Day 1 - "This pasta sauce tastes like sugared water!"

As many of our readers will know,  we are one day into our TV (Tesco Value) experiment. This means everything we eat has to be a Tesco Value product. We will be detailing out how the experiment is going each night. As we eat different bits and pieces we will do our own food diaries – although some nights (to be even more economical) we will club together and eat the same TV dinner.

Keli

So today I ate for my breakfast a classic – Toast and Jam. The Tesco Value Wholewheat Brown Bread was actually alright. The Strawberry Jam was sugary and synthetic tasting but I kind of liked it! All around generally fine, we will see how sick I get of this in a few days time. Lunch was a buttered bagel. Pretty basic and boring but this was my choice as I was in such a rush to prepare my lunch – tomorrow I am going to try their crisps (although I’ve been warned they taste like sawdust). I had dinner with Val, we shared massive plates (as you can see in the picture) of Cheesy Tomato Pasta using penne, pasta sauce and cheddar cheese. We drank apple juice and had some green olives on the side. Now the Penne was fine, as was the apple juice- neither of us could tell much difference (if any at all). The Tomato Pasta Sauce however was probably one of the most unpleasant things I have eaten, ever! It tasted like sugared water! Not tomatoes. Not herbs. Not even a sauce of any kind. But like syrup- and really bad tasting syrup. The cheese too was not much of a hit - it tasted like grated, unsalted butter! I then had a Chocolate Mouse for a snack afterwards. Now if anybody has ever eaten cocoa powder neat you have pretty much tasted a TV Choc Mouse, as this is basically what I thought it tasted like. So far I rate the day’s food overall 2/5 – on the plus, I did my food shopping for at least 4 days for £5!

Val –

Right, so I started the day with three Wheat Biscuits which is basically Tesco’s really bland way of describing Wheatabix. They were actually alright - not as good as Wheatabix, as they don’t really have a very distinct flavour, but more, a distinct texture. For lunch, I had an extremely satisfying P&J sandwich! The Strawberry Jam was surprisingly good, and though the Peanut Butter could have been better, it was much better than I was expecting. The White Bread that I had it with however, was not very nice. It kind of crumbled and then dissolved in my mouth, rather than…well…breaking down in the way other bread does. I accompanied my already very healthy lunch, with a mid-afternoon snack of a packet of TV’s Salt & Vinegar Crisps. They were crap! They were, without a doubt, the WORST crisps I have ever had in my life! They didn’t taste like anything, they can barely be called crisps! Keli described tonight’s dinner that was…an interesting experience. All in all, I think today gets a 2/5, as breakfast was alright, lunch was good, snack was crap, and dinner was, well, like I said, interesting…

Our Ratings

Penne Pasta – Buy

Tomato Pasta Sauce – Avoid (like the plague!)

Green olives - Try

Mild Cheddar – Avoid

Chocolate Mouse – Avoid

Apple Juice – Buy

Brown Bread – Try

Strawberry Jam – Try

Bagels – Try

White bread – Avoid

Peanut butter – Try

Salt and Vinegar Crisps – Avoid!