To think that the vast majority of people can't afford or won't buy 7 portions of fruit and veg a day

[LaurieFairyCake]

After listening to the debate on radio 5 yesterday Richard Bacon was making the point that it was easy as the portions were small.

No, they're really, really not!

I've just looked at the Daily Mail run down of how much you have to eat and I think it's actually prohibitive financially.

2 nectarines,
3 heaped tablespoons of sweetcorn,
Quarter of a big broccoli or cauliflower,
3 heaped tablespoons of mangetout
7 spears of asparagus
Half a pepper

All one portion

Seriously no one can afford that. In Aldi it's only 4 spears in a portion to buy for 79p so I need £1.60 to buy one portion of asparagus - obviously I wouldn't as I'm not an eejit.

Eating seasonally not so easy either as you can only get your nutrition from one thing twice in a day. So only two apples.

I reckon shopping in Aldi I'm going to need to spend about £8 a day for a family of 3 adult eaters for fruit and veg. So that's £56 a week just on fruit and veg.

I've said it already on this thread re pineapples but two bunches of bananas for £1 is absolutely shocking. One banana 'tree' (its not really a tree its a herb/corm) takes years to grow and will only ever flower and fruit once. Then it has to be cut down for the process to begin again. This takes up LOADS of space (probably between 1m and 2m square). Cutting down indigenous forest etc. to feed our want for obscenely cheap fruit from blooming miles away. The number of bananas produced per plant varies but say they produce on average 200 bananas. Say 5 per bunch = 40 bunches of bananas per plant. So on this price structure £20 worth of bananas at the market per plant. But before that you have to transport, loss through bruising, pests, profit. So I guess the poor farmer will be getting something less than £10 per plant for years of production.

I've said it already on this thread re pineapples but two bunches of bananas for £1 is absolutely shocking

Clothes are even worse, doesn'y stop people buying them

Nostress
I grow ornamental bananas - your maths is a bit out.
Stems reach fruiting size in two to three years (much quicker than apples say)
Each plant has two or three fruiting stems and two or three of each size coming up to fruit next round
In the tropics, fruiting is almost constant
A good Cavendish plant should produce several hands per season
www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/banana.html#Yield

its the constant spraying of Fyffes and Chiqita that is the reason to ALWAYS buy fair trade bananas