4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[Charlottechicken]

This is on tomorrow (Monday) at 8pm on channel 4.

 

Journalist and culinary critic Jay Rayner investigates the rise in the price of foodstuffs and the impact it is having on shoppers and producers, exploring why the UK has become so reliant on imports.

 

Should be interesting

[Chicken Licken]

I saw the trailer - egg prices up by 1/3 (not mine though!)

[Yolky]

Ohh interesting, shall watch that.

 

Eggs are so expensive now (well the ones I like to buy, organic) I can't wait till I get my chooks and I will then know for sure that the eggs myself and my family eat are really from happy chickens

[Charlottechicken]

I can't wait till I get my chooks and I will then know for sure that the eggs myself and my family eat are really from happy chickens

 

They will be the freshest and best eggs you have ever tasted, Yolky. You'll need to wear sunglasses to look at the yolks too, they are bright

[Yolky]

I really cannot wait Charlottechicken, I am so excited.

[Lesley]

Thanks for the reminder Claire.......

[Egluntyne]

Sounds interesting.

 

Have Sky +'d it.

[Olly]

ooh - thanks for this, I hadn't spotted this. Going to make sure I watch it.

[missuscluck]

Where do they find these daft folk. We have a lady who spens £200.00 per week in the supermarket and a couple who put most of their shopping in the bin.

Love the lady's shock horror expressions when someone told her things might be cheeper in Aldi!

An interesting programme.

[Fleur]

When they asked if she'd still be buying the organic, free range omega enhanced eggs she mumbled something about buying 'basics eggs' instead

[Olly]

Yes, I was a bit at that too, Fleur!

 

It was interesting - especially the futures trading - but I didn't learn a lot from the home economist about shopping. I would love to use a local butcher and greengrocer, but it just isn't possible - the nearest ones are two miles away, and I'm at work Monday to Friday, so if I'm away at a weekend then I couldn't get there at all. I'm a canny shopper anyway (I think).

 

I couldn't believe the amount of food that family had put in the bin - most of it looked perfectly good, and she made some great meals from it. I wish people weren't so fixated on sell-by dates. It's in the supermarkets' interests to make us chuck stuff out quickly and buy some more.

[Fleur]

It did seem mad that they threw away so much, I trust my eyes and nose to tell me if the food is okay, not a little date on the label.

[Egluntyne]

It was out of sync and that made it difficult to watch at Egluntine Towers.

 

I thought the woman guestimating how many pairs of shoes she could buy with the money she saved rather missed the point.

[riane]

I have been cleaning out the larder cupboard for moving and was quite ashmed how much stuff had got pushed to the back and gone past bb date. I will try very hard in the new house to buy less and keep the cupboard more organised!

[Olly]

oh larder cupboards are a different matter ... I'm a firm believer that most of these things have a much longer shelf-life than they say, but when I moved house I was a bit embarrassed to find quite how old some of my tins and jars were.

 

Mind you, I opened a jar of capers today with 'Best before 24/06/04'

 

That means they were out of date when I moved here in 2006. They taste fine to me!

[Egluntyne]

I found the remnants of a bag of self raising flour lurking in a cupboard the other day....just a couple of ounces.

 

The expiry date was Oct 2002.

[Fleur]

my stepdad recently ate a can of snails which went out of date in.... wait for it.... 1995!!! yik

 

but he said they were fine..

 

i bet the chickens would have had them

[Rhapsody]

Did anyone else not really get the point of this programme? And what about EU surpluses, no mention of them, or what impact all of the alleged shortages will have on animal welfare..? Did anyone else get a bit cross that the only chickens shown were cavorting around a luscious green field?

The dubbing was appauling, whoever was doing the synching must have been wearing boxing gloves!

[Christian]

Darn it! I missed the programme!

 

My Mum found a packet of lemon meringue pie filling when they moved. No date as it was faded but it said 12 1/2p on the label

[Olly]

I thought it was my recorder, as I'd recorded it and started watching halfway through - glad it wasn't just me struggling with the synching!

