To wish that healthy eating was a bit cheaper to do.

[hiddenhome]

I'm spending at least 20 quid a week extra on food now

We shop locally at the butchers and fruit store, but it's still working out expensive. We're not buying poncey stuff, just bog standard fruit, veg and fish/chicken.

Dh has ordered a juicer as well. We're gonna be skint by the end of the month

Yes, we eat a lot of potatoes too, the point I'm making is that the protein and the veggies are quite expensive - I do use frozen a lot to counteract this. If you are low carbing, which I know works for me although I don't do it full on it's really expensive.

Also, one of my children wouldn't eat chickpeas or indeed any veggies mixed in a sauce. At all. I have one very fussy eater and one who will eat anything. I have served this type of food now for 8 years and she simply doesn't eat it. Obviously if she was starving I'm guessing she would eat it, but that's not really a viable route.

How do you get fussy eaters to eat things like chickpea burgers or lentil curry? I have made them so many times, nothing has changed, it's not a waste of food as I eat them myself, but it kind of defeats the point of cheap healthy food for your kids if they end up with a ham sandwich because they won't eat the main meal.

whole chicken £2.50 p/kg
pork £3.00 p/kg
lamb £7.00 p/kg
minced beef £3.89 p/kg

onions 10kg bag £5.00
spuds 25kg bag £6.50
carrots 10kg bag £2.00
beetroot 10kg bag £3.00 (when in season)
parsnips 10kg bag £3.00
8 apples 89p (Aldi)
8 pears 99p (Aldi)
bananas 68p/kg
pineapple 89p each

We buy in bulk & store and I always cook from scratch. I have no idea how people manage to feed a whole family on a low income on frozen stuff.

fresh is cheaper but I agree that juicing will put your fruit/veg bill through the ceiling because of the amount you need to squish to get a decent juice volume.

Low(er) carbing does make things more expensive doesn't it! Eggs have been useful and the more you buy the cheaper per egg.

If I bought more processed food though our shopping bills would be higher. I won't buy fruit juice and flavoured yoghurts and I minimise fruit tbh.

The beans my kids eat best are soft-cooked cannellini, mixed in with small amount of meat. I freeze small pots of them. I used some tinned ones last week and they were too hard.

Frozen vegetables such as peas and green beans bought from Lidl are great, cheap and nutritious (the vitamins haven't deteriorated like the broccoli in the supermarket).

I get that you can buy stuff fairly cheaply in bulk from Lidl/Aldi, that's where I shop, but surely the above list isn't really what a family of four actually eats in a week is it? Breakfasts, snacks, and so on. Veggies with every meal, two meals a day? Fruit as a snack instead of unhealthy stuff.

Funny that's a good tip, I think my fussy one might not notice squishier beans, stuff like chickpeas and kidney beans are a complete no-go. I have been known to wash the sauce of cheap baked beans and recook them with my own tomato sauce, but she won't eat onion, and so we go on...

bloody hell that's not a list for the week..that was just a price example.

We're a family of 6/7 and we do eat a lot of fresh fruit-the weekly Aldi buy is 5 bags apples, 5 pears, 4 bunches bananas and a pineapple and the biters demolish all that easily.

malties at 95p 650g, porridge 80p kg or aldi weetabix is breakfast for school days. School lunch is curry/soup/haggis/cottage pie etc etc in thermos pots with 2 pieces of fruit, weak squash and a mini choccie bar & then they have a 'proper' homemade tea too, usually with a yoghurt, cake or choccie bar for pudding.

I mean I'm not the food police and we do do 'junk dinner' from time to time but they eat a LOT and I couldn't afford to do dinner ding for everyone.

Breakfast cereal is a big expense with my teenager (who doesn't like porridge). TBH if I was struggling for cash it would be porridge most days.

Feeding a teen is a challenge and I do buy a lot more "bits" and bake a lot. I have been expanding meals with extra pulses for all and extra carbs for the teen. We aren't on a tight budget but I hate wasting money on junk (or "luxury" food for that matter.)

Access to shops and markets has such a huge impact on what you can realistically do. And having a big freezer has let me use frozen veg and freeze my own bulk cooking.

I buy a 15 eggs for 2 quid and a sack of potatoes for 3 quid a fortnight from a house up the road from me.I buy value/smartprice veg and salad and frozen fruit and veg.I buy meat when its on offer but buy chicken from wholesalers (dp on weightlifting diet).It can be done if you look around for deals.fruit and veg stalls are great,especially at the end of the day but I never have the bloody time to get there.Including nappies,cleaning stuff and washing powder(I get all that from Aldi) I spend 70 quid a week.

And OP should cancel the juicer and save the money!

Too late, it's arrived

We'll just source some cheaper carrots and apples. You can put the leftover pulp into soups and stews.

Sorry for unsolicited advice re juicer.

If I had one it would encourage me to grow veg as if by some miracle there's not an empty patch (or slug Cafe as it's known to us) then there's a glut; often of something like fennel.

A top tip (Viz style!): plant your supermarket living parsley pot outside when you've worn it out indoors and you might get some "free" parsley later. Just picked a bit this week - weird winter.

I don't understand why people think eating healthily is expensive. I've always eaten healthy food and the only time our food shopping goes up is when we stick a cheeky pizza or something not-as-healthy in the basket.

hiddenhome you should try the Joe Cross website for the most productive fruits and some fab recipes for juice..we too whizz up veggies (the biters love it) but we don't 'just juice' anymore I needed food

I think it looks expensive when, as someone said above, you compare a cheap frozen lasagne and then make one at home.

There is no doubt that if you don't have a store cupboard of flavours to add and have to rely on one smaller shop/supermarket it can be nigh on impossible to eat well and cheaply: so the cheaper cuts of meat aren't available but a meat pie or cheap sausages are there.

I think where you've got a wider variety of shops and a freezer then it is cheaper to cook your own basic/ healthy stuff.

Cools : please may you post some recipes - u are inspiring me! Thanks .

I totally agree with whois, I had a look on the website of A girl called Jack and don' t think that is nutritionally sound advice. Maybe if times are tough now and then but not ongoing.

For posters who find it hard to digest pulses, you could make it easier by discarding the water in which the pulses have soaked, rinsing them several times and then cooking them in fresh water. Once cooked discard the brine and freeze or use without the brine. Introducing small amounts of pulses at first may also help.