What percentage of your shop is fresh fruit and veg?

[bignoseswan]

Mine is quite high, its nearly all fresh fruit and veg so about 80% along with some pulses and milk eggs etc. We are a vegetarian household so it makes sense that we do buy more veg and as vegetarian ready meals and convenience foods typically suck we make our own food from scratch daily to ensure we have something tasty.

Met a colleague in the supermarket today who commented on the "crazy" amounts of fresh veg we had (which will only do us 3 days until our delivery comes). Her trolley has some potatoes and an onion in and everything else was in a packet or box. I previously hadn't noticed how much fresh produce we had compared to other shoppers but as I went to the till it did look like most people had very little veg in their shopping (the produce section is at the entrance and most people would pass through that section first).

However the produce section is well stocked and has all sorts in cavolo nero, celeriac, fresh herbs, ginger, aubergines so people are buying it.

So I am just curious how much of your trolley is fresh fruit and veg?

Tomatoes too. They are pale and go off with the slightest damage so you can't wait for them to ripen. I used to buy them year round when I didn't have them from the veg box or garden but I've stopped bothering as they are horrible.

I’ve only read the first page and going back to read the rest but I’ll be honest and say our trolley is perhaps only 30% fresh fruit and veg.

We do eat it every day but probably average about 3 portions each which we do need to work on. I have teens and we all love a biscuit or two too so we also have the processed stuff too.

Its an interesting thread though and I’m off to read the rest.

There's plenty of research showing that frozen is often better nutritionally than fresh - as it's frozen at the "freshest point" then travels like that, whereas the "fresh stuff spends several days in storage or on wagons before arriving in supermarkets.

I often find frozen is better quality than fresh - it cooks more evenly and you don't need to worry about it going soft or getting bruised or mouldy.

Hardly any. I live alone and unless I'm batch cooking it'll only have one or two types of fruit and cucumber, cherry toms and some sort of lettuce.
Maybe a bag of stir fry veg.

Our last shop had tomatoes, cucumber, bananas, onions, jacket potatoes and peppers and I think that’s it from that section 🤔
We got some lazy garlic too if that counts? 😂

We buy & eat a lot of vegetables & fruit. We're not vegetarian but add lots of vegetables to dinners etc.

Last week I bought
Tomatoes
Cucumber
2 x different lettuces
Baby spinach
Kale
Broccoli
Frozen petit pois
Parsnips
Carrots
Red onions
Garlic
Ginger
Herbs - coriander & basil
Satsumas
Lemons
Limes
Avocados
Baby potatoes
Butternut squash
Red pepper
Marrowfat peas
Spring onions

Caesar salad kit
Eggs
Chicken breasts
Salmon
Frozen King prawns
Frozen haddock
Tinned tomatoes
Tinned kidney beans
Parmesan cheese
Olives
Real butter
Olive oil
Popcorn
Pistachios
Chocolate
Coffee
Milk
Juice - apple & orange
Weetabix
Brown soda bread x 2
Zero fat natural yoghurt

We have 3 adults

Dinners included:
Chicken curry. Made from scratch no pastes had onions, ginger, Spices, red pepper, chicken marinated in yoghurt + garlic & spices, tinned tomatoes, petit pois, spinach, coriander & served with basmati rice & naan bread.

Creamy Chicken pasta - chicken cooked with onion, garlic, herbs, passata, cream, salt & pepper & basil. Served with penne pasta, fresh parmesan, green salad, Olives & garlic bread

Salmon cooked in foil with ginger, spring onion, red pepper, soy sauce, fresh coriander served with baby potatoes & petit pois

Spanish omelette served with salad & Olives

Minestrone soup - onions, celery, carrots, garlic, Tinned tomatoes, stock, kale, cannelloni beans, italian herbs, parmesan

Chilli - minced beef, chilli spices, tomatoes, coriander, tin black beans / kidney beans served with homemade guacamole, lime, sour cream, homemade salsa, rice / tortillas & cheese

Typical roast chicken dinner will have chicken, roast potatoes, roast carrots, parmesan parsnips, marrowfat peas, sage & onion stuffing, gravy & cranberry sauce.

