Comments on: Convenience Foods: What They Really Cost

By: leslie

leslie — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:41:55 +0000

It really is as easy as Trent says. As soon as you get home from grocery shopping on a weekend, spend 15 minutes to chop up all your vegetables!

Chop up your celery, carrots & peppers and put them in a container in the fridge. Rip up your lettuce and put that in another plastic container. Keep your fruit out in an open area so you won’t forget about it.

This way you don’t have your food hiding in the crisper to rot. And you can still grab it when you’re starving at 10p!

By: gail

gail — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:56:36 +0000

Buy the bagged lettuce when it is on sale. It often is less expensive than the whole head of lettuce (per pound), and is much more convenient.

By: Georgia

Georgia — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:14:04 +0000

I have a solution for those who say they can’t keep head lettuce or celery. I pull off the leaves I need to tear up & make a salad. The rest of the head I wrap in a damp paper towel and cover completely with tin foil. Celery lasts up to 3 weeks and lettuce up to 2 weeks. The other hint is to never put a knife to them until using. Leave the lettuce whole on the head and celery whole on the stalk. The reason is that cutting these veggies with a knife causes them to turn brown quicker. I live alone and can eat a head of lettuce in 2 weeks. I have a bunch of celery that is two weeks old in the fridge now and it is still crispy and nice.

To the person who asked about the difference between frozen and fresh. Frozen is often much better than fresh, depending on how far your fresh was shipped. For a good article on this, see the Eat This, Not That website. It had a great article on this very question.

By: Bill in NC

Bill in NC — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:32:21 +0000

Baby carrots are made from carrots not in good enough shape to sell themselves.

So you’re helping growers who otherwise would discard the whole carrot.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:08:52 +0000

You really don’t waste any time when you can prep a weeks worth of veggies at home in the 20 min or so it takes to boil water and cook pasta. While I’m in the kitchen anyways I prep everything except mushrooms, they keep better whole, including garlic and onions and I am vegetarian so we eat a ton of produce. and the more you do it the better you get with a knife, making the process even easier.

By: michael bash

michael bash — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:32:40 +0000

I haven’t read all 61 comments, but I have to say that the person who can’t/won’t cut up an apple has a problem. I will say no more.

By: Claudia

Claudia — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:52:40 +0000

#38 baby carrots are carved from large carrots, that’s why they are all the same size and shape—
I’ve bought several brands, none of them have carrots all the same size and shape. The ones I bbuy you can see the top that has been cut off, how do they make those?
I buy baby carrots and the pre-packaged salad mixes. Not all the time, but some times because we end up eating more carrots and salads when it takes only a few seconds to get them on the table. If eating more veggies is the result, I think the cost is worth it.
Now the apple slices, not so much, I have kitchen tool – corer/slicer thing that does a whole apple is a couple seconds.

By: Kathy F

Kathy F — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:20:23 +0000

I usually buy the whole head of lettuce, but as a single person, I have to eat a straight week of dinner salads to use that up before it goes bad. Not a problem in the summer, when I like to eat a lot of salad. I have bought prepackaged lettuc, but those are not as fresh sometimes and I have had to throw some of that out as it seems to only stay fresh for a few days. I have bought the big box of fancy salad mix at Costco, but I have to some major salad eating for a few weeks to get through all that without having to throw some out.

I buy the baby carrots in a bag and take some with my lunch every day. I have to spend some time to have home prepared lunches to take to work, so bagged small baby carrots are worth it to me. I once tried chopping my own carrot sticks, but it was a lot of work. The carrots are very hard. Also they are tougher to chew and some even have a sort of slight bitter taste. I think the bagged baby carrots are very tender, but they are often waterlogged. I find myself having to drain them after they have been in the frig for a while or leave them out a while to dry out. If they stay too watery, then they get slimy quicker. Is there a way to tenderize the bigger carrots to make them easier to cut and chew?

By: reulte

reulte — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:41:11 +0000

Peggy (#39) – Well, not all of the convenience. It takes less time to wash a bag of lettuce than to cut and wash a bag of lettuce. But, yes — definately wash your bagged greens.

I also use a spinner to dry my leafy veggies. With the proper tools – a sharp knife, garlic press and peeler, right size cutting board on a non-slip surface, sharp vegetable peeler – you should not be spending ‘hours’ prepping veggies. I enjoy preparing vegetables (except lettuce!) for eating or cooking.

On the other hand — I am a single mom who works outside the house and, like JW, prefer my sanity. I buy bags of salad mixes and baby carrots (ah deRuiter, will you leave us no delusions? *grin*). Everything else, I prefer to cut and chop myself.

