You’re better off.
TJ’s doesn’t use chemical preservatives, so a lot of their products are loaded with sodium (salt) as a preservative. Check the label sometime. You’d be shocked to see how much sodium is in a lot of their products.
They also use a ton of seed oils.
I don’t know how they got the reputation of being a healthy alternative.
I’ve almost always cooked from scratch, even when my kids were young. They didn’t always like it, cuz their friends got McDonald’s and other FF stuff for dinner. We did that much less frequently. It was a treat in our house. We simply couldn’t afford it. They’re all grown up now, and appreciate the homemade meals.
When the pandemic hit, and everyone was locked down, we had one son who was single and by himself, no roommates. So we started a “family food challenge” that we did every week, for at least a year, until things started opening up. kind of like a cooking competition, but just us and our adult kids. We challenged each other to make things not necessarily in our wheelhouses. I think we all learned a lot, and it was fun as hell.
Amazingly, last week the kids asked if we could start that up again. Not every week this time, but every month or 6 weeks. All of us agreed. The first challenge will be something for the Thanksgiving meal. This year, none of us will be together. We all live across the country from each other. Kids have married and have their own families now. We’ll see what each comes up with!