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How many of you buy pre-prepared food?

I will only admit to buying some when I need only a small amount of vegetable eg a few florets of cauliflower rather than wasting a whole cauliflower, but it doesn't taste as good.

I buy frozen veg for weekday healthy convenience but if I've got the time I'm happy to prepare and cook veg properly. I refuse to buy grated cheese or pre-prepared fruit on principle and I still chop my own onions for bolognaise sauces etc.

I got around potato peeling by buying a potato ricer from Ikea which is brilliant but I even grate cheese and prepare cheese sauce for lasagne from scratch, so I refuse to feel bad about frozen veg 3 times a week, especially since it's now (apparently) more healthful than we were led to believe!!

I dont buy any pre peeled or cut veg, I do it all myself. I also tend to make most things from scratch as I enjoy cooking. I guess I'll cheat with sauces sometimes (eg bolognese) but its not that often I have them anyway. I certainly dont have instant or prepared meals.

My mind boggles rather at the idea of pre-peeled carrots in the kitchen. I can understand maybe buying them as a snack to eat on the go, but in the kitchen peeling vegetables really does not take that long and paying someone else to do it for you just seems bonkers.

I have been known to buy pre-prepared salad leaves, purely because it's the only way to get interesting leaves in sensible quantities. Generally though, I buy the freshest looking whole veg.

I probably buy fewer convenience foods than a lot of people. Although I don't have much free time, I generally balk at the idea of paying extra for something I could do myself just as well or better. For example, I'd never buy something like pre-prepared chapati or tortilla when they cost less than a penny each and only take 2 minutes to make.

Other bought concoctions such as fruit yoghurt I wouldn't buy because they're just unpleasant and unhealthy. I'd much rather have fresh fruit and natural yoghurt.

There's not much wrong with frozen veg. I wouldn't even consider it "pre-prepared" as such, and it probably has more vitamins than something limp that's been in the larder for two weeks. I can't buy fresh veg regularly, so some compromise is required. I used to get an organic box delivered, but that didn't work out.

We do everything fresh, although I did have some frozen sliced peppers a while back. When you are on your own and are cooking portion sized, frozen veg can be useful, but with the family, I peel everything and prepare it all fresh myself.

I mainly prep food myself. The exception is when I buy bags of salad for barbecues etc as there's enough for me to do then already.

occasionally buy a bag of something preprepared usually for portion size. a bag of mixed cauliflower and broccoli heads is great where as a whole cauliflower and a whole broccoli would have been way too much.

Mixed salad leaves also for the same reason.

I'll buy whatever works. There's only one of me and I can't cook for [LIFTED]. So I don't eat many veg at home. I have lots of fruit and frozen peas, that's about it. Should I learn? Yeah. But I have no one to do it for and I need something to work for or I don't bother.

I do keep frozen veg in whilst I'm living by myself, but also a fair amount of it is brought down from home, where we spend many an hour blanching and freezing the veggies as they come in from the garden. There's not too many better ways to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon, than sitting out in the garden, listening to the cricket, podding peas and beans.

+1

I can't believe walking around the supermarket and seeing grated cheese, sliced onion rings etc. Waste of money, waste of packaging.

Sorry but that is the one I have to take exception to. I honestly prefer frozen peas.

FYI - when my Dad retired he bought a small nursery garden and shut it down turning it into his own garden. He still feeds half the neighbourhood out of it and this is nearly 30 years later.

baffles me

I saw a short while back a TV program that tracked food across the globe, and one thing I didn't realise was that pre-chopped fruit in fruit-salad style packs is often done by those living locally to the growers, so further boosts the economy there rather than over here in the more developed world. There's obviously still debates about whether the pay is fair, but the places visited by the documentary seemed to be employing people properly, and they seemed happy in their work.

I still rarely buy it though, based purely on the price relative to fruit I can prepare myself.

Frozen peas have certainly got better over the years, but they still don't seem as crisp and sweet for the size as ones that were still growing a few hours earlier. I may, of course, be dilusional or insane. You probably know this.

Frozen peas may be super fresh, but I can remember podding peas with my grandparents many years ago. 1 from each pod for me and the rest in the bowl for dinner, you can't beat that freshness.