Why is Healthy Food So expensive in UK?

[owsnap]

You can buy a 25kg bag of spuds for about a fiver.

They really are the cheapest things about.

Mind Sharing where is such a thing possible? I only go to UK for few weeks at a time from time to time and when there are no special-extra-clearance prices the cheapest potatoes are right around £1 per kg(but they are nasty, tastes like water),
the good Maris piper ones which I really like you can rarely ever get for that price.

 

[woodfarmer]

I actually visit UK from time to time and always come back to France loaded with basic foodstuffs .

Many years ago I had a boat and went fishing and have thrown away fish that are now fetching £10-15 a kilo truth is they are getting scarce as most of the fish stocks have been industrially fished to death. Nature will fix it because all the big expensive boats that trawl or net 100's of tons at a time often destroying the sea bed will go bust as the big shoals are also the breeding stock. Soon the only people fishing, will be amateurs and some small time inshore fishing. By the time the fish recover all the big industrial killing machines will have rotted away. Hopefully sunk to create reefs to provide habitat. The wrecks will discourage future trawling

 

[sunnybob]

"I have seen cookies get sold there for like £0.5 per kg, wtf..It's cheaper to buy cookies than some basic vegetables."

Well DUH!
A factory turns out 10 million cookies (I think he means biscuits) a day and they need no special keeping. A farm produces (at best) 2 crops per year, which need refrigerated and speedy transport and have a minimal shelf life. So whats not to understand about pricing?

I live in farmland in the med. I can actually buy a bag of potatoes from the guy whos pulling them out the ground, WHILE he is still pulling them. Yes, all cyprus spuds are still hand collected from the ground.
The UK has to have those potatoes shipped by land and sea container, about 2 or 3 weeks before they reach the shelves. Guess why my chips taste nicer than in the UK?

By starting this thread, youre either a troll, or someone who has the most basic grasp of the food chain.

 

[Harbo]

Most supermarkets sell uk grown spuds and the bags are marked accordingly often with the farmers name on them.
There's lots of varieties to chose from, some are better for chipping, boiling, baking, roasting etc.
At the moment Charlottes are my favourite boiled for salads or boiled, lightly crushed, sprinkled with olive oil, a pinch of salt and roasted for a short time to gently brown.
Maris Piper are good for chips, baking and roasting. I haven't seen them lately but again I haven't needed them.
Jersey Royals are very nice but only available for a short early season.
King Edwards are great for roasting especially at Christmas.
Pink Fir potatoes are an Autumn salad variety available in Autumn and taste great.
Desiree is an old variety and good for mash and other cooking methods it has a red skin and light yellow flesh.
None of the above are tasteless so where are you buying yours from?

Rod

 

[Benchwayze]

Owsnap.

I empathise but have you tried growing your own veg? Mind you, that works out to be quite expensive in the end, because of all the stuff you need to buy to keep your veg healthy! It serves to remind that the farmers have the same problem. I think organic growing is more labour intensive, so maybe that's why the stuff they grow isn't cheap.

As for the Med diet, when I was young I spent a lot of time in the Mediterranean. That was where I started to put on weight! All that spaghetti ( don't like seafood, unless its crab or lobster.) When I got home things soon returned to normal. Now, later in life I am on the same struggle as most of us. Trying to sustain a healthy weight.

Regards

John

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I'm guessing that there is a much smaller proportion of overweight people in Finland compared to the UK!

It is possible to buy good quality, wholesome food inexpensively in the UK - we have much more diversity of supply with better quality than a generation or so ago, post-war - but it requires either time and/or money, plus knowledge (of where to go [often in multiple places, like "old-fashioned shopping" before supermarkets], what to look for and what to do with it when you get it home).

Tinned food is often very good value, and often overlooked, it usually retains its vitamin and mineral contents well. About forty years ago I met an old boy in the Scottish highlands - he told me he preferred tinned peaches to fresh ones, which I initially found hard to understand - until I realised that he probably had not seen many fresh peaches, and by the time they'd got up to the Highlands they would perhaps not be that fresh anyway! Of course, tinned peaches are perfectly wholesome and relatively inexpensive....