We eat salads pretty much every day. Either for lunch - lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, avocado, beetroot, herbs & protein- chicken/ eggs / ham/ salmon etc depending on what we've got & homemade dressing always

Fruit for snacks & occasionally I'll make up a large fruit salad in summer with all the gorgeous summer fruits & we'll keep that in the fridge.

In winter we stick to satsumas / apples/ bananas etc

We easily eat 10 portions + every day & we get a lot of variety

I don't eat much processed foods......certainly don't use jars or ready meals. Well over half of my shopping is fresh fruit and veg, the rest is meat, eggs, dairy. Then pasta / bread etc.

I mean I eat well and always cook a proper meal, still fat though so don't know why I bother 🤣🤣🤣

Ummm, about half. I actually throw quite a lot away because it's only DH and I and we just can't eat through it. Broccoli seems to go off so quickly these days, bloody Brexit. We do however eat through three bags of salad and a punnet of cherry tomatoes, a bag of beetroot, a cucumber and a couple of avos a week. We much prefer salad to veg. We only eat one bag of apples and a few frozen berries though.

However, we don't really eat any potatoes, pasta once a week, occasionally rice. Not beans or pulses as we can't tolerate them.

We have a very plain diet! Meat and fish with one veg or salad......very little upf though.

Oh I forgot.... We do eat quite a lot of bread, that's our carbs, and have milk and yoghurts, eggs and mozzarella

You can blanch broccoli and freeze it. You shouldn't be throwing stuff away routinely, there's ways to preserve most things, or just buy what you know you need.

If you're on Facebook/instagram have a look at ambitious kitchen (great salad ideas/tasty vegan curries)

Veg only doesn't taste nice if you don't prepare it properly. If you don't eat it yourself how do you expect your kids to eat it?

Ours varies. In the summer/autumn, you'd look in our trolley and be horrified, but we have an allotment so we grow virtually all the fruit and veg we need. This time of year, probably 1/3 to half of the weekly shop.

@lifebeginsaftercoffee

well, it depends on the type of people you work/socialise with really doesn't it!

@Qwerty21

fruit. I love fruit, but I'm diabetic & I eat low carb to control it, avoiding medication.

fruit is high in carbs/sugar and I can't eat it, if I want to control my blood sugars. I choose to have raspberries & strawberries (in U.K. season) & not have medication 💁🏻‍♀️

@bignoseswan

it's certainly better than sweets, bread etc

unfortunately it's not better for my blood sugar levels, o I have to go without either option!!

@Nitesaredrawinin

ive been vegetarian for 35 years now, vegan for some of that & STILL haven't got the size 8 figure!!

@Nitesaredrawinin I'm not a huge veg fan mostly because I live alone and CBA
I like the ready prepped frozen stuff though, that's easy to add and I cook with veg in things
Kale in the oven with some seasoning tastes like seaweed from the chinese
Baked carrots with butter and a bit of honey or brown sugar
Corn on the cob with butter and salt

It would depend which trolley. We do our big shop at Lidl but don’t rate their fruit and veg so that has very little.

We get the fruit and veg from a mix of Tesco, and a big co-op and the farm shop and in season we grow a bit.

DD eats loads of fruit, and we buy a huge amount of cucumber and pepper (and tomatoes out of season). In summer we eat a lot of salads.

We also use a lot of frozen veg though too like peas and green beans.

We aren’t vegetarian but we cook a fair amount from scratch. I don’t eat 10 portions a day though, I just don’t have time
for that as I’d rather have cake.

@FabFebHalfTerm That's fair enough if you have blood sugar issues, mine are fine (I do test it and get an annual HbA1c) and my brother who is diabetic is fine on most fruits but can't eat potato at all, but again everyone is different in what they tolerate.

@PawsisShady I'm pretty sure seaweed from the Chinese is just cabbage that has been roasted or fried. I love savoy cabbage done like this, very yummy!