 

I did feel it left a lot of questions unanswered. It was a bit of a 'let's scare everyone about how prices are going up' without actually looking at what the solutions might be. And despite going on about reducing costs, they didn't suggest at any point that people might grow a few more of their own things, or use local farm shops.

 

They also focused on how you could cut the price of buying vegetables and meat, but the first family looked to have quite a lot of branded, processed stuff in their weekly shop. That would be the first thing to go, for me.

[my fat hen]

I thought it didn't really come up with solutions either; as you all say - that food looked perfectly fine to me, and whatever happened to putting things in the freezer to stop it going off?

It really annoyed me that meat was thrown out unused - some poor animal gave its life to provide that, the least we can do is to use and appreciate it

And what about planning meals so you only have what you actually need?

 

There was a programme on the other night where a chap ate food that was WEEKS out of date let alone days and they said as long as it was cooked properly it would be perfectly alright.

 

Supermarkets had bins of food that were out of date including grapes all the way from Chile - madness!

 

I can see us going back to the war days when we were all supposed to keep a pig and chickens and dig for victory!

[Lesley]

It was out of sync and that made it difficult to watch at Egluntine Towers.

 

I thought the woman guestimating how many pairs of shoes she could buy with the money she saved rather missed the point.

 

I thought it was just one more problem with our Sky - glad to know it wasn't

 

I felt the whole programme missed the point - and I was really annoyed to see the presenter encouraging someone a double pack of cheap bacon (where was it produced?!) and then in the next part interviewing a pig farmer who will probably go out of business due to high feed prices and - probably- a diminishing market

 

oh! and i found a can of mushrooms with a date of 2004 on them - bunged them in the Coq au Vin the other day They were fine

[..lay a little egg for me]

I'm using yeast that is a year out of date (a miscalculation on a Suma order - read the catalogue as saying the pack size was 4x8x7g, but it was 4x8x70g ) and it is still fine. I do put in a pinch extra for luck each time though!

 

I had some UHT milk that was 6 months out of date...it was fine.

 

I regularly use cream and cheese that are well past the sell by date...fine

 

Jam...why do they now say keep in the fridge...its a preserve designed to keep fruit when there are no fridges! I keep mine out of the fridge...its fine

 

I have a bottle of dill sauce that said keep in fridge and use within a month of opening. Its been there for about 6 months, I use it now and then...I'm still fine!

 

I put all the meat I buy straight in the freezer and then take out what I need for dinner each morning, so it is never wasted.

 

What about those bendy carrots with the mouldy bit at the end...do I throw the whole thing away? No, just trim off the ends and use in cooking. Ditto, mouldy bread, cheese, bruised apples, etc. etc.

 

You might think that this frugal attitude is due to my age (48)/the way I was brought up, but I once caught my sister (RIP) who was older than me 'trimming' rhubarb...she cut off the leaves about half way down the stem, wasting most of the stalk! I was a bit miffed as it was my home grown rhubarb!

 

Am I unusual?

[poachedegg]

I thought it was going to be an interesting and informative documentary - but to be honest, found it very lightweight and switched it off after a short while. I think it was when the presenter spoke to the mounted policeman; I found that quite condescending.

 

The lady they focused at the beginning was hardly an average shopper. The amount she was spending and what she was spending it on - it was hardly rocket science to get her bill reduced!

[Egluntyne]

Not unusual at all.

 

I use slightly bendy veg in stews and soups. I freeze it if there is a large amount.

 

I use my eyes and nose to tell me if stuff is off.

 

My mother went shopping twice a week and we didn't have a fridge until I was in double figures. There was a cold slab in the pantry.

 

We are still here to tell the tale.

 

We have all been manipulated by the supermarkets into believing that if stuff was "out of date" it would kill us.

 

Result....we waste money by trying to do what we think is the right thing for our families......and they get rich.