We have, despite the popularity of cooking/baking TV programmes, very largely bred a generation (not many home economics classes are now taught in school, for example) that does not know how to cook a meal from scratch and probably doesn't recognise that it can be cheaper and just as easy, quick and often better for you, than processed food (or takeaways, which are nearly always packed with cheap and nasty ingredients and very expensive for what they are).

My teenagers "like" Domino's pizza (they like it for the same reason my then three-year-old daughter knew she wanted a Barbie - before she knew what a Barbie actually was - cunning advertising). Personally I think it's the worst kind of food - delivered, it costs probably ten or twenty times what it costs to make pizza/garlic bread at home from scratch (including the dough).

The food industry in this country has done some positive things, but it also does some pretty cynical things too. I won't start on the topics of food waste and the other environmental impacts of our food supply chains (palm oil anyone?).

Cheers, and good health, W2S

 

[MIGNAL]

I'm often disappointed with the taste of fruit and vegetables from supermarkets. Actually tinned fruit often tastes much better, presumably because it's canned nearer to the fruits natural ripeness. Usually the local shop has better tasting fruit but then I guess that he buys from the wholesale market. It's no more expensive than the supermarket and often cheaper. I suspect that some of the bland tasting supermarket fruit and veg is down to the particular varieties, partly chosen for their looks and shelf longevity. Buy in season locally produced fruit and the taste does seem to improve dramatically, even in supermarkets. Don't get me started on Picota cherries!

 

[sunnybob]

Supermarkets dont rate taste very highly on their "need" list.
They want looks, first and foremost. A customer cant taste the fruit or veg ib the shop, but they can and will pick the largest, shiniest and most pleasingly shaped items first.
Thats the same the world over, UK, finland, america.
If you can get past the blemishes on the outer surface, and the non uniform sizes, then nuy from local producers if at all possible, and re discover the taste.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Dam right Sunnybob. On that very note, I will shortly be meandering into my back garden to water my toms, French beans and runners and I might just accidentally wolf the odd sungold direct off the plant. The difference between home grown tomatoes and supermarket bought is kind of like the difference between water and something that actually has some flavour! You pop one of my sungold's in your chops and basically your head explodes with flavour, do the same with any variety from the supermarket and you might get an eye roll if you're lucky.

The flavour of organically home grown is simply off the chart. I guess it's because there's no intensive farming method behind it, causing it to grow at a hundred miles an hour and it's straight from the plant into my face. But whatever the differences, they're big and I would strongly encourage anybody to grow their own on whatever scale they can manage because its really one of life's little joys.

 

[sunnybob]

When I was very young, my dad had two allotments in south london, and we didnt grow anything unless we could eat it.

When I started a family, I tried to work an allotment, but with both of us working and two small kids there wasnt enough hours in the day, so we bought from supermarkets.
Nowadays almost everybody HAS to buy from supermarkets because they dont have time for anything else.

You cant blame supermarkets for making a profit, so they buy in only what they can sell on. Its the customer who leaves the mis shaped veg and picks the straight banana that is to blame. But thats well over 9/10ths of the population, so get used to it.

Anyone who can grow even some of their own veg should try it.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Don't forget that more often than not you're not growing the same varieties at home. Ever wonder why your supermarket tomatoes have thick skins? It's so they don't bruise or split when picked by machine. Ever wondered why they have woody stalks? It's because they are bred to hang onto the vine and not fall off when ripening so they can all be picked at the same time. You will have consumed more earth by accident than they will have ever seen - most of them are grown hydroponically. Uniformity of colour and size are far more important to a supermarket than taste.
Have a look at - http://www.realseeds.co.uk/tomatoes_vines.html

 

[Benchwayze]

