Originally Posted by
cubbie
I see this often on food-related forums and it always annoys me: someone creates a thread to ask for opinions about commercial products (what's the best yellow cake mix/jarred giardiniera/store-bought spaghetti sauce/frozen Chinese dumpling/dry pasta/boxed chicken broth/whatever, and someone eventually, invariably, replies "it's so easy, why don't you make it yourself?" That's a useful answer to "how hard is this to make myself?" It's not a useful answer to "I can't or don't want to make this myself; what's your favorite commercial brand?"
Perhaps, but you need to establish whose opinions you want to elicit. There can't be many food lovers who would countenance making a cake from a box of chemicals when it's so easy, and common, in Western cultures to do it yourself and the outcome is so hugely better (in terms of taste, freshness and avoidance of nasty substances). So, if you eliminate food lovers from your responses, then why would you rely on any of the answers?