If, like many of us, you begin the year with excellent intentions for feeding your family, but find by early spring you’re back to old habits, reinventing your shopping list a little can help.
We talked to Mumsnetters about how they had overhauled their weekly shop for the better, whether that was reducing cost and waste or simply trying to eat better. We also sneaked a peek at their secret Waitrose shopping lists to compile a list of all the must-buys from the supermarket that you might not have spotted hiding on the shelves.
Waitrose might be renowned in Mumsnet circles for being the go-to supermarket for the upmarket, the unusual and the Friday night treat, but wellness has long been top of its agenda, providing ingredients to inspire healthy eating and a healthier lifestyle too, ensuring that good food always means tasty food.
Its Good Health label appears on all the store’s foods that are as good for you as they are delicious, making it really easy to make healthier choices as you do your weekly trolley dash.
And of course, good food begins not on the supermarket shelves but out in the fields, farms and rivers, so if your aim for 2022 is to eat a little less meat and fish but eat better when you do buy it, there’s plenty of choice. Mumsnetter AnotherMansCause suggests a few ways to shop and eat more sustainably: “Eat fewer animal products. Have a couple of vegetarian/vegan meals every week… Buy organic foods if you can afford them, because organic farming helps biodiversity on the farmland and also in the ocean due to reduced fertiliser runoff.” Plenty of good reasons to source the best you can.
Meal planning and using up leftovers
Perhaps you’re aiming to throw away less food this year? The first step to creating less waste is almost always a meal plan. “Get your family together to see what dinners they like,” advises Mumsnetter Mrsjayy. “Do a mixture for everybody and use your fresh food first, then freeze things and keep till the menu ends.”
Having a few chuck-it-in-the-oven options, using frozen foods such as freezer veg and breaded fish is always helpful. Those kinds of meals are an easy win on busy days and, if you end up not eating them one week, they just stay in the freezer and get bumped on to the following.
If you shop online, get out a stack of recipe books while you’re doing your shop so you can look up ideas and add the ingredients to your basket as you go. You’re more likely to cook a meal if it’s something you’re really looking forward to and know you have everything you need to hand. Or search for menu inspiration online. Waitrose has a handy online recipe book.
Of course, every now and then, you’ll find you’ve accidentally over-catered or the week doesn’t pan out quite the way you wanted. It’s worth searching online for ways to use up leftovers too so you can cut pounds off your weekly shop as well as live a more sustainable lifestyle.
Mumsnetters’ essential Waitrose shopping list
Whether you’re buying online or perusing the shelves in person, it’s easy to miss some of the best and most useful items at Waitrose.
We scoured the Mumsnet forums for all the best buys from Waitrose, as recommended by Mumsnetters themselves. They include products that are the best on the market, better value or flavour than at any other supermarket, as well as super-useful and downright delicious items you just might not have heard of.