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Well, homemade ketchup is better than any brand of ketchup I have ever tasted.
Homemade mayonnaise is also better than any I have ever tasted. Add your own spices/herbs, it is in a class of its own. Toss in a fresh egg yolk laid an hour earlier, top quality oil, meyer lemon juice, and it is unlike Hellman's or any others you can buy. And, with a blender/fb/mixer, it doesn't take long to make mayo. It doesn't keep as long as a jar bought at the store. And that might be the show stopper--commercial foods have additives that give them a longer shelf (or fridge) life. I make my own mayo. I have to do something with all those eggs.
 
Home made mayonnaise is not as thick as the mayo in a jar. And depending on the oil and vinegar you use, the flavor is mobile.
 
Home made mayonnaise is not as thick as the mayo in a jar. And depending on the oil and vinegar you use, the flavor is mobile.
Depends on the oil to egg ratio and if you use the whole egg or just the yolk, or maybe it has to do with how fresh the eggs are...mine's pretty darn thick...maybe I need to stop being so chintzy with the oil...
 
Depends on the oil to egg ratio and if you use the whole egg or just the yolk, or maybe it has to do with how fresh the eggs are...mine's pretty darn thick...maybe I need to stop being so chintzy with the oil...

I've never had any "stand up" mayo that I've made, but then I like to whisk it by hand. I bet it would whip right up with the immersion blender.
 
Oh yes, I also like using the immersion blender. It does "whip right up" and well, we could carry on about how the taste is better, etc., but I have to call it a night. The girls will be looking for breakfast in a few hours so they can produce more EGGS.
 
I've never had any "stand up" mayo that I've made, but then I like to whisk it by hand. I bet it would whip right up with the immersion blender.

When I have made mayo in a blender, it wasn't as thick as store bought, but when I made with the mixer (the old kind, with two egg beater-like thingees), it was really thick - thicker than anything I ever bought at the store.
 
Why worry about semantics? =) Eat as fresh and local as you can & fill in the gaps with sensible substitutes.
 
My main concern for homemade vs. store bought would be health. Homemade mayo is not something I would consider due to the raw egg problem.

Then I decided to make my own homemade tomato soup. After straining out the peel and seeds, I could discern no difference in taste between Campbell and homemade. But a big difference in cost. Considering how many tomatoes along with milk, labor and electricity it took, to get the same amount as a properly made can of soup, I'll stay with Campbell. But should I make my own crackers to crunch in the can of soup? I do have a recipe and they are very creamy crackers. But they are more for a chowder. I will stick with the Sunshine Saltines.

I do cook from scratch. Or at least I think I do. All my veggies are cooked from the raw state. And I don't buy any marinated meats. I do have a butcher that I know personally, and he gives me what I want usually cut fresh from the side of the animal while I wait. He gets a truck from Chicago delivering every morning. So I guess you say I cook my meats from scratch. Condiments, flour, butter, etc. I think it is a given that for the most part we all buy and use them. That doesn't lessen our "cooking from scratch".

For those in my age group or who are handicap in their mobility, we have to depend on our local supermarket to obtain the freshest and bestest produce possible. For those who have a farmers stand or market within traveling distance, they are the fortunate ones. They can go out and buy each day what is in season and plan their days menu. For others, they can just go outside their kitchen door and pick their needs from their garden. But they still have to travel to the store for milk, condiments, etc. They are still scratch cooks.

I think the ones we wouldn't consider a scratch cook are the ones who load up their freezer with TV Dinners, frozen pies, Hot pockets for everyday lunch, Swanson breakfast entrees, Jimmy Dean Sausage Sandwiches, etc. They feed their families three meals and snacks a day out of the freezer. I believe we would call them Freezer Queens. After the freezer comes their pantry. Hamburger Helper, Kraft mac and cheese in a box, canned chili, white bread that tastes like cardboard, canned spaghetti, canned veggies over salted, instant coffee, bottled dressings, powdered and canned milk, etc. But they have the biggest set of the most expensive pans, and knives. More the sorrow for them. :(
 
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I presume that you mean home made can't be as smooth and even...


Smooth and even is easy. That's not the issue.

Commercial mayo has a pudding-like texture beyond thickness that I haven't duplicated. To be honest, I haven't tried either. As I said, homemade mayo isn't worth the effort for a sandwich.
 
Commercial mayo has a pudding-like texture beyond thickness that I haven't duplicated. To be honest, I haven't tried either. As I said, homemade mayo isn't worth the effort for a sandwich.

It depends on whether or not a person has a source for eggs--I am never in that much of a hurry that I cannot take the time to make homemade mayonnaise. And goodness knows, I have enough eggs. I just wish mayo used more eggs!

Gently heating the yolks enough to kill the bacteria (but not cook the yolks) is recommended if one is concerned about salmonella. My chickens are vaccinated. Eggs sold in the US are often irradiated before sale (I believe they are marked with a "P"). There are three locations in the US were this is done. All the eggs my parents in MN buy come from a location in IL.

