I’m gonna claim the pre-cut up fruits and veggies before anyone else 
With that out of the way…I can’t believe people buy premade…
Italian dressing, for gods sake for the price of a bottle you could made gallons worth by dicing up some veggies and then mixing it with oil/vinegar/sugar/salt/spices. Hell play around with veggies and spices/flavors.
Hard boiled and peeled eggs, :smack:
Individual potatoes wrapped in saran wrap at a ludicrous markup.:dubious:
A couple of things you mention, like the eggs and fruit, are obviously for convenience sake. If I’m at the office and want a quick snack, I’m not going to run down to the supermarket on the corner to buy a watermelon, pineapple and a dozen apples to make fruit salad at my desk. I’m old enough to remember when the only quick snack options were sodas, candy and 7-11 hotdogs (shudder).
I’m not talking about fruit or veggie salads or things wrapped for individual consumption and sold that way, unless you’re buying giant bags of sliced apples or six hard boiled eggs and peeled eggs and sold in groceries not delis. I’m not talking about restaurants or salad bars etc, but stuff sold in groceries.
I mean you can get a single burner stovetop for under 10 bucks, what I always think about watching the eggs.
I’d certainly buy Italian dressing.
I’ve even bought “uncrustables”
Mayo.
Maybe it’s just because I have such a fool-proof recipe, but the stuff I make tastes so much better than store-bought and is crazy cheap. Eggs, oil, lemon juice, mustard and salt.
Pasta sauces. I mean, pasta dishes are the easiest, lowest number of ingredients demanding dishes in the world. It’s not hard to open a tin of tomatoes and throw in some garlic, olive oil and oregano.
Convenience. I’m lazy and not particularly culinarily inclined. I’d rather pay a little extra to have someone else do all the work.
Part of the problem is that people raised on storebought stuff often prefer the taste of the storebought stuff. No, really. I make my own salad dressing for most flavors, including Italian and Ranch. But I cannot seem to make a Sweet Onion like my son likes. He likes the bottled stuff, and there’s something in there that I haven’t figured out yet. (Yes, I’ve tried corn syrup; no, that wasn’t it.)
Same with mayo - we’ve made mayo for fun, and it’s good for some things. But for many of the things we use mayo for, homemade mayo has too much flavor. We’re accustomed to the jar stuff, and that’s what we like.
Precut veggies? I don’t buy them much myself because I have plenty of time, but for someone in this sort of situation? Oh, heck yeah! Better to spend the money on prediced onions than resort to frozen dinners or take out every night. At least precut vegetables are still vegetables!
But I’m with ya all the way on the plastic wrapped “baking” potatoes for the microwave. That’s just ridiculous. Not only are they stupidly priced, but you don’t need to wrap a potato in anything to “bake” it in the microwave! Just stab the sucker and nuke it!
And not necessarily premade, but in a similar convenience rant vein, I’ve also noticed that frozen vegetables have gone down in size from 16oz to 12oz, and simultaneously up in price by 50-85c since they’ve started printing “STEAM IN BAG” on the package. Guess what folks…you’ve *always *been able to steam them in the bag. And just like the “new” steam in bag, the sucker would pop more often than not and you’d burn the hell out of your wrist trying to pour steaming hot vegetables into a serving bowl. And then you’d swear you’d never do this again, because really how fucking hard is it to open the bag of veggies and pour them in the bowl while they’re cold, and cover the bowl with a dinner plate before you put it in the microwave? :smack:
You can just say “cut,” you know. “Diced.” Gah.
You were doing it right in that thread.
It’s convenience, pure and simple. And, as someone upthread said, if you’re not culinarily inclined, it’s a godsend. There are a LOT of people out there who fall in that category. Ditto people who grew up primarily on canned/jarred stuff and prefer that taste over fresh.
I have a culinary background and I’ve occasionally fallen into the convenience trap. There’s also the “only two of us at home” factor where I’m not going to buy armfuls of fresh veggies for one or two recipes and have the rest end up rotting. I love frozen veggies, even if their packaging has shrunk, for their intended reason.
I can also just say diced. Gah yourself.
Some people (including that OP) don’t have time to prep everything. I’d rather see people prep what they can handle and buy the rest, rather than not eat vegetables or eat all prepared foods. Precut vegetables are a sort of middle ground convenience food - not quite as convenient as a can of Spaghetti-Os, but a whole lot healthier.
What’s that saying? Cheap, fast or good. Pick two. Precut vegetables give you fast and good, but yes, you lose cheap. Cheap’s not important to some people.
Just to clarify I wasn’t talking about frozen veggies in a bag.
Rather I was talking about stuff like raw sliced onions in a bag in the produce department, or sliced apples raw and in the produce. Stuff where they literally just took a knife to it and put it in a bag.
I’ve never worked in a place where one of those would be ok, tho. I did work in one where there was a stovetop in the rec room and we used it to warm up the meals from the catering service*, but it wasn’t even the right size to boil a (one) egg: too large.
…and I’m sure they cover whatever miniscule costs they might have incurred slicing these things by selecting the most manky, grubby veggies at the bottom of the pile.
Half the time the machines (I’m assuming machines) do a terrible job as well. I bought a “prepared” bag of Brussel sprouts once because there was nothing else, and had to spend just as much time peeling off the skanky leaves and trimming the uncut stalks as if I’d bought them loose.
Well you could boil and peel the egg at home, or are people really buying six packs of boiled eggs for lunch?
Honestly I do wonder why(actually VERY pricey like ten times) anyone buys these packs of hard boiled/peeled eggs. Lets assume you are making deviled eggs with them, it might actually be cheaper to just buy deviled eggs! Making egg salad? Ditto.
Basically the audience appears to be people who love eating large amounts of boiled eggs plain, and too lazy to just buy raw eggs and boil them. How big is that market?
It’s never entered my mind to make my own Italian dressing, but now I’m inspired. Any chance of getting something a little more detailed so I can give making my own a go?
OK, yeah I’m going to need this recipe too. Sounds deliciously simple.
I admit, I have bought pre-packed coleslaw, which is basically just carrot and different cabbages all shredded and put in a bag (which you open and pour mayo on). I buy it, it’s because if I’m making 4 salads, desserts, and meat for a party, I don’t want to waste time on shredding 3 cabbages and a carrot! So, yeah, put me in the convenience category. But I keep trying to make more and buy less - it’s a journey! So I reckon encouragement and advice is the best way to encourage people away from unhealthy / expensive options.
And this thread has also inspired me to try making my own pasta sauce (something I’ve never considered before, due solely to habit). So thanks for this thread, even if it’s a little judgy
Agreed, although one of the supermarkets in the UK sells ready-boiled and peeled quail’s eggs with a sachet of celery salt. That’s quite pleasing for picnics.
Depends on how much you use. If you only need a tablespoon or two now and then, you might find the rest of that delicious batch going bad and needing to be thrown out. Buying a tiny jar at the store and keeping it for “just in case” moments - with the prolonged expiration date holding it until at least another use or two - may be worth it then. But I do agree that homemade tastes better.
I was horrified the first time I went to the US and the hotel breakfast chef made my omelette by pouring something from a carton into the pan. Eggs in a carton? You can’t crack an egg??
Do you change your own oil on your car as well?