Food Habits

This assignment explores the range of food products available in the supermarkets and convenience stores. In my first piece of research I have devised a two day menu based on the ‘Eatwell Plate’, which shows the different types of foods we need to eat and in what proportions, to have a well-balanced healthy diet. I have included both chilled ready-prepared foods and homemade recipes in my menus, and then explored the shops to research availability and pricing of the food products required. My two day menu is set out below:-
Day 1 Day 2
Breakfast Breakfast
Bran Flakes Baked beans on wholemeal toast
Semi skimmed milk Apple
Banana Orange juice
Orange juice
Lunch Lunch
Ready prepared chicken and bacon pasta Chicken and roasted vegetable fajitas
Oat bar Mixed nuts
Dinner Dinner
Sausage, sweet potato mash and vegetables Ready prepared Spaghetti Bolognese
Prepared fresh fruit salad Strawberries and yoghurt

The table below breaks down each individual item required for the menu and compares the price of each product in both a superstore and convenience shop.

Day 1 Meal/Food item | Superstore (Tesco) | Convenience shop (Budgens) | Kelloggs Bran flakes 30g | 11p | 13p | 2 pint Semi skimmed milk 125ml | 20p | 19p | Single banana | 12p | Sold out | Orange juice 200ml | 20p | 34p | Chilled prepared chicken and bacon pasta 250g | £1.59 | £2.12 | Quaker fruit and muesli bar 35g | 44p | 42p | 1 sweet potato | 35p | Unavailable | 2 pork sausages 100g | 10p | 18p | Broccoli 80g | 16p | 20p | Birds eye garden peas 80g | 21p | 22p | Prepared fresh fruit salad 160g | £1.25 | £1.15 |

Day 2 | Superstore (Tesco) | Convenience shop (Budgens) | Heinz baked bean 207g | 25p | 25p | 2 slices Hovis wholemeal medium bread 80g | 9p | 11p | Gala apple | 26p | 30p | Orange juice 200ml | 20p | 34p | 1 chicken breast 167g | £1 | £1.33 | 1 red pepper | 78p | 86p | 2 tortilla wrap | 30p | 45p | 1 tomato | 17p | 20p | Mushrooms 100g | 24p | 54p | ½ iceberg lettuce | 40p | Sold out | Colmans Fajita seasoning pack 12g | 74p | 87p | 1 red onion | 19p | 22p | Mixed nuts 50g | 42p | 68p | Spaghetti bolognese ready prepared meal 400g | 95p | £2.07 | Strawberries 150g | £1.12 | £1.50 | Muller light vanilla yoghurt 175g | 60p | 75p |

There are certain trends that have appeared comparing the pricing of the food products over the two day menu between the superstore and the convenience shop. Bar a select few items the superstore tends to be cheaper, in some circumstances a significant amount cheaper. The only three items which are cheaper in the convenience store being semi skimmed milk, fresh fruit salad and the muesli bar. The biggest comparison in price seems to be amongst the chilled ready meals. For example, purchasing the Spaghetti Bolognese meal in Tesco offers a saving of £1.12, over a 100% saving. Another example of this is the chilled ready prepared chicken and bacon salad, with Tesco offering a saving of 53p on this product over Budgens. There are a number of products which offer over a 50% saving in Tesco including mixed nuts, mushrooms, tortilla wraps and orange juice. The majority of the products are between 1p and 20p cheaper in Tesco, the gap in price tending to increase with the price of the product. Another interesting finding was the unavailability of certain products in the convenience shop. Both the iceberg lettuce and the bananas were sold out in Budgens, products that are highly unlikely to ever be unavailable in a superstore. Also Budgens didn’t sell sweet potato, so that would have to be sacrificed on day one of the menu, for normal potatoes to be used if the homemade sausage and mash is to be cooked for dinner. I found there were other advantages to shopping in a superstore such as Tesco. There is a much wider range of product for example in Tesco there are different qualities of product which range in price. I found that especially within the ready meal range, you could purchase Tesco Everyday value, Tesco’s own brand or Tesco Finest, depending on the price you were willing to pay. Within this study, I used Tescos own brand as I thought that would be the fairest brand to use as a comparison. Also there is a wider range of quantity of product that you can purchase in a superstore. For example chicken breasts can be purchased in one; two or four packs in Tesco but Budgens only sold them in four packs. This could be a big money saver if you need to purchase chicken for a homemade dish, but you only need one or two chicken breasts. Not the four pack that is your only option in Budgens, hence wasting your money. Also certain fruits and vegetables that are sold loose or packaged in superstores are only sold packaged in convenience stores. I found this with bananas which can also be a waste of money if you only need four bananas but are forced to buy a bag of eight. I noticed that there were a lot more offers available on food products in the superstore, such as mixing and matching packets of fruit and vegetables, two for three pounds. Deals such as this, and other offers such as buy one item get the second half price offer the customer savings and are great incentives to shop with them.
The table below shows my findings comparing the nutritional content between ready meals and convenience foods, and versions that have been modified to lower their fat and sugar content.

