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No kidding. Crappy, unhealthy, store-bought pizza STILL less expensive than some recipes cooked at home with quality ingredients.
What a wonderful "duh" moment...
There is no such thing as "quality ingredients" in the highly commercialized agriculture of America. Obliteration of plant diversity, monocultures, highly potent carcinogens pesticides, in the name of plentiful supply - this is what in your shopping basket. Hormones, medications in animals. Eggs from chickens living in feces, 11 per 2x2 cage.
You are doomed, OP, processed or scratched - you are not doing your children any favor in this terrible, terrible country!!!! Should you quit your job and devote all your time to growing your own veggies, chickens, and cows - you still will not escape mercurisation of the soil, acid rains, ozone holes and general apocalypse!! Oh why oh why to stay in this horrendous country and not return to the milk and honey places where MILs cook for you till you drop!
So there's a generation of men who were TRAINED not to speak up?
Unknown to me. In my family everyone speaks right up. Usually everyone is talking over each other to the point it's like being in one, giant John Ford movie.
I don't recall anyone saying they take their kids to the opera or the ballet. Parks, museums, the zoo, yes. How anyone can find fault with that, I'll never understand.
How would one find fault with going to the opera? It is a cool learning experience.
I live in an area that has some very affluent neighborhoods, and where we lived before we moved here did too. I am familiar with the type of family where not only does the mom not work outside the home ... she doesn't seem to work much in it, either. Kids in daycare all day while Mom goes to pilates and the salon, stay-at-home moms with nannies and housekeepers, that kind of thing. My older daughter has a few friends with home lives like that, because the rich kids go to her high school. I'm not surprised at the assertion that some of those moms don't cook, or that they spend a lot of money on takeout and ready-made meals.
I'm not disputing that such moms (or dads, though I don't know any who fit the description) live like that. We don't. We wouldn't even if we were wealthy. But it sounds like the OP is asking readers to explain or defend that lifestyle, and I don't think many (or any) of us are in a position to do that.
I know of these rich women you speak of, but they would never have pizza delivered three times per week. Carbs, Dahling! No, no, no. Little snowflakes cannot eat carbs.
Then "we don't" is all that could be argued at the personal level.
Otherwise, why not could such a lifestyle be explained, defended or critiqued? Who's in such a position? Researchers? The government?
Who's in the position to answer why? Well, the simple answer is ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by syracusa
And if we are talking personal situations or anecdotal evidence ("I don't", or "my neighbor does"), I can tell you that I have met SAHM-s from clearly NOT well-off families, not even middle-upper income, let alone upper net worth (huge difference!), who approach eating with the same "ready-made" mindset.
... these people. I don't know why they do that. You've met them, and you want to know their reasons.
Regarding your first question in the quote above, I think you were asking why that lifestyle couldn't be defended or explained. (The placement of "not" in the question is throwing me off, sorry.) I can't defend it, but some explanations I can think of include:
Hectic schedule, no time to cook (yes, I know sometimes this is by choice)
Pleasure in conspicuous consumption, which can be attributed just as much to the working spouse ("trophy wife")
Being a bad cook, or not enjoying it (yes, I understand you don't agree with this mindset)
Not knowing any better, believing marketing campaigns that show processed food as homey and nutritious, or simply not caring
Quote:
Originally Posted by syracusa
Cooking from scratch can be much more expensive depending with what you compare it to, and what you want to it.
It is YOU who decides how far you want to go with your recipe, how expensive you want the meal to be, etc.
So you decide on a super-gourmet recipe to be made at home from top-notch ingredients from Whole Foods ...then you compare it with a .99 c burger from McDonalds...then you feel like you demonstrated how cooking from scratch CAN be more expensive than store-bought.
