Struggling to be able to afford to eat as healthily

[Needtodrinkmorewater]

Is anyone else now?
Used to fairly easily be able to include lots of fruit and veg in our diets. I’m not finding that I’m just making sure that it’s enough for Dd, 4, fruit at least. For example if I buy apples, berries and kiwis one week, they’re generally all eaten by her 🙈which is great but I’m getting really conscious of the fact I don’t eat well anymore, the food shop is ideally like to do, full of seeds, fruit, veg etc just isn’t affordable anymore

Just thinking aloud here. There's been a big push in the media for buying frozen fruit. This will create an increase in demand.

And then the prices will go up.

Eating healthily is more expensive...and it's all getting pricier. A head of broccoli used to be 50p...now it's £1. A cucumber was 49p now it's 79p.

I find making crudités isn't too expensive though...carrots are still cheap. I prefer them raw to cooked. Celery and strips of pepper.

You can still get a bag of apples for last than £1 in lidl or aldi depending on the variety.

I saw a pack of two fresh salmon fillets for 70p in the reduced section in Lidl the other day.
But that's a lottery really

so difficult when you have fussy children and the types of fruit they like is berries- mainly strawberries, raspberries , watermelon ( soooo expensive apart from about 2 days in the summer) and also don’t eat frozen berries!
I now always buy apples and bananas weekly and occasionally a strawberry punnet,
if your children will eat frozen defo go for that and try various tinned fruits too!

Oh and sometimes Lidl do £1.50 fruit and veg boxes..

I got one recently it had

Oranges
Lemons
Limes
Apples
Potatoes
Parsnips
Swede
Peppers
Onions

Bananas are cheap. Frozen blueberries are half the price of fresh ones. As long as you have plenty of veg then two different fruit per week will be fine.

I buy mushrooms and cheaper vegetables like onions, carrots, parsnips, sweet potato, butternut squash, red cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower.

We eat better on the weekends when the kids are home but yeah, in the week we are definitely eating more carby lunches and dinners.

We eat a lot of fruit but stick to seasonal stuff. So at the moment it is a lot of apples and oranges. Out if season berries and exotic fruits are always going to cost more.

Eat seasonally and get a lot of colourful veg as well.

Spuds, onions, cabbage, carrots

Cheap and healthy

How much fruit is she eating? It’s ok to limit it to 1 piece at lunch and 1 as a snack or after dinner, as part of a wider healthy diet.

I always buy my berries frozen OP and they taste absolutely fine - probably better for putting on your cereal or with yogurt as they can go a bit squishy as they defrost . It's worth trying frozen veg too - one thing being you don't get any waste. Frozen spinach is brilliant and whilst I'm not that keen on frozen broccoli, I've had so many times when I e bought it fresh but couldn't fit in the fridge, got it out of the pantry two days later and it's gone yellow .

Do you have a garden? If so, ask around for people giving away cuttings of fruit bushes or strawberry runners. Then can grow some yourself. I saw someone on a road near me giving away blackberry plants. At our local school plant sale, can get strawberry runners cheaply. I had 6 strawberry plants, but then take the runners from them, so now got many more. Only gives free fruit for a short time, but tasty.

I gave a friend some rhubarb plant ( can’t remember what you call it before you plant it!) - free rhubarb every spring for them now.

we are now having tinned peaches and tinned pears. Cheaper and always in the house. I try to get whatever fruit is cheapest in Aldi etc too.

Bananas are still ridiculously cheap. I don't think I've ever bought berries out of season in my life, apart from frozen ones.

I am buying cheaper fruit and veg people here are suggesting, but I am eating way less as it just gets so boring.

Indeed. This time of year we mainly have over wintered English apples and citrus.

Soon there will be cheaper rhubarb coming on stream. By May/June berries will start to become more abundant.

Then going in to autumn plums will be cheap. Around Christmas citrus and pomegranates are good.

It us worth noting we are currently in what is known as the "hungry gap". Traditionally that is when winter stores are nearly exhausted and new fruit and veg are not yet here. Obviously the abiloty to import and modern growing methods have made the hingry gap more or less a thing of the past, but it still means a lot of fruit and veg will be a bit more pricey this time of year, inflation has made that more noticeable.

I was going to mention the £1:50 boxes - brilliant mine had strawberries and cherries in yesterday
https://corporate.lidl.co.uk/sustainability/food-waste/too-good-to-waste

We have mostly forgotten to eat seasonally. This is the time to adjust.

The supermarkets are taking the fucking piss to be honest. They made record profits during the pandemic and passed precisely none of it on to their low paid staff who were arguably more at risk due to high exposure than any other demographic. Absolutely vile.

Same here. DS (nearly 3) still has fruit, vegetables, and nuts for snacks, but I find myself skipping snacks these days due to cost. It shouldn't, but it hurts me inside when DS only eats half an apple and bins the rest before I can wrap it and stick it in the fridge for later.

We've also more than halved our meat consumption, cut all alcohol except one bottle of wine per month, and DH and I no longer have cheese and crackers in the evening. Our food bill is still higher than this time last year.

Same. Even veg that used to be quite cheap is now more expensive. Odd things like carrots and bananas not too bad. But it all gets a bit dull so the result is I’m definitely eating less.

we need to reset the way we live- not for economics but flying out of season strawberries (which taste vile) half way round the world isnt environmentally sustainable

totally agree
no child needs strawberries in march

Are strawberries more expensive in winter?

I haven’t noticed much of a difference. A punnet is around £2.30.

Which is expensive, but I put it down to the chat if living rather than winter.

Tesco do a value range of apples. They're usually about 60p for a packet of 6. No judgement from me at all, as my diet is poor anyway at the moment, but hope that helps.

The problem with this is that in the UK that would involve eating in a way that I find quite dull. I’m not going to enjoy 8 months of only turnip, cabbage and carrot and no tomatoes, pepper, aubergine etc. it’s fine for some meals, but relentlessly for months is a bit much.