| | Energy(kCal) | Protein(g) | Carbs.(g) | Carbs.Sugar (g) | Fat (g) | Saturates (g) | Mono (g) | Poly(g) | Tesco Lasagne(400g) | Standard | 538 | 32 | 49.2 | 7.6 | 26.4 | 14.4 | 8.8 | 1.2 | | Low fat | 425 | 26.4 | 40.8 | 6.4 | 12.4 | 6.4 | 4.8 | 0.4 | Heinz baked beans (207g) | Standard | 164 | 9.7 | 26.7 | 10.3 | 0.4 | 0 | - | - | | Reduced sugar | 145 | 9.5 | 22.3 | 7 | 0.4 | 0 | - | - | Tesco Greek yoghurt (100g) | Standard | 135 | 4.8 | 3.9 | 3.9 | 10.6 | 6.9 | 2.9 | 0.4 | | Low fat | 55 | 7.6 | 4.8 | 4.2 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0 | Tesco wafer thin ham (16.7g) | Standard | 23 | 4 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 0.3 | - | | Low fat | 19 | 3.8 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.2 | - | Tesco Sausages and mash (400g) | Standard | 555 | 19.5 | 49.5 | 11.6 | 29.3 | 6.6 | 9.9 | 3.6 | | Low fat | 350 | 17.6 | 47.1 | 0.9 | 8.9 | 3.8 | 3.2 | 1 | Tesco Cumberland sausages (101g) | Standard | 260 | 14.2 | 10.7 | 0.5 | 16.9 | 6 | 7.4 | 2.8 | | Low fat | 145 | 18.2 | 9.7 | 1.3 | 3.6 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 0.6 | Tesco Chicken BLT sandwich | Standard | 500 | 33.3 | 47.2 | 6.6 | 18.9 | 4.6 | 9.4 | 3.9 | | Low fat | 310 | 15.4 | 41.3 | 5.1 | 8 | 2.3 | 3.9 | 1.2 | Tesco Quiche Lorraine (100g) | Standard | 265 | 11 | 16.3 | 2.2 | 18.8 | 7 | 8.3 | 2.4 | | Low fat | 180 | 11.2 | 14.7 | 2.2 | 7.7 | 3.2 | 3.1 | 1 | Tesco tomato soup (200g) | Standard | 115 | 1.8 | 14.8 | 11.8 | 5 | 0.4 | - | - | | Low fat | 90 | 1.8 | 11.8 | 9 | 3.8 | 0.8 | - | - | Tesco Chicken Tikka Masala (400g) | Standard | 660 | 33.2 | 62 | 10.8 | 26.2 | 8.8 | 0 | 0 | | Low fat | 415 | 22.2 | 67.3 | 6.4 | 6.3 | 2.7 | - | - |

There are some very apparent trends that formed comparing the nutritional content between ready meals and convenience foods, and their versions that have been modified to lower their fat and sugar content; the clearest and most obvious trend being the difference in energy between standard and low fat foods. As you can see from the table, there are some glaring differences in kcals between certain products. I have compared the Tesco products with their ‘Light Choices’ range in order to demonstrate this. The ready prepared Chicken tikka masala and rice meal has a difference of 245kcals between the standard and the modified version, whilst the sausages and mash ready meal has a difference of 205kcals between the two versions. From the evidence collected, the biggest difference in energy seems to be amongst the ready prepared chilled meals. Consequently these products then show glaring differences in fat and saturated fat levels. Using the chicken tikka meal as an example again, the difference between the two versions in fat is 19.9g and in saturated fat 6.1g. Therefore choosing the standard version of these chilled ready prepared products over the low fat option can have negative effects if you are trying to maintain a well-balanced healthy diet. One particular item that shows a big variance in protein levels is the chicken BLT sandwich. The standard product offers 33.3g of protein whilst the ‘Light Choices’ option provides less than half of that figure with 15.4g. This suggests that the chicken and bacon quantities within the sandwich are highly reduced in the low fat option. Although protein is an important nutrient to us for many reasons, production of enzymes being one of them, it is also important to source the amino acids within the proteins from different sources of food. The ‘Eatwell Plate’ demonstrates this in showing the different types of food we need to eat and in what proportions. Fish, eggs, and dairy products are good examples of other sources of protein. It was interesting to compare the sugar levels between standard Heinz baked beans and the reduced sugar version. Although there was a difference of 3.3g between the two versions, which does demonstrate ‘reduced sugar’, 7g of sugar in half a tin of baked beans is still an extremely high amount and could be deemed to be a slightly misleading product. Other products that show big differences in carbohydrate that sugar are again the chilled ready prepared meals. The sausage and mash meal has a huge difference of 10.7g whilst the chicken tikka meal differs in sugars by 4.4g.
From analysing my findings it is evident that you are at a disadvantage if your local store is a convenience store such as Budgens. The unavailability of products can make the ‘Eatwell Plate’ and healthy eating difficult to adhere too, especially if you have a strict menu to follow. Also the prices of the majority of food products are more expensive than a superstore such as Tesco. This can put people off the ‘Eatwell Plate’ and healthy eating if it’s cheaper to get a meal from a fast food outlet such as fish and chips, than buying fresh produce to make healthy homemade meals. Unavailability also has an impact on healthy eating when comparing the nutritional content of standard and low fat versions. From the evidence collected you can see that the biggest differences in nutrients are amongst the ready meals, and the low fat versions cut back significantly on energy, carbohydrate that sugars and saturated fat. However these low fat versions were unavailable in the convenience store so if you’re looking to purchase a ready meal then there is no choice if you are looking for a healthier option. My final conclusion from my findings is that a superstore such as Tesco offers a much broader, diverse range of product at more affordable prices, therefore promotes healthy eating more than a convenience store such as Budgens.

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