I agree that cooking from scratch can be cheap if you want to live on beans and rice. We don't, nor do we want to. Most of what I cook does not come in a ready-made version, but for example:
Stouffer's lasagna, marketed with commercials showing cozy family night around the dinner table - $11 or so
My lasagna - $6 Italian sausage, $3 ricotta (on sale), $4 mozzarella, $4 parmesan, $5 jarred sauce, $1 frozen chopped spinach, $2 lasagna noodles, $0 herbs and spices (already have)
My lasagna runs about $20 to $25. I already know this, having made lasagna for years. I consider this "from scratch," by the way, despite using boxed noodles, jarred sauce, and frozen spinach. I could cut costs by making my own sauce, but only by a buck or so and it's not worth it to me. Fresh spinach would not be any cheaper. Pre-grated cheese is a little cheaper. I could also spend more on sausage and cheese if I wanted to. I suppose I could grow my own tomatoes and can my own sauce, but the cost/benefit ratio is not there for me.
I don't eat meat anymore, but my lasagnas still have lots of veggies like artichoke hearts, broccoli, zucchini, etc., and they still cost more than $11. I could possibly make a bare-bones cheese lasagna for about the same price as Stouffer's, but why? I put vegetables in there on purpose. I buy better quality jarred sauce without HFCS or other junk in it for roughly the same price as it would cost to make it from canned tomatoes. I could buy the tomatoes but good tomatoes in Illinois are not cheap, and I have no desire to boil and peel them for no cost benefit.
Who's in the position to answer why? Well, the simple answer is ...
... these people. I don't know why they do that. You've met them, and you want to know their reasons.
Regarding your first question in the quote above, I think you were asking why that lifestyle couldn't be defended or explained. (The placement of "not" in the question is throwing me off, sorry.) I can't defend it, but some explanations I can think of include:
Hectic schedule, no time to cook (yes, I know sometimes this is by choice)
Pleasure in conspicuous consumption, which can be attributed just as much to the working spouse ("trophy wife")
Being a bad cook, or not enjoying it (yes, I understand you don't agree with this mindset)
Not knowing any better, believing marketing campaigns that show processed food as homey and nutritious, or simply not caring
I have a feeling it is a lot of what I bolded. They don't know any better, and, if money is tight, perhaps they're happy to be putting dinner on the table at all, and have a lot of things other than preservatives to worry about.
I agree that cooking from scratch can be cheap if you want to live on beans and rice. We don't, nor do we want to. Most of what I cook does not come in a ready-made version, but for example:
Stouffer's lasagna, marketed with commercials showing cozy family night around the dinner table - $11 or so
My lasagna - $6 Italian sausage, $3 ricotta (on sale), $4 mozzarella, $4 parmesan, $5 jarred sauce, $1 frozen chopped spinach, $2 lasagna noodles, $0 herbs and spices (already have)
My lasagna runs about $20 to $25. I already know this, having made lasagna for years. I consider this "from scratch," by the way, despite using boxed noodles, jarred sauce, and frozen spinach. I could cut costs by making my own sauce, but only by a buck or so and it's not worth it to me. Fresh spinach would not be any cheaper. Pre-grated cheese is a little cheaper. I could also spend more on sausage and cheese if I wanted to. I suppose I could grow my own tomatoes and can my own sauce, but the cost/benefit ratio is not there for me.
I don't eat meat anymore, but my lasagnas still have lots of veggies like artichoke hearts, broccoli, zucchini, etc., and they still cost more than $11. I could possibly make a bare-bones cheese lasagna for about the same price as Stouffer's, but why? I put vegetables in there on purpose. I buy better quality jarred sauce without HFCS or other junk in it for roughly the same price as it would cost to make it from canned tomatoes. I could buy the tomatoes but good tomatoes in Illinois are not cheap, and I have no desire to boil and peel them for no cost benefit.
Oh, please...isn't that convenient to pick on the one non-burning tree and cry bloody murder all while pretending to not see the forest on fire?
Where you see a forest fire, I see a tiny campfire in the distance. I seriously don't know any of these SAHMs who you speak of. I don't hang out with that crowd I guess.
Quote:
When I said "cook from scratch", you know all too well what I implied but you pretend you don't know.
I know women who bake their own bread, grind their own wheat, soak their own beans, make their own sauces from garden to plate. To them your definition of "from scratch" might not hold up. People asked for clarification because the definition means different things to different people. It would have been easier and more conducive to a respectful discussion to define your terms rather then get huffy about people not understanding, imo.
I love to cook, so I cook from scratch, and my husband and I both work full time.
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