Trent, you almost gave me a heart attack at “tossed the knife in the dishwasher”. Ack! Like Elizabeth (#44) points out, you shouldn’t put good knives in dishwashers. Even if they are solid piece metal, the temperature of the dishwater changes the temper of the steel. Not only will the knife lose its edge, but the knife will cease to hold a sharp edge very long in the future. And if the handle is of different construction, then the handle and blade will start to separate, posing bot a safety hazard and a place for bacteria to grow. Unless you were refering to one of those special plastic knives that are for cutting lettuce because they don’t brown the edges . . .??

By: Candi

Candi — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:39:11 +0000

Ok yes you should wash all produce before you eat it. I would like to point out, however, that in a lot of E. Coli cases washing makes no difference at all. The E. Coli is inside the plant and cannot be removed except by the high temperatures associated with cooking. . .

By: Bill in Houston

Bill in Houston — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:42:47 +0000

The only prepackaged veggie I buy is baby carrot. They cost 40 cents more a pound in my local Korean market (and are sometimes on sale for that same price at Kroger). My wife and I take carrots and some other vegetable with us for lunch every day. It takes me ten minutes to peel and cut up a pound of carrots, and the yield is roughly 12 ounces. Carrots are 59 cents a pound at H Mart, so the 12 ounces I get left are equivalent to paying 79 cents a pound. Factor in the notion that the baby carrots are already washed and peeled. Well worth it!

On the other hand, we buy everything else from bell pepper to watercress unprocessed.

By: Larabara

Larabara — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:14:31 +0000

I buy romaine hearts, 3 to a bag, at the 99 cents store. A 1 lb bag of baby carrots is also sold at the 99 cents store, as is a big bag of shredded carrots. I’ve seen bagged lettuce there too, but I don’t buy it because I get a lot more lettuce when I chop up the romaine hearts. Only one time the 99 cents store was out of romaine hearts, so I bought them from a national chain grocery store for almost 2.50. I didn’t use it for 3 days. When I got ready to use the lettuce, it was covered with aphids! But I never had any problems with produce from the 99 cents store. I’ve bought asparagus, artichokes, and bell peppers from there, too. But the potatoes and onions were a little iffy, so I never bought those from the 99 cents store.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:00:21 +0000

So how does the fact that we spent $500 on a cooking class for DH so he’d chop faster factor into the cost benefit analysis?

Personally, I think the improvement is priceless…

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:08:03 +0000

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned–I find the price per bag/box/whatever of mixed greens to be a lot better than individual heads of lettuce, especially for a single person. Think about it–I can buy a single bag of spring mix for $2-5 (depending on sales, etc.), or I can buy a head of greenleaf for $1.69, a head of romaine for $1.69, mustard greens (if I can find them) for a lot more than that, radiocchio, argula and any other ‘exotic’ green foe even more …. and then have the joy of washing/combining all of them and hoping they don’t go bad before I can eat the massive pile of salad that I end up with. Not a good deal, at least for me ….

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:55:08 +0000

@Adam – This sounds more reasonable. While the time requirement vs savings you mentioned in your latest post do not match what Trent found from his tests I realize that it may very well be the case in your situation. My point wasn’t that you should be buying whole vegetables, it was just that based on the numbers Trent provided there is a significant savings by not buying convenience foods. For some people the convenience is worth paying extra, for others it is not. If the convenience is worth savings of $50/hr (when viewed over an extended period) or if takes longer to prep the vegetables than it does for Trent then it makes sense to buy the convenience versions.

By: Christine

Christine — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:52:14 +0000

Consumer Reports’ March 2010 issue has a story on the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of bagged salad. The article recommends always washing bagged greens, even if they are triple-washed. I imagine one should also wash cut-up veggies and fruit before serving. So… there goes the convenience.

By: Karen

Karen — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:38:23 +0000

Funny – I just bought a whole canolope and cut it up last night – delish!!!! And didn’t take any time at all.

By: T

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:38:19 +0000

This greatly depends on the store and the particular market area you’re in.

In my experience buying heads of lettuce or broccoli crowns usually are more expensive than pre-packaged options.

By: David/yourfinances101

David/yourfinances101 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:06:17 +0000

I can think of no “convenience” food out there that saves me so much time that it is worth spending the extra money on.

Except for peeled garlic. I will pay extra for that, because cleaning those little suckers is a real pain!

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:55:54 +0000

@Jonathan

Over a few meals, maybe 3 or 4, I could probably spend close to an hour cutting/peeling/washing vegetables. Or I could pop open a bag and put them in the pot/pan/bowl immediately. Yes, hours of time over the course of a month is VERY possible. And the difference in cost will amount to a few dollars. Dollars that I could easily make up by not going out to dinner one time in that same month.

So yes, it is hours of time to peel carrots/potatoes/squash, wash and spin dry and cut up lettuce/spinach/etc.

The whole attitude of pinching pennies is lost on me, especially to give up on convenience and costing me precious time. I have a lot pennies than I have minutes.