Hmm… I was about to suggest pancake mix, but y’all beat me to it. But on a similar note, having heard about Kraft Mac Cheese in a box… er, isn’t that much the same level of pointlessness?
About things like pre-grated cheese and pre-cut lettuce…
These things are a godsend for folks which hand and joint problems. Someone with severe carpal tunnel syndrome shouldn’t be engaging in any form of repetitive motion - such as cheese grating. Not to mention all the folks with severe arthritis having a heavy impact on their manual dexterity. So, in some cases it’s not just laziness. I mean, folks with hand problems deserve to eat well, too.
But yeah, MOST folks buying this don’t have these problems.
On the other hand, for very busy people, being able to skip steps in the preparation makes it easier to pack lunches, encourages them to eat something other than just Doritoes when they get home late, and so forth.
Then again, all this stuff costs more.
So, really, it’s a mixed blessing. Myself, I prefer to cook from scratch, but I will certainly use these sorts of convenience foods if I’m under a time crunch. It’s nice to have the option.
I read the first line of this and thought, “Holy cow, I wonder how many D batteries something like THAT would take?” :smack: (It’s early - I’m still working on my first cuppa coffee) Oh, okay, a little hand-held thing. That makes sense. Well, not really. That is rather lazy.
I did buy the Tide thing like that, though, for laundry. It looks like an electric toothbrush and you use it to scrub laundry detergent into stains. They were having a promotion at the store one day and I got it for $1.99. Yeah, I could do it with my hands (rub the detergent in), but this way I don’t get it all over my hands.
I buy pre-shredded cheese all the time. As mentioned, my shredded is a PITA to clean. Mine’s a crank-operated thing, and there’s no danger of shredding my knuckles, but it’s got four little pieces to take apart and clean, so I buy pre-shredded. I use it on my salads, and my husband and kids like nachos and tacos - we go through it pretty quickly. Judging by the huge display in all the stores around here, I’d say lots of people buy pre-shredded cheese.
The one I don’t get is hard-boiled eggs. Six pre-cooked hard-boiled eggs for $1-something ($1.29? $1.39?). You can buy a dozen eggs for less than a dollar and make your own.
Okay, this is not really a convenience items but does fit the category of rip-off nicely.
When I was living in Brighton someone sold big pebbles on which they would write your name with white paint as a souvenir for five pounds! Two streets away from the seafront. Brighton has a pebble beach.
I say fair play to them. If anyone is stupid enough to buy pebble on a pebble beach they deserve to be parted from their money.
What amazes me are those frozen, pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. If you’re too lazy to slap some peanut butter and jelly on some bread, you’re too lazy to eat. (And the frozen ones end up costing over $0.50 apiece, last time I checked!)
No, it’s not that hard to grate cheese, but I still buy pre-grated cheese almost exclusively (except when I want a brick to eat cheese and crackers or the like).
Why? Well, my grater broke almost a two years ago, and I really didn’t use it often enough to make it worthwhile. Then, when I look at what I use cheese for - omelettes, chili, tacos, things like that - I almost always need the cheese to be grated.
Microwave bacon: If this is on sale, I buy it. Not that I don’t know that I can microwave regular bacon, but it’s an effort in portion control. If I cook bacon the regular way, I’ll turn around and will have eaten half a pound before I realize it. With the microwave kind (at least the Hormel brand), I cook 4 slices at a time. Enough for a sandwich or to go along with breakfast. Yes, I may prefer the taste of the skillet cooked bacon, but I figure that 4 pieces is way healthier for me than most of a package.
I don’t, however, purchase pre-cut lettuce.
Recently at the grocery store I noticed that the brand of chocolate spread my kids like was now available in a squeeze tube. It normally comes in a tub and you have to spread it on your bread with a knife. With the tube you can just squeeze it on. The company also makes a hazelnut-chocolate spread (same idea as Nutella), which they also sell in a tube now, if the idea of dirtying a knife just doesn’t appeal.
The chocolate spread costs over twice as much per kilo in the tube. The hazelnut stuff? Three times as much. All for the convenience of squeezing instead of spreading. :rolleyes:
Plastic??? Microwave-baked potatos don’t need no steekin’ plastic!
Pick a Russet that fits in your hand; this doesn’t work well for huge ones. Scrub off the dirt as usual, then put it in the microwave. No plate, no paper, no nothing extra needed, at least assuming your microwave is clean enough for food in the first place. Potatos don’t ooze, burst or do anything else nasty; they’re close to the ideal maintenance-free microwave food.
Zap it on high for 3 minutes. Let sit for 3 minutes. Turn it over & zap it again on high for 4 minutes. Let sit for 4 minutes. Eat.
For two potatoes, make it 4 and 5 minutes respectively. And while the potato is sitting, you can be microwaving the other item(s) you’ll be eating. My wife prefers to wrap them in a moist paper towel; she claims it makes the skins better. I don’t see the difference, and it adds 30 seconds to the preparation.
