I live in the USA and there is this one company that sells beef stew in a can. I think that very similar product is offered by several other companies. Not sure if I should mention names so I wont. Nonetheless, this company (maybe several companies with similar product) offers beef stew in a can and on the can they show a picture of the stew with what seems to be many large chunks of beef in the stew. It looks really tasty with lots of beef. However, when you open the can and pour the stew in a cooking pan you get to see that the picture on the can does not really match what is inside of the can. Instead of stew with lots of beef, it is more like stew with a lot of extra sauce. I just want to put this out there so that people be more aware of the false advertising that some of these companies engage in. The picture on the can is probably not very close to what is actually inside of the can. This info probably can be applied to most canned foods out there so beware so you dont waste your money.
Don't know which company you are talking about but the one thing I have seen in these cans of beef stew is more gravy instead of stew meat and real vegetables. It is not very good, I do agree that it is a waste of money. How this is sold as food is beyond me. It is not my idea of beef stew, my beef stew has peas, carrots, potatoes, onions and a good quality beef.
I would caution people against purchasing these kinds of canned food for health and nutritional reasons as well. You don't know how the cattle were raised, for one thing. It is very likely if the product is cheap, the beef comes from cattle that were fed GMO feed corn, perhaps even ethanol byproducts. Sadly, cheap beef is often fed what amounts to garbage, and the result is that the meat is very unhealthy for human consumption as well. Also, cheap canned soups often contain other GMO ingredients and MSG, which is a very harmful flavor enhancer used so that they don't have to put in nearly as many actual spices to season it.
I've tried this before too, it was severely unsatisfying. ) Now, my go-to quick recipe for beef stew is 1 can chunky corned beef, 1 can beef broth and some potatoes. I just brown the beef, add the beef broth and some flour, then boil until the potatoes are cooked. Quick and simple, and not much more expensive than a can of that blegh beef stew. Requires a bit of effort, but pretty good!
I agree that canned beef stew is pretty bad. But once I was given a couple of cans by a family member. Instead of wasting it, I made some rice and served the heated stew over rice. Because it's mostly gravy, it gave the rice some taste. It wasn't a great meal but when you're living frugal, you don't turn down free food.
Putting it over rice was a good idea to use it up, ACSAPA, but I don't much care for canned beef stew either. It seems to be a tiny bit of scrap meant, a few veggies, and mostly gravy. My husband was once served this when invited to dinner at a relative's house while he was out of town. The wife was (obviously) not much of a cook. She heard my husband loved beef stew, so she was trying to be nice, and made this for him. I've been asked by him to never purchase canned stew.
