Homemade vs Store Bought {Everything You Need To Know}

I often get asked 'Doesn't real food take a lot of preparation and cooking time?' and the answer is, it depends. You've gotta hate those it depends answers, right! But the truth is, Homemade vs Store bought food isn't really a black and white line. There's a few things that need to be taken into consideration before you really know what to buy and what to make.

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Homemade vs Store Bought

When we first started eating Clean, I used to spend hours making everything from scratch. Everything. I thought that was what I was meant to do.

Now I spend around 1 - 2 hours a day in the kitchen preparing meals for my family, which isn't bad considering it includes all meals - breakfast, lunchs, lunchboxes, dinners and snacks.

I had to find that balance between homemade and store bought items. Some things I am happy to make myself, but others not so much. And I like cooking, it's a hobby and I can potter for ages in a good cook shop, but I don't love it.

However, once you make the decision to eat Real food, you can get a little obsessed.

Looking back now, I must have somehow felt if we didn't go all in, it wasn't worth it. Logically I knew we should start small, which is what we ended up doing once I'd calmed down a little, but here's some of the things I did right at the beginning:

Stocking up on every organic product around
Getting up at 5.30am to get good parking at the farmers market
Marking out the spot to start that organic vegetable patch I always wanted. What's better than watching your children eat homegrown, organic vegetables after all!
That household cleaning stuff needs to go. All natural from now. In fact, you are going to make all of it yourself. From scratch. From three ingredients
Chickens. You need chickens for those fresh, free range eggs you'll be eating
The only question now, is can you raise a cow in your backyard without your neighbour complaining? Hmmm.

Trying to do it all will lead to Real Food burnout, as I discovered. How do I know this? Because this is exactly what I experienced after my first year of Real food living.

I loved so many of the things about our Clean living lifestyle - no more processed food, homemade everything, cooking with local food. Seriously, I was hooked. But, I was exhausted. All the time.

What was meant to be good for our family was causing me to be tired and stressed out. If I stopped for a day, then there would be nothing to eat just a cupboard full of real food ingredients. I felt as if I was permanently running doing things that weren't making me happy and frankly, no-one in my family even noticed.

I was also getting a little obsessive 'Sticking to the Rules'. It got to the point that when I bought something a little off my 'Clean Eating Guidelines' I felt guilty for not being 'good enough'. I was wrapped up the idea that it had to be all or nothing.

This had to stop. And it did.

Foods I Make At Home

Pizza dough - Firstly, this takes minutes and secondly, I've never been able to find a pizza base, or dough, that's not got preservatives and other nasties in it somewhere. That's not to say it doesn't exist, just that I've not found it!
Wholemeal pastry - Same as the pizza dough, this is easy and quick to make. I have in the past found one all butter pastry, but never saw it again, and if I remember, it was priced well out of my budget. I use this pastry all the time.
Healthy biscuits - Kids snacks, my snacks, have been one of the hardest things to find in the store that are Clean. Or even nearly Clean. When people talk about healthy kids snacks they often offer you a selection between fruit or raw vegetables. While we eat masses of both fruit and vegetables, my kids are biscuit lovers and weren't about to never touch a biscuit again. That would be totally unrealistic, and so I always make biscuits.

Is Homemade Better Than Store Bought?

It's very easy to get swept away with the idea of Natural living. There will always be more that you can do. Always. There will always be someone else doing it 'better, living more 'Greener'. Frankly, it's exhausting.

Don't get caught up in this comparison game and think that what you are doing isn't good enough. Remember, you are doing this for you and your family. No-one else. Making small, do-able changes for the long haul is what a practical, simplified real food lifestyle is all about. If you changed only one thing about your families diet for the better, that's got to be a good thing, right?

There's a legal concept called the 'Reasonable Man (or woman) Test'.

What this very simply means is that even in Law there are situations where there isn't a clear Right or Wrong answer. The Reasonable Person test is used to help determine the correct action that should be taken. So, the question would have been something like, 'What would a Reasonable person have done in this situation?'.

Now I love this idea.

It reminds me that life is often a little unclear. And despite all the rules that are thrown at us everyday, like: Eat this, not that, there are some grey areas that we need to decide on for ourselves. And whether shop bought or homemade food is better is a good example of this.

Once I understood this, really understood this, I stopped trying to be perfect and stopped making everything a right or wrong decision. I decided that I didn't have to make everything from scratch (a rule that I had placed on myself somewhere along the line) and developed a reasonable plan for deciding what to buy versus what to make.

