Eat Well For Less – Episode 2

The show is following the Thomas family this week.  The family is made up of two adults and four children.

Mandy admits that she has Champagne tastes but lemonade income.  She likes to buy brands and thinks they are better while Ade buys value products that no one in the house will eat.  Mandy shops and tops up her cupboard of treats daily.

Ade does the majority of the cooking in the house and cooks healthy meals that mainly go uneaten.  When he’s not around Mandy will buy microwave meals for each of the children.

Now we know a little bit about the couple, as usual, the programme starts with the couple shopping while Gregg and Chris hide out and watch what they are buying.

Ade buys nice fresh ingredients while Mandy buys convenience foods and brands.  The shopping is being loaded into the conveyor belt so Gregg and Chris turn up at the checkout to scan the shopping and see what they’ve bought.

The couple think they’ve spent £80-£90 but they’ve actually spent £120.  They are told that their average main weekly shop is around £80.  That’s fine HOWEVER Mandy also does about an average of 12 top up shops a week spending another £90.  That’s a whole lot of shopping!  They also give the eldest child £45 a week as he likes to eat out every night.  Adding everything together they spend about £230 a week on groceries.

The next stage of the process is for the items in the kitchen to be switched into plain packaging so the family cannot judge anything on packaging.

Mandy makes egg muffins for her children’s breakfast.  They look really lovely.  She puts a little bit of butter in a mug, melts it, then cracks an egg into the mug and a bit of grated cheese, whisks it up and microwaves for 1 minute and put the cooked egg in a muffin.  It looks lovely and, apparently, only costs 30p per portion.

Ade seems very sensible and says that they are not teaching the children the right lessons.  At the moment they are teaching them that if they turn their nose up at something then it will be replaced.  They are currently teaching them that they can get what they want.

The taste table this week is comparing low calorie colas.  I love Pepsi Max!

The winner of the taste table is Diet Pepsi so I obviously have good taste!!

Interestingly the Lidl and Waitrose colas are placed joint second.  Diet Coke comes third and Tesco cola comes last.  The tasters are all surprised at how good the supermarket own colas taste.  I might even give a bottle a go myself…

Mandy cooks bacon in the microwave – I’ve been doing that for donkeys years!  It seems like a lot of people have never done it but it’s so easy and you only make one plate dirty rather than a grill pan or a frying pan.

I have learnt tonight that tomato puree counts as one of your five a day because it has no added sugar or salt.  I think I knew that potatoes don’t count but sweet potato’s do count.

Mandy makes toad in the hole on the show.  It’s one of my absolute favourites.  I learnt how to make brilliant batter from a baker and it works every time so I know that making toad in the hole is very easy.

If the family keep the swops they will save £85 per week.

Another interesting programme.