The one that has me still shaking my head and going :smack: is the bread with the crusts already cut off. WTF?
Hey, don’t be dissin’ Kraft Macaroni & Chesse!
And here’s another voice in defence of grated cheese and bagged lettuce: In addition to the reasons already given, sometimes you’re preparing a big fussy meal and you’ve already got seventy-eleven little tasks to do. That’s when not having to grate cheese or process lettuce really can make things easier.
I was wondering if I was the only person in the world to know you don’t have to wrap the potato. BTW, they make a lot of microwaves now that have a button for baked potato - mine does. It couldn’t be easier. My supermarket sells lots of cheap loose potatoes.
Pre-formed hamburger patties. How did we ever survive without them? Just think of all the generations of cooks who had to grab a hunk of hamburger and squish it flat before they cook it. :rolleyes:
What’s so bad about Kraft Mac & Cheese? Sure you can do it with cheese and macaroni by hand, but cheese is a perishable that college kids don’t have in their dorm rooms.
What really urks me are the Smuckers Uncrustables , frozen peanut butter & jelly sandwiches (with the crusts cut off, of course) that can be defrosted in time for Junior’s lunch. Nothing like teaching kids the value of healthful eating when you’re packing them half-thawed, processed sandwiches at outrageous prices.
Check out the list of ingredients, the “bread” is the winner of about 85% of the ingredients listed:
BREAD: ENRICHED BLEACHEDFLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], FOLIC ACID), WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, YEAST, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF THE FOLLOWING: SOYBEAN OIL, WHEAT GLUTEN, SALT, DOUGH CONDITIONERS (MAY CONTAIN ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: DIACETYL TARTARIC ESTERS OF MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES (DATEM), MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, ETHOXYLATED MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, CALCIUM PEROXIDE), YEAST NUTRIENTS (MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, CALCIUM SULFATE, AMMONIUM SULFATE), CALCIUM PROPIONATE ADDED TO RETARD SPOILAGE, CORNSTARCH. PEANUT BUTTER: SELECT ROASTED PEANUTS, DEXTROSE, VEGETABLE MONOGLYCERIDES (FROM PALM OIL), SALT. STRAWBERRY JAM: STRAWBERRIES, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, SUGAR, PECTIN, CITRIC ACID, POTASSIUM SORBATE ADDED AS A PRESERVATIVE
Looks like they have a grilled cheese version now, too.
Probably bought by the same people who bought the battery-operated hand grater by Black and Decker I saw advertised.
Move my hand? That’s just too hard!
Sad, and lame.
Susan
OK, I’ll 'fess up that I bought one,. Why? 'Cause I freaking HATE doing dishes so I let them pile up in my sink 'til I’m completely out of things to eat on. And then I hav to spnd hours scrubbing off the dried on food that’s been sitting there for days. (ys, I do live alone, why do you ask?) So I thought I’ll see if this thing makes it easier and prompts me to do it more often. But, It doesn’t really work all that well. I always have to break out the real scrubber anyway. (side note: I finally got some rubber gloves and that makes the dish washing more bearable)
It seems like a lot of the products are aimed at people like me: people who don’t cook and don’t like cleaning. I’ve just started trying to cook and I can’t tell you how many eggs I wasted until I finally figured out how long to boil an egg to get it hard-boiled. So I might have bought some pre-boiled ones if they had been available.
In defence of some of these items…
When I was a kid I would freeze my sandwiches the night before because if I didn’t by the time I got to my lunch the peanutbutter and jelly would be in a puddle in the baggie and the bread would be all squished. I would have loved the uncrustables as they would have weathered sitting on the shelf with the rest of the lunchboxes better than a traditional sandwich.
Grated cheese - At the rate my daughter eats cheese I would spend most of my day grating it for her. Also as was mentioned above - years of cake decorating gave me carpal tunnel. Grating cheese would leave me aching for days.
I also buy Easy Mac. The kids are the only ones who like mac n cheese. I’m not making a vat of it and I am horrible about dealing with leftovers.
Pre formed hamburger patties. I usually make my own so I can add egg and spices to them but if I’m cooking out for 20 people the last thing I want to do is press out that many patties! Besides the pre pressed ones tend to have better cohesion than the ones I make myself.
Squeeze tubes don’t work well for everything though and my hands can’t squeeze them well so I stick with jars whenever possible.
Well, when you
- don’t have a grater
and
- ended up grating your nails and knuckles out of sheer spaz-tiness when you’ve used a grater in the past, then yes, cheese can be that hard to grate.
Personally, I think those wristbands with the pop-up tape strips in them are utterly ridiculous. I’m guessing they’re supposed to make things easier if you’re wrapping a gift and need both hands, but give me a fucking break, people.
I think they wrap the potatoes with plastic so the bar code label has something to stick to.