Sunny,

The taste quality of supermarket fruit is why I don't eat apples any more, unless I can pick from the tree. Asda's fruit is watery, or sour, and tastes of nothing resembling apple! Not even the apples. :mrgreen:

Surely you grew nasturtium flowers on your allotment! Lovely in a salad. :wink:

John

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I realize I can't compare your prices VS some eastern european/asian country prices where the cost to grow stuff is cheaper.
but what I don't get around is why the Processed Junk food which you have full shelves of costs so little compared to the normal stuff, those rich tea cookies which comes in packs of 400-500grams cost like what, 20p? #-o .
800grams loaf of bread which is just nasty nasty thing (not sure why are they making it so terrible) costs like what, 35p?
Everywhere else it's the other way around, the vegetetables/fruits where there is no cost in making them other than growing them cost so little compared to processed cra.p which is more like a treat.
But in UK I have noticed it's the other way around , Your Junk food is your Regular Everyday food, but the Normal food is an occasional treat #-o

There is a bit of truth in this. "Food" that is manufactured is made to be cheap. I have heard it from the horse's mouth that the aim of the food industry is to sell you as much air and water as possible. And low grade ingredients enhanced with cheap salt, sugar and worse. The horsemeat scandal - that even supposedly reputable manufacturers couldn't even trace what animal their meat came from, much less what farm or how it was reared - tells a lot.

On the other hand, producing good looking and tasty vegetables, available all year round, in quantities that depend on the weather, is an expensive and difficult job.

This does need to be resolved. Pouring money into the NHS as a way of undoing the harm that a lifetime of eating rubbish inflicts can't be the right approach.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I assume the supermarkets in Finland are stacked to ceiling height with fish, wholemeal bread, fruit and organic vegetables, nary a biscuit to be seen ... :?
If so, they are the only supermarkets in the world that are.

 

[Benchwayze]

Your Junk food is your Regular Everyday food, but the Normal food is an occasional treat #-o

There is a bit of truth in this.

Not in 'our 'ouse'!
If you'd class a nice Chinese meal as junk food, then very occasionally we indulge. Same with Fish and Chips; now and again.

In a kitchen, nothing beats the satisfaction of preparing, cooking and eating a nice fillet of lamb-neck, slow-cooked with fresh veg. Well maybe a fillet steak with pepper sauce!

John

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Your Junk food is your Regular Everyday food, but the Normal food is an occasional treat #-o

There is a bit of truth in this.

Not in 'our 'ouse'!
If you'd class a nice Chinese meal as junk food, then very occasionally we indulge. Same with Fish and Chips; now and again.

In a kitchen, nothing beats the satisfaction of preparing, cooking and eating a nice fillet of lamb-neck, slow-cooked with fresh veg. Well maybe a fillet steak with pepper sauce!

Not ours either, but really I was meaning the earlier part of the post, about junk food being cheaper than fresh ingredients.

 

[JohnPW]

There's been a lot of good points made so far but to a casual visitor to a typical UK supermarket, it might seem odd that well over half (maybe even two thirds) of the food there is junk food.

You see entire aisles of crisps, fizzy drinks, sweets, cakes, biscuits, desserts, nasty manufactured foods. Whilst the fresh food sections (fruit and veg, meats etc) takes up small proportion of the supermarket.

Supermarket (except for Lidl and Aldi) fruit and veg is definitely a lot more expensive than from a market, what you're paying for is convenience.

You can eat well for relatively modest sums but it takes time and effort.

 

[BRYAN]

Is it Finland where they eat putrid rotting fish from barrels?
As for our own junk food,well that's there fot the "modern"housewives who wouldn't know what to do with a spud.

Finland provided me with lovely Sako in 6.5x55. If anything similar were made in this country it would be beyond the powers of my wallet.

 

[lurker]

Why does this post........... All the food in the uk is carp and expensive ..... remind me of dear old departed site five.

 

[ColeyS1]

I want some decent paint from u.k. All rubbish and expensive

Coley