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

British produce in season

https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/shop/browse/groceries/fresh_and_chilled/in_season_fruit_and_vegetables/british_produce

(Again, not a waitrose shopper, just using the website!) We are mostly eating winter veg right now with things like spring greens on the side or mixed into mash. I have overwintered green Swiss chard in the garden (no polytunnel, it survived the snow), I've started making nettle tea as well.

@Dracuuule we do have a lot of good cheapish fish that is native to the UK - Mackerel, Herring, Haddock, Huss etc. Cid has got expensive as it was over fished for a long time.

A lot of people in the UK eat a very narrow range of fish and a lot of the preferred items are farmed or imported

Tinned sardines and pilchards are vey nutritious and good value.@

I’ve noticed the bags of frozen fruit are smaller and the price has gone up.

Anyone who has some garden pots, strawberries are easy to grow. Plants might be available cheap or free on local Facebook or Freecycle. Car boot sales are also a good place to buy. They’ll fruit this year then throw out runners. Press these runners into another pot, then detach once they’ve rooted and you have free plants for next year’s fruit. You can grow strawberries in hanging baskets too.

tinned fruit is also nutritious

People are forgetting that producing and processing food is very energy intensive, even more so out of season. Just as your energy bills have soared, so have those of food producers. Even more so as they don't have the benefit of the price cap.

Our supermarkets are becoming more and more like the bland homogenous ones in the USA, warehouses lined with expensive pre packaged food, no fresh bakery, deli counters, butcher and fish counters are becoming increasingly rare. It is seriously depressing and uninspiring compared with shopping in other countries in Ireland elsewhere in Europe.

I was quite sad when local asda changed fish counter into ready lunch box counter. They used to have cooley.

You are right. I am from mainland Europe and miss especially bakery where stuff is per piece not packed in 6. Or deli counter where they cut only as much as you need (or can afford).

I wonder if that is purely for cost reasons here because food here is still cheaper than in less well of countries in europe

It's very much basic fruit in this house. Apples/ pears/ bananas and oranges. Aldi/ basic/ special offer. Same for veg lots of frozen peas and carrots. I know life is tough when I'm side eyeing a head of broccoli thinking I can't afford it.

yes, we are groomed by supermarkets to eat what they tell us, although of late they give out recipes for more budget friendly dishes.

We are not groomed by supermarkets we have trained them. In the UK we value "cheap" and "convenient" above all else and the market has responded.

This is a good tip but be wary it doesn't always work for value, cauliflower still 95p for the most measley cauli I've seen for the past 3 months in our aldi. Such a shame as we love it. We're sticking to carrots, peppers, radish, sweet potato at the moment.

Lidl bakery is good for one or two of things.

It’s a good thing if people are eating more local produce and less meat/fish.

I noticed fruit sizes are shrinking too as well as going up. Normally get say 5 easy peelers in a pack I , got 4 the other day. I know people look down on it here but Farmfoods do a good deal on frozen fruit, even do cherries, rhubarb etc .

I have frozen blueberries with porridge.

Make salads from shredded carrots and red cabbage (dressing of oil, lemon or lime and ginger, ground is fine, salt).

Use other root veg alongside potato in mash

And just work around what veg are of reasonable price. Cauliflowers on offer? Great cauli cheese, roasted cauli or a cauli and potato curry. I see Savoy cabbage on offer atm, lovely veg thinly shredded and steamed or lightly boiled, toss with a little butter and some caraway seeds if you have them.

I eat carrot sticks instead of apples.

And look out for Lidl or club card deals on satsumas.

Which region may I ask of the States are you referring to?

Where my parents live in the Midwest, they are spoiled for choices when it comes to fruit, veg and they still have fresh bakeries, deli counters and all those things you describe. I have yet to see a supermarket here that allows you to make your own nut butters from different kinds of nuts they sell in store. I also have friends that work in supermarkets and at those counters, they are still coming in at 3-4 am baking and making food from scratch.

We’ve pretty much given up meat because of the cost. We have lots of beans, lentils, quorn etc. and loads of veg (albeit some frozen) but I had blood tests recently and my iron/ferritin/folate/b12 (which have always been very good) are all barely in, or just under the ‘normal’ range. No wonder I feel tired! My ferritin was 15! It’s the first time in my life I’ve felt I really need to supplement. I’m sure it’s related to the changes we’ve had to make due to cost.

Yws. Lidl makes me happy with their bakery. I don't need 6 buns or donuts. I need 1.

I don’t think bananas have gone up as much as other fruit. You could buy frozen fruits, when they are on offer then you could stock up. You could use them in porridge or smoothies.

Out of season, flown-in strawberries and raspberries were always very expensive. And not as nice anyway. You need to buy what’s in season - and preferably locally grown - if you’re watching the pennies. Or, as pps have said, frozen fruit and veg are very good.

Give him an apple halved or quartered, don’t give him all of it in one go let him ask for more, or ask him if he wants more. The less they have the more they are likely to eat! So you will waste less. They soon get used to eating pieces of fruit if they were used to eating a whole apple. I then put away they bits they haven’t eaten and give it back to them at dinner as part of their dessert. If I go out I have a mini lunch box for fruit, anything they don’t eat gets presented to them at dinner.

Yes, never didn’t buy organic vegetables before but now they are a stretch and sometimes I walk past

If you have a Morrisons near you sometimes you can get huge amounts in a magic bag. I have had £12 of blueberries alone before. Last week was about 20 pink lady apples and 8 nectarines. Along with a load of veg as well.

You can freeze things like celery at home, I trim a head of celery, wash and dry and freeze the sticks. The bits I can’t eat I freeze to make veg peel stock.

Same for cabbage, peppers & carrots. Spring onions didn’t do well frozen.

I bought a knife to debone chicken thighs and freeze the bones for stock.