This is a link to one method of heating the yolks, another is in the microwave:

Homemade Mayonnaise Recipe - Cooked Mayonnaise Recipe
 
When I have made mayo in a blender, it wasn't as thick as store bought, but when I made with the mixer (the old kind, with two egg beater-like thingees), it was really thick - thicker than anything I ever bought at the store.
I agree. I don't make mayo often (and usually only as a tartar sauce for fish - yum) but I've never had a problem with thickness. I use an immersion blender with a whisk attachment and it whips up nice.

The problem I have is that it doesn't keep well. Once you put it in the fridge it starts to separate. But that's only because it doesn't contain carageenan and guar gum and all the stabilizer stuff they put into commercial mayo. That's fine. Just means I have to eat it all the sooner. :)
 
Smooth and even is easy. That's not the issue.

Commercial mayo has a pudding-like texture beyond thickness that I haven't duplicated. To be honest, I haven't tried either. As I said, homemade mayo isn't worth the effort for a sandwich.

Nope, Hellmann's has that covered. I quit making mayo when I did the math and it was cheaper to buy it ready made. That was before the raw egg scare.
 
The problem I have is that it doesn't keep well. Once you put it in the fridge it starts to separate. But that's only because it doesn't contain carageenan and guar gum and all the stabilizer stuff they put into commercial mayo. That's fine. Just means I have to eat it all the sooner. :)

Neither Duke's, Kraft, not Hellmann's contain carageenan or gum. What they do have is some calcium disodium as a preservative. It's commonly available as a supplement. I have no idea how much is effective as a preservative or if the commercial makers take other steps, such as using irradiated eggs. Keeping homemade mayo probably comes under the heading of experiments we leave to other people. But, as to thickness, there's no magic thickening ingredient in commercial mayo.
 
Neither Duke's, Kraft, not Hellmann's contain carageenan or gum. What they do have is some calcium disodium as a preservative. It's commonly available as a supplement. I have no idea how much is effective as a preservative or if the commercial makers take other steps, such as using irradiated eggs. Keeping homemade mayo probably comes under the heading of experiments we leave to other people. But, as to thickness, there's no magic thickening ingredient in commercial mayo.
My assumption is that the "magic thickening" in commercial mayo involves cooking, since I don't believe they would be allowed to sell a raw egg product.

Interesting about the calcium disodium EDTA. Livestrong.com warns of some pretty serious drug interactions.

Dangers Of Calcium Disodium Edta | LIVESTRONG.COM
 
They're talking about theraputic dosages and people taking it as a supplement, not warning of killer mayonnaise. It's sold as an OTC supplement as a chelating agent with a recommended daily dosage of 1 gram. I suspect that's more than the amount in a whole jar of mayonnaise. The regulatory limit for mayonnaise is 75 ppm. If I calculated properly, 16 fluid ounces of mayo = 32 tbsp. One tbsp is 14 grams (from jar label). So the jar is 448 grams. One millionth part is .000448 grams. 75 millions parts, then, is .0338 grams, or 3/100 of a gram. The one tbsp serving would then have about 1/1000 gram, in the range of ten grains of salt. I don't think I'll be fretting of that.
 
Nevertheless, it's just this sort of food alchemy that leads me away from many commercial products. In the case of commercial mayo, I agree it sounds overall like the ingredients are mostly natural, but I don't think that many common food additives are as well researched as we would like to believe. They are generally added to make the product pretty or more shelf stable or whatever. It's not a tablespoon of mayonnaise here or there that I worry about. It's the cumulative effects of consuming chemicals over many years time.

But it's all a personal choice.
 
Probably a financial choice for the both the maker and the consumer. It's clear from the number offered that it's perfectly feasible to produce commercial mayonnaise without preservatives. The maker acquires at least two liabilities, then. One is that their product will have a shorter sell date, making it more cumbersome for the retailer to stock. And retailers stock less of anything with short dates. So the retailer gets fewer quantity breaks, and the maker sells and ships less efficiently. That has to pass along to the consumer. Since people who are rabid about preservatives will generally pay the higher price, there's some give there. I suspect it's also about actual liability. Some people are going to be lax about maintaining refrigeration of the opened jar. The added preservative probably saves the maker considerable grief, both in claims for injury and in customers leaving the brand because they perceive it as not keeping well. A jar of mayonnaise lasts me a very long time.

And the labelled ingredients are only those the maker intentionally uses. The presence of medications and chemicals in eggs is more significant than tiny amounts of a preservative. And the toxic compounds in the individual ingredients are not listed on the mayonnaise label. You can easily alarm people about each mayonnaise ingredient, even the homemade variety. Of course, it's pretty easy to alarm some people about any food.
 
By "personal choice", what I mean is I'll eat what I want and you can eat what you want. Deal?

If you like the commercial stuff then by all means enjoy. And by the same token, you aren't going to convince me otherwise. I'll continue to make my own. That is, after all, what this thread is about. So why try to start an argument?
 
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