One of the many ways always mentionned to diminish grocery costs is to cook from scratch and to lower the amount of convinience food we use.

Talking with friends, and reading some of your posts, I realize that what is considered convinience foods varies greatly from one to another.

For me convinience food is to buy frozen meals or a cooked chicken. I never considered canned soup a convinience food or Dainty rice convinience food. When you think about it they are!!

What about frozen french fries or waffles? Or cake mixes??

What do you buy regularly that you consider to be a convinience food?

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MARIE --- MOTHER OF TWO ANGELS (MOST OF THE TIME )

Anything "helper." Freeze dried instant potato mixes, flavored rice mixes (ordinary plain rice is not, San Francisco rice is). Instant pasta salads. Baking mixes like cake & brownie mixes are, as you can generally make them from scratch with ingredients already in the house, but they go on sale so often & so cheap, that I don't have a problem with those.
Soups - I don't consider those convenience foods because they are so often an ingredient in things.
Rotisserie chicken is definately convenient, but not necessarily so. For instance, I can get a large rotisserie chicken at my Costco for $5. It costs more than just buying the raw chicken, but not by much. It saves me the time of cooking it, and it saves me the power/energy of running the oven to cook it. But when I'm done w/ the chicken, I take the carcass & the leftover bits of meat in it & put it in a pot of water with some onion, carrots, celery & herbs, and make a bunch of homemade chicken stock. So now I have a bunch of stock ready to freeze instead of buying cans of chicken broth to keep on hand. So I figure the chicken cancels itself out.

Hmmm... I consider frozen french fries, waffles, frozen pancakes, etc...convenience foods. You can make them from scratch. I don't consider rice, canned soups, pasta sauces convenience foods. Sometimes the cost of tomatoes is so high that it would cost a lot more to make your own sauces. Things like pre-shredded and diced veggies are convenience foods(imo). I consider things like instant potatoes, cake mixes, box mac&cheese, rice-a-roni, to be convenience foods.

I liked Calimari's description of a helper. You can gauge if it is a convenience food by how many ingredients are in it.

Anything frozen other than veggies or ice cream is a convenience food to me.

If I made frozen waffles, I don't think anyone would eat them.

I don't mean to offend anyone but those Uncrustable frozen PB sandwiches drive me nuts. How hard is it to make a PB& Jelly sandwich?

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Yes - I agree. I forgot things like pre-shredded cheese, pre-cut veggies....

Yes - I agree. I forgot things like pre-shredded cheese, pre-cut veggies....

I guess to be convenient, it has to have cut out some steps.

Prepared food like rotisserie chicken, potato salad
marinated meats
bakery muffins and rolls
frozen dinners

Most of us probably weigh the cost against the convenience. I know that I factor in nutririon. Some convenience food is cheap but I won't do it if it is bad for me.

Time isn't as much of a factor for me, but that is probably more what makes something convenient.

Cathleen

I consider mac and cheese, rice a roni, lipton sides, chef boy r dee, frozen waffles and pancakes, frozen dinners, refrigerated cookie dough, potato buds, ect. to be convenience foods. I dont buy them any more.

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I also agree about the many convenience foods listed above and with Calimari on the chicken from Costco, I do the same thing and usually get 2 meals and a ton of stock from it

I will buy "healthier" convenience foods when they are on good sales, like the other day, Rice a Roni whole grain selections were included in the 10/10 sale at Lucky, so I bought four (This will last us at least a month as I won't eat more than one of these a week. still too much sodium). Or a jar pasta sauce from Trader Joe's that is only $1/jar and lists the exact ingredeints I would cook my own with, no yicky stuff and cheaper then buying all the ingredients. Or oragnic mac n' cheese from TJ's for $1/box, I can't replicate that for the price. I'll also buy bagged salads when they are on a really good sale as a treat, there are some that we love and they have a lot of ingredients.

Convenience foods I will normally not buy: normal rice mixes and noodle mixes, normal jar pasta sauces (so easy to make your own with diced tomatoes, onion and garlic), dehydrated potatoes (on RARE occasion I get the garlic ones), shredded cheese, precut veg and fruit, cookies, muffin mixes, frozen waffles or pancakes, frozen dinners/lunches, frozen pizza (also on RARE occasion), canned soups (yuck), frozen fries (I have to be feeling really lazy)....I think those frozen pb&j sadwiches are scary!!

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Doing my best to raise a GEEK- Genuine Enthusiastic Empowered Kid!

Convenience foods is a multiple choice category for me.

My first criteria is how much processing the food has undergone (other than to preserve the food.) If the food is far from it's original source, then it is a convenience food. For instance, fruit snacks are a convenience food because they hardly resemble anything of the original fruit. However, fruit leather is merely fresh fruit that has been preserved (dehydrated).

My second criteria is how many foods have been combined to make the item. Frozen entrees or frozen dinners are a convenience food. I don't consider a bag of frozen broccoli florets a convenience food but a bag of frozen cheese covered broccoli is.

My third criteria is cost. If I'm paying extra for the food to save time over doing it myself, then it is probably a convenience food. Bread is a convenience food. However, it does save me lots of time and it isn't so much more expensive than me assembling the flour, yeast, etc, so it is worth it to me. I do not consider grated cheese a convenience food when it is the same price per pound (or price per ounce) as block cheese - and it often is! However, 8 oz of shredded beef in a deli pack is so horrendously expensive, it definately qualifies as a convenience food.

My last criteria is health. If the food is processed to the point where excessive salt, sugar or preservatives have been added, then it is a convenience food. Jam is understandably preserved with sugar and, since the serving size is so small, the added sugar isn't a huge issue for me. However, I refuse to buy most commercial peanut butter because of all the added sugar, salt and shortening. While I don't grind my own peanuts, I do insist on buying all-natural peanut butter.

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"I've been rich and I've been poor but independently wealthy is where it is at."