Today’s market is flooded with various kinds of concoctions and premixes- for sauces, gravies, bakes and cakes. As I ponder to list the advantages and disadvantages of using them, the one thing that is clearly evident is that, these are here to stay.
To put it simple, chefs use pre-mixes and sauces for many reasons like:
- Convenience of preparation
- No storing, buying or planning of ingredients.
- Ease of use even by in experienced and inexperienced staff
- Expensive raw materials
- Reduce the manpower requirement
- Cost effective methodologies
- Recipes can be standardised and food consistency can be maintained
- Reduces spoilage and wastage
- Chefs can easily cook for large groups of people in less time
- Transportation of packaged foods is cheaper especially in concentrated form.
- Cost efficient for mass production and distribution
- Economical for bulk producers and industrialists
Well, does that mean we neglect the below points:
- Convenience foods are typically high in calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, salt, and trans-fats which are pumped into the product to increase the shelf life which makes the food unhealthy
- Pre-mixes and sauces lack freshness in the ingredients as its nutritive values of the products are often lost in the processing
- The consumer doesn’t have a control in what goes into his food like the quality of ingredients used, and the levels of sugar and fats
- Lack of authenticity in taste
- It is harder to control fat sugar and salt levels while cooking with pre-mixes
- Cost per serving may be higher than fresh ones
- Cooking time is sometimes increased for thawing or longer baking time
- Sometimes reduces the chefs’ ability to be creative
Sauces are an integral part of any dish/recipe. The sauce has an equal if not more weightage when it comes to a dish composition. Hence, it is very important to get it right all the time.
Ready-to-use sauces can solve this conundrum. Now, the extent of usage of these ingredients is strictly to be governed by entities and they are responsible to ensure safe, wholesome, fresh and nutritious food is offered to all guests. These days’ guests/consumers are aware and well-travelled and demand the best to be offered to them and I believe it is also the right thing to do.
Each entity that is in the business should take conscious decisions to use the ingredients wisely and should use it to enhance their offerings. Common sense should prevail or we shall all be eating food out of cans in the next few years.