It's okay to purchase some real food options and not make everything in your kitchen. I save time and often money by not making everything at home. And that means, our diet and lifestyle is not controlling me, I'm controlling it. Sometimes I even take a little break and get my husband to grab takeout on the way home :)

Store Bought Food

There's 3 questions I ask myself when deciding if I should make it at home or buy it in the shops. Don't get me wrong, I do not pause and think about every single food I'm about to use. But, I did spend a great deal of time in the beginning looking at labels and making decisions. It gets easier as time goes on. As creatures of habit, we tend to buy the same things over and over again and use them in different ways. You'll very quickly get to know what's Clean and what's not.

Is There A Good (or good enough) Store Bought Alternative?

Consider whether or not a good store-bought alternative is available before you decide to make it at home.

Just because it's sold in the store, it doesn't make it bad for us. This popular concept that the Supermarkets are out to hurt us is rubbish. It's just a business. Like most businesses, they want to sell what their customers are buying and they want to make a profit. Good or bad. It doesn't make it right, it's just how it is. We have the choice to buy or not. Us.

The demand for good quality, organic food is growing and Supermarkets are stocking more and more products made from real food ingredients by food producers who really care about the quality of food they are producing. This is very good news.

My favorite example of this is Pasta sauce. Now, I used to make it from scratch every time. I had ruled out all packaged goods and had decided (without any investigation) that they weren't 'good enough'.

One season tomatoes got a little expensive and I started using organic canned tomatoes. The pasta sauces sit right next to the canned tomatoes in my local store. One night I was running late … and I picked up a bottle and read the ingredients: organic tomatoes, herbs, garlic and onion. Hey! That's exactly how I would have made it at home. And so I bought it, and have done ever since for those nights when a 20 minute dinner is about 15 minutes out of reach!

There are so many store bought alternatives that you can buy with relatively Clean, real food ingredients. I've made a cheat sheet list of some of the other products we buy. Scroll down to take a look.

Yes, it will take a little effort to read the labels and get your own list of what you are comfortable with. And depending on your area, budget, and food availability your list will vary from mine.

Remember, you can change your list as and when you feel like it. You'll notice that some things are on both sides of my list because sometimes, and not often, I just feel like making it.

Will I Save Money Or Time?

If both a quality store bought product and homemade options are available, I look at the cost and time.

If the store bought option is a little more expensive than the homemade one, I weigh up the time it would take to make it. I can't really factor in time spent travelling to the store etc, as I'm going there anyway, so this is purely based on time in my kitchen.

If it's quick and easy to make - and makes a good batch that I can use more than once - then I will probably make it at home. But if I can better use the time doing something else, then I will buy it ready made.

Your time is precious and what you choose to do with it is important. I don't want my decision to eat Real food take away from the time I spend with my family. That means, I have to get smart about it if I want it to work for us.

What's The Feel-Good Factor?

This is my grey area question. Sometimes you have a product which is more expensive to make at home, takes more time to make and yet you still make it or grow it at home.

Why?

Because it makes you feel good. Free range eggs are a perfect example of this. My chickens take up way more time and expense than simply buying free range eggs. They are messy, they are adventurous and they sometimes don't even lay. Seriously, it just doesn't add up, until you look at the other benefits we get from them.

The joy we get from collecting those eggs, snuggling those chickens and countless everyday experiences far outweigh the common sense and so even though it's more work, even though it's a right pain at times, we choose to carry on. Because it makes us feel good.

Here is the list below of products we Buy vs Make at home. This can change depending on recipes I try or products I find. I will try and keep it updated as I go.

Store Bought vs Homemade {Cheat Sheet}

I do cook most of our food at home, but I don't make everything I use. I buy a lot on my ingredients from either the store, local farmers or our farmers market.

There are A LOT of great, wholesome companies out there, so if I find a good product, I'm more than happy to pay for something pre-made if I know it's going to save me time and I'm happy with the ingredients list.

Milk | | Local Farmer Purchase
Eggs | Homemade (We have our own chickens)
Butter | Store bought mostly (I choose organic and local where I can)
Cream | Local Farmer Purchase
Yogurt | Local Farmer Purchase
Mozzarella Cheese | Local Farmer Purchase
Cheddar Cheese | Store bought
Parmesan Cheese | Store bought

Coconut Oil | Store bought & organic
Olive Oil | Local Farmer Purchase
Apple Cider Vinegar | Store bought
Coconut Milk | Store bought
Almond Milk | Store Bought

Mayonnaise | Homemade or store bought
Ketchup | Store bought
Mustard | Store bought
Spaghetti or Pizza Sauce | Store bought & Homemade (or I purchase jarred or canned tomatoes & add my herb mix)
BBQ Sauce | Store Bought
Salsa | Homemade
Pickles | Store bought
Balsamic Salad Dressing, Homemade Italian Seasoning | Homemade
Taco Seasoning | Homemade
Ranch Dressing | Homemade