milk to get a stock in.
I haven't noticed much or any increase in the price of lentils yet.
not a porridge lover but i am , i have to smuggle powdered milk in and decant it into a milk carton
DeleteEVERYTHING costs more here in my part of the US. I have a wealthy acquaintance and she was commenting on food prices as her tribe of grandsons was here for a week. The ones I see who are quiet are the ones who have always struggled. I have so much yellow squash and zucchini ( courgettes) that I am passing those along as my freezer is pretty full of them. I have been vegetarian for about two years and my husband is somewhat. It does help the grocery bill. After the weekend ( we live in a “resort” area) lots of the vegan stuff is marked down. I refreeze everything, labels be damned.
ReplyDeletePeace
Joyce
I've always refrozen stuff too and am alive to tell the tale.
Deletewe live in a resort area and shopping locally isnt a good idea the price of parking alone is enough to put the locals off
ReplyDeleteWe don't have it as dire - yet. One funny thing was this country ran out of dried peas! They vanished as early as February, and so far we've haf only hugely expensive organic peas or imporyed ones, which have bugs. But, I've noticed a LOT pea fields, much more than previous years.
ReplyDeleteBut all cheap stuff has gone over the top, I mean a year ago cheapest spaghetti was 0,39€/kg. Now it's 0,89€ in Lidl. Cheapest cheese went from 3,45€/kg to 5,99€/kg. The expensive stuff has't gotten more expensive, so it's only poorer folk noticing rising prices. And the middle class, they are paying everything themselves, so expensive electricity, gas etc is really paying toll on them.
according to the papers theres a europe wide shortage of mustard it seems its all grown in the ukraine
DeleteI was vegan for 7 years but now back to vegetarian for over 40 -I've tried some of the new vegan ready meals and though I find one brand tasty I'm sure it has a lot of fat x
ReplyDeletei find most of them a tad greasy
DeleteI'm noticing the gaps. I can't have gluten. Well, I can but then my skin starts to fall off. It's a thing and on the NHS website but don't look because it's gruesome. I've even ended up in hospital with it. So no gluten. So many of the bits that made life easier for me are disappearing. The men aren't helpful either. They like what they like and that's it.
ReplyDelete