Canned vegetable prices... latest paradigm

HEB lower priced store brands were .58, Del Monte was .68. This was corn and beans. Fruits were .88 a can.

The five briskets I bought like to have given me a coronary!!! $3.68 a pound and I got about 50 pounds. Son in law better enjoy the heck out of this surprise party. But that
s a whole nother thread.
Ed

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"Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness."
Thomas Jefferson to George Washington 1787

MOgal, thanks for the tips! I may start doing that myself. I prefer the taste of most frozen veggies over canned (green beans being the one exceI ption I can think of, I actually prefer them canned), but after losing a whole freezer full of food in one of our yearly ice storms a few years back, don't like to depend on the freezer if I don't have to.

Do you do anything to them before putting in the dehydrator or just dump them in frozen? I love to find more ways to use my dehydrator and food sealer, lol, thanks!

When you are bemoaning the price of things, try to put things in perspective: what can you actually do with a buck these days? If you can find a payphone, like as not a simple phone call will cost you a dollar. Used to be a nickel, used to be a dime or a quarter or two, but it has been a long while. A local bus ride will cost you a dollar, if not more, right? Sometimes we get stuck in a 10-year-old pricing mode, and don't think about how much a dollar is worth anymore. Think about the price of a gallon of gas or diesel, and the price of steel (for those cans). Things just can't be done at those 10 and 20 year old prices anymore.

(On the issue of frozen or canned -- the only canned veggie I use is canned tomatoes. Frozen veggies are so superior to canned. The matter of power outages or freezer malfunction is there, but I'd rather take a chance on losing something worth eating than have canned stuff that's not worth eating hanging around for years just because in a previous lifetime it began as food...but that's just me.)

any time I can find it under 60 cents a can, it's a good deal around here.

You're welcome, Calliemoonbeam. As to doing anything special, nope, just straight from the bag. Our dehydrator is an Excalibur with a 16" square tray and I've found that a 1# bag of frozen veggies fits fairly well once I've spread them out. If I have a larger bulk bag, I use a scoop or measuring cup to put a bit here, spread that, a bit next too the first and spread it just using my hands so they aren't in a pile. I've done green peas, whole kernel corn, green beans and a soup mix of those three plus carrots. I also buy fresh carrots and celery when on sale and slice for the dehydrator--tedious, oh, so tedius to slice enough carrots with a mandoline since I don't get good slices from my old food processor. I've seen advice to blanch and other sources saying not to. I've never blanched them and they are fine when I use them.

I have a 9-tray Excalibur, so that's great. I do lots of fresh celery, onions and bell peppers, and I don't blanch either, but haven't done fresh carrots. I'll have to try those too, wonder how my food processor will do, hmm. Thanks again!

I just paid 1.29 for Green Giant green beans at the local grocery. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaa Baaaaaaaaaaa

Ok, just to play DA (devil's advocate), how much nutrition is in a can of corn or can of green beans. Are the immature corn kernels really a vegetable or are they a grain? Much different than whole corn meal? More sugar I guess... Actually you have to look on the can, much of the canned corn has ADDED SUGAR. Real sweet corn shouldnt need added sugar unless it old varieties and they waited to process it for too long and the natural sugars all turned to starch.

The green beans, are they more greens or more beans. I doubt they come close to either. And I have bought some cans of green beans that I dont know what they did to them but YUCK, they went straight to compost pile.

With all the price gouging, I start asking myself if I am actually buying any real nutrition when I pick up something. And I still get stares and weird questions when people see rice and lentils in my cart. I've been asked if I am on some charity food program or something. Yea, people are impolite anymore and no I am not on any charity food program, LOL...

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

Except in severely limited cases, I think 2/$1 is the new paradigm sale price for decent quality.

I ran across that price point at Kroger's last week and bought a good bit of stuff we don't raise...canned spinach, carrots and english peas. Also found Campbell's cream soups for the same price, and bought quite a few of those.

Dollar general here has Libby's veggies on sale this coming Sunday-Thur for .40 a can. I went to ebay and bought 20 , 1 dollar off on 4 cans of libby's veggies coupons for $6.00. They will end up costing me about .25 can with the cost of the coupons added in.

Hey, you only live once, and you 'doing' it is probably a heckuva lot cheaper than getting a caterer. IF I were buying that much, I'd'a asked my butcher a month before hand if they knew of any sales going on, up until the time I actually needed em, and if there were, buy them then. Also, I'd'a asked if I could get a discount on a case price. Most of the meat now is in ~50lb boxes.

Your gettin' off easy... you should see the looks I get when I go thru checkout with four or five huge boxes of fat, meat trimmings, expired meats, etc. "New" checkers, I sometimes have to open a box to show em exactly what I'm getting (meat parts they've NEVER seen before) and never have to show em again. Amazingly, some never even ask what's in the boxes....

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Texican, I'm doin beans and potato salad. DD and I took the briskets to one of their friends, he is cooking them for us. MAN, he has a setup. He has a pit, brick lined with fire brick, Grate sits down about a foot below the lid, which is heavy and counterbalanced. Built like the old pit bbq places used to be. I'm looking forward to the eatin tonight for sure. Last count was 35 to 40 people.
Son in law is worth it, when I broke my legs in April he stuck to me like a tick.
Ed

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"Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness."
Thomas Jefferson to George Washington 1787

our garden did terrible too. Im not seeing the great sales either, but I am still overstocked from easter sales in green beans, corn, peas. I have been watching sales ads closely, and am in town more than most, so I have been able to really stock up on the loss leaders. Our Maine Source restaurant supply had 10 lb bags of carrots from Canada a couple months back for 2.50. I bought 4 and canned, dried and froze them all. I think it was the only purchase I made all week, besides milk. Now for thanksgiving, seems everyone has the celery on sale but not carrots, so Im glad I stocked up (celery will be this week...dehydrator going like crazy)
Wish I could find a deal on potatoes, but I do have plenty of buds and dry shreds in my pantry

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I'd rather have one Chewbacca than an entire clone army.

Still find best canned good prices at Aldi...currently beans .48 cents a can, carrots .59 cents can, beets .59 cents a can,cream corn .48 can,tomato sauce .29cents a can. We just plain don't have good sales here with no big chains. Our local grocery used to have case lot sales in the fall but haven't seen them this year. So we bought 6 cases each of the above. Managed to do enough tomatoes from our droughty garden plus whenever frozen veggies are on sale I dehydrate for soups/stews. Recently having .99cent bags makes frozen reasonable as for the two of us that is two meals. My DH laments the loss of 3/$1 pork and beans. Yuck. But he likes 'em for lunch.

I just picked up a 2-lb bag of Safeway frozen mixed vegs for $2 on sale; Frys/Kroger has 1-lb bags for $1 so that seems to be the "normal" sale price locally now. Compared to canned mixed vegs labelled 14.4 oz, I think, the frozen shows maybe 40 cal more than for $2 worth of the canned, same proportions of ingredients. I just nuked some of the frozen and have the remainder spread out in a tray to dry partially then go to the dehydrator. will rehydrate in a few days, cook, see if they're close for my taste. If so, I'll watch for any frozen closeouts to get that base cost down some more, it seems real close now at the 50c/can basis, considering the extra time and expense of dehydrating and packing.