There is such a wide variety of nutritional products available to customers that you can easily come across the same type of product available for absolutely different prices. For some groups of products, choosing a cheaper equivalent can be a great and absolutely sensible way to save money, however, there are also many product categories that lose a lot on their quality with the reduction of their prices.
Dairy products are a great example of such food and it is highly recommended to refrain from saving money on them.
Cottage cheese
Pure cottage cheese is a great source of proteins and calcium, however, not all of the cottage cheese available on the market is equally healthy. Unfortunately, it is more and more common to add starch to such products in order to decrease the amount of fat or protein making the product cheaper and still keep its proper consistency.
As you can imagine, such addition is absolutely unnecessary and is even harmful for those people who are consuming cottage cheese hoping to get the essential amount of proteins with this food. It is also common to find cottage cheese with plant oils instead of natural milk fats.
The quality of such goods is certainly compromised, however, it depends on the quality of the substitutes used for its production. It does not necessarily mean there will be any harm for your health but such a product definitely will not give you anything useful which is usually the reason why people are buying cottage cheese in the first place.
Cheese
Cheese is actually one of the most commonly altered product with a variety of additives. When it comes to cheese, you should be aware of the fact that looking for real cheese rather than a cheese-like product, you should know there is a minimum price of this product for which this product is available and it cannot cost cheaper. This price threshold depends on the price of milk in the first place, since for the production of one kilogramme of this product a manufacturer needs nearly ten litres of milk.
Actually, since the history of cheese alternation is probably one of the longest processes in the entire history of food production, many countries have already adopted some regulations for naming such products and according to them, manufacturers are not allowed to call just any product resembling cheese real cheese. Yet, it is not working properly everywhere, so it is highly recommended to be careful about the ingredients of the product you would like to purchase.
Usually, the very basic alternation of cheese is adding starch and plant-based oils which certainly changes the taste of the final product and increases the amount of carbohydrates. Needless to say, many individuals careful about their diets are doing everything they can to reduce carbohydrates and it is really a pity to accidentally consume them with such food.
Pastries and desserts made with the addition of milk
It is not thus complicated to find affordable or even cheap pastries and desserts, however, their quality might be rather poor.
In all likelihood, if you have ever made your own cream pie or any other dessert with cream, you have found out this is a pretty expensive endeavour. Indeed, a part of the products you have to take for this purpose is pretty cheap such as sugar or flavour, however, many other ingredients added up to the total can make it pretty pricey. Even such a simple product as eggs will make you spend some money if the dessert requires a couple of them, let alone other ingredients, for example mascarpone.
Knowing all of this, you can imagine cheap desserts just cannot be done out of such products. There are always some substitutes, especially used for cream that are affecting the quality and taste of the product.
One of the most typical changes made in such products is using margarine instead of butter which itself makes the taste worse, however, this is still a good substitute since the modern technology has found other variations of cheaper products with a way smaller amount of fat.
Pastries and desserts will simply not be tasty if they are not made with the ingredients of a high quality. In addition to it, many people really feel bad eating various fat alternatives and plant-based whipped cream that can be rather heavy for digestion. In any case, sweet treats themselves are not healthy at all and if you go for the cheapest ones, you will not even get any pleasure of having them whole they will certainly not bring anything good for your health.