Economy gastronomy – Eat better and spend less

A major new weekly primetime BBC series ‘Economy Gastronomy’ start yesterday, with an accompanying tie-in book. ‘Economy Gastronomy’ is about eating better and spending less. It’s about cutting your weekly shopping bill whilst making the most of your ingredients.

The programme aims to show you how to cook really good food and have some money left over at the end of the week.

The credit crunch is having a massive impact on what and how we eat. The average family’s food bill went up by £1000 last year, with a staggering one third of all food we buy destined straight for the kitchen bin. Top chefs Allegra McEvedy and Paul Merrett not only show us how to slash our food bills, but not compromise on flavour and fun at the same time, through making a simple set of achievable changes.

The basic principles are:

• Find out how much you really do spend.
• Plan what you're going to eat for one week ahead at a time.
• Get two or three meals out of one
• Imaginatively transform leftovers into new and delicious dishes.
• Freeze and store food to make what you’ve got last longer.
• Waste nothing. You will be surprised to learn that investing in a luxury bedrock ingredient like a whole salmon can actually save money because it creates not one, two or three - but four dishes across seven days.

This new series and accompanying book, unlock the secrets of how to shop for, plan with, and use ingredients ingeniously to create amazing, flavour packed food on a budget.

The magic ingredient is just that – the ingredients – investing in the best you can afford but making them work that bit harder for you. In short, if you embrace Economy Gastronomy as a way of life, you’ll not only save yourself a small fortune, but you and your family will find renewed job in the kitchen, and hopefully you’ll pick up some good life habits too.

Book: ‘Economy Gastronomy’ by Allegra McEvedy and Paul Merrett, published by Penguin/ Michael Joseph in hardback on 17th August, £20.

For more information visit BBC.co.uk.