Wednesday, January 20, 2016
More Foods You Should Never Buy
I got a lot of great responses to my post on Five Foods you should Never Buy (because they are easy and much better to make at home). Here are a few of my favorites but see the comments of that post for many great suggestions.
Guacamole. Assuming you can get good fresh avocados (which I know is not true for everyone), there is no reason to buy it in a package. It takes all of five minutes to mash avocados with salt and lime and add your choice of chiles, onions and other add-ons.
Egg Nog. Yes, you can make complicated versions that need to be aged for six months, but you can also whip up a quick Egg Nog which will be much better than anything you can buy in a bottle.
Premixed Spices (Like chili powder). " They take up a lot of space and with a quick Google search you can make most any blend with paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, coriander, oregano, salt and pepper. It also tastes better."
Popcorn. Pre-popped popcorn in a bag is a travesty. Microwave popcorn is full of crap. If you have a dutch oven or other heavy pot, making popcorn on the stove is cheap and easy and doesn't take much longer than the microwave.
Infused Vodka: Yes, it takes a few days, but it's not that hard to add stuff to vodka.
Sour Mix (and along with that I'd add lemonade or limeade). See simple syrup in the previous post and add lemons/limes.
Thanks to Joshua, Carter R, Florin, Rohan, billyhacker and all the other commenters.
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16 comments:
I can't tell if these posts are satire or not.
I should "never" buy these products. Let's say I'm a single mother with two children and I work 60 hours a week at two different jobs — you believe I should get out a pan, heat oil, add popcorn, stand there for five minutes, put the popcorn in a bowl, clean the pan, then clean the bowl when the popcorn is consumed.
Give me a break.
This reminds me of that old website "Stuff White People Like." You and the folks who posted comments on the last post need to get a grip and realize what life is like for some people. Either that or you need to tone your language and title the post "Foods that are Surprisingly Easy to Make at Home." I hope that's the sentiment you were going for.
One of the reasons to make your own popcorn is to save enough money so you don't have to work two jobs. I wrote a short cookbook where I showed that when I cook my own food I can eat like a king for about $2.50 a dinner. When I buy prepped ingredients, they are both inferior and cost me about three times as much - about $7.25 a dinner. A bag of popcorn costs $1.49 in my local store while the same amount of kernels cost 0.15 cents.
ps. You know this is a spirits label analysis site - not exactly aimed at single mother of two with two jobs...
Folks should never buy bourbons, sku.
They should distill their own spirits and age in their own barrels. It's easy! and it's so cheap!! folks who buy bourbon at the store are just lazy.
Thanks billyhacker for explaining the economics of prepared foods.
Good grief. Your comment perfectly illustrates my point: everyone knows that eating prepared food is an indulgence! It may not be an indulgence you personally see as worth it — just like some might think spending more than $15 on a bottle of booze isn't worth it! Your indulgences are OK but others aren't? That's absurd.
If the goal of the blog posts was to be bombastic or hyperbolic, the goal was not met in my opinion. Rather than funny or interesting, these two posts — and especially the comments — came off as condescending and more than a little hypocritical given the blog is devoted to luxury, and some might say unnecessary, products.
I don't know, at least in the LA area, Broguiere's Egg Nog is pretty good.
CLT, thanks for your comments. I appreciate your making a very important point. Of course the intent of these posts was to light heartedly make fun of some products that are as easy to make at home as they are to buy. Why pay $15 for a bottle of simple syrup when you can literally make it in 3 minutes?
That being said, I'm sure all of us have used these products from time to time and there was no intention to cast aspersions on anyone, hyperbolic title notwithstanding.
Just have to throw in infused anything Tequila as well...
Smucker's Uncrustables (shudder)
Frozen burritos
Frosted mini-Wheats (really?)
Chef Boyardee ravioli in a can
Sweet pickles (gack!)
Joseph, Broguiere's is definitely an exception. I was actually thinking about alcoholic egg nog. Non-alcoholic can definitely be worth buying and is pretty hard to replicate.
Hard boiled eggs! Why oh why in the name of all that is holy would anyone pay more hard-earned dollars to purchase prepared hard boiled eggs? Using a timer, you can hard boil them at home while you are doing other things around the house (or just watching tv).
And it's always great (sarcasm font needed, here) to see someone try to hijack a light-hearted post on a whisk(e)y blog in order to play the victim/shaming card.
Thank you billyhacker and Anon at 12:43, I really liked these light-hearted comments and they even made me think about some of the silly things I buy (I've bought simple syrup before for sure). It's a shame when that gets ruined by someone with an axe to grind. Cheers everyone! Let's all be smart with our money no matter how much of it we have.
Nevertheless : I try to make my own whiskey. WRONG !
"you believe I should get out a pan, heat oil, add popcorn, stand there for five minutes, put the popcorn in a bowl, clean the pan, then clean the bowl when the popcorn is consumed."
Erm, yes! That's hardly a massive amount of labour.
Let's not forget the main problem with pre-packaged food. They all contain crazy amounts of sodium, carbohydrates, and fat. Not to mention the preservatives and other chemicals. Read the label - some of this 'food' sounds like a science experiment!
You obviously had time to read this blog.
You obviously had time to read this blog.
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