How much fruit & veg do you buy per week?

[Heythereorangehead]

And have you had to cut back?
Sort of related to a thread on here already.
Our food shop has gone up around €30/40 per week (live abroad) we both work and have one Dd and a dog. I used to buy lots of veg, salad, fruits etc.
This week I got brocolli, cauliflower, carrots, 1 avocado, tangerines & apples. Dd eats nearly all the fruit and has one fruit for school dinners, I don’t tend to get any fruit now. We used to have fruit for breakfast and after lunch/dinner and lunches & dinners filled with veg, I really feel I’m not getting enough.
How much do you buy and how can I get more fruit/veg in without spending even more?

Most sheep in britain are seasonal breeders, very very few british farmers will be lambing june-dec. But the kill point means lamb is available all year round, theres just peaks and troughs.

2 adults and a 13 yr old. I'm the only fruit eater - DC eats an apple if asked to. DP eats strawberries once in a blue moon. DP eats next to no veg - DC eats raw/crunchy veg only. I buy : 2 packs of grapes
1 large punnet of strawberries
6 apples
Pack of sliced melon
Clementines
6 bananas
Packet of sugar snaps
Carrots
Cucumber
Pack of salad leaves
Punnet of small tomatoes
1 pepper
Pack of mushrooms
Ready prepared mashed root veg x1
Either brocolli or pack of prepared sprouts
A red onion
I also keep frozen sliced onion and mushrooms and frozen veg (last ages). Tinned tomatoes, tinned pineapple, tinned grapefruit, and tinned peas. All sounds very boring, but it's really only me, munching my way through, with DC having raw carrot, sugar snaps, cucumber, apple.
I buy it all in the supermarket as greengrocers have shut down and no markets near me.
I can only advise frozen and tinned, buy loose, as a cheap way of getting more into your diet OP, if the fresh is too expensive. It still counts, just not as nice 😢

We are really lucky that we have street stalls near us that sell fruit and veg.

Yesterday we got
4 avocados for £1
5 peppers for £1
3 bunches spring onions £1
3 courgettes £1
Strawberries £1.50
Two broccoli £1.50
7 mandarins £1
5 onions £1
6 bananas £1

It's way cheaper and fresher than supermarkets so if you have them near you it's worth the visit.

My mums use to make ratatouille in summer, when lots of cheap tomato and courgettes were around, and freeze it in pots for winter. My DH makes fruit compotes from any large amounts selling locally and freezes it to put on his porridge.

If anyone wants to attempt growing anything this summer.

butternut squash - grows like pumpkin. Pick around end September and you can store them easily somewhere cool until February time

Courgettes - grow like weeds.

Tomatoes - if you grow excess. You can freeze cherry tomatoes whole. Then just grab handful and roast from frozen

Berries worth growing as they are perineal. So once established grow back every year for free. And high value in shop

pick your own strawberry farms worth visiting in June if you don’t have space to grow own. Pick loads, freeze loads cut for winter. Make jams. Make compote

I buy loads of veg and don’t find it expensive.

But I see what is in special offer or cheaper and buy that.

I love watercress but bagged salads are costly so that is rare. I buy a big red cabbage which lasts ages in the fridge and use it for several lots of shredded cabbage and carrot salad with ginger dressing, and one meal of cooked spiced red cabbage.

Frozen leaf spinach (very economical from Iceland) , frozen petit pois, frozen blueberries are lovely with yogurt.

Cabbage is usually economical, if I buy a cauliflower then cauliflower cheese will be the centre of a meal rather than a side.

I have cut down a lot on meat and treat-like extras, but find veg very economical.

Because lambs should really only be available around spring if nature had it's way. March/April time.
So they aren't "in season" outside of spring.

So why is it ok to breed lambs all year round and have them available but not okay to grow strawberries to be available all year round?

It's just weird that people are like "ohhhh I only eat in season fruit, madness otherwise..." whilst gnawing in a lamb chop in October.

I was away last week so while I still have onions and garlic, and 2 apples, I needed everything else.

So I got Brussels sprouts, carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms, sugar snaps, 2 peppers, 2 avocados, courgette, lettuce, a cauliflower, and 2 punnets of raspberries. And potatoes.

I'll probably get some more fruit as the week goes on.

The carrots, onions and garlic will last a couple of weeks, but a lot of that will be used up this week.

I also keep a couple of ti s of sweetcorn and tomatoes, frozen peas and broccoli, and I am looking to find frozen fruit (new city). My fridge here is a lot smaller than at home.

I try and have 10 small portions of fruit and veg daily (rather than 5 full sized ones that is recommended) - lots of stir fry type meals with handfuls of a few different veg or a few veg mixed into tomato sauce for pasta...I am finally getting back to my salads for lunch and I tend to mash raspberries into yoghurt for breakfast as well as drinking apple and cherry juice. I used to make a breakfast smoothies with almond butter, yoghurt, mixed seeds and mixed berries with apple juice to make it liquid enough to drink - I just haven't got organised enough here yet for that.

Yes, red and savoy cabbage go a long way!

@wubwubwub a lot of the out of season lamb will be imported from New Zealand. I personally don't buy it (daughter of sheep farmers) but others do. Just like out of season strawberries.

All food is more expensive here but I am wasting less as I am solo so buying what I will use and I have ways to use it up that only I used to eat. So I am still spending on me what I used to spend on me and DH - but I am getting more organised and think it will drop more now I've found a decent sized supermarket and am getting other things organised to be able to cook properly more regularly.

Why should they only be available in spring? Do you mean they should all be born in spring then slaughtered at a year old?

Because that's when they're "supposed" to be born.

I'm just pointing out the oddity of people moaning about fruit being available out of season but not finding it weird that lamb is available all year round.

It's either okay to interfere with nature and provide the same foods all year round... Or it isn't. 🤷‍♀️

I know that, I live near many farms. They are being born now but not slaughtered now. The one I buy lamb from was selling Spring 2023 lamb from last September.

Because that's when they're "supposed" to be born.

But they're not sent to slaughter the day they're born - most lambs in this country aren't killed until about 7-8 months of age and they can be up to 18 months old and still be classed as "lamb" in the supermarkets.

Lamb isn't a seasonal meat in the same way fruit is seasonal - lambs are sent to slaughter year-round.

@TempleOfBloom I think watercress is what we used to grow on cottonwood at school? Maybe try a packet of seeds?

I wonder if some people think "lamb" sold in the shops is the small animals they see in the fields in April 🤔

It isn't.

What is it then if it isn't a young sheep

Anything from 10 weeks to one year old. But a one year old lamb will look, to the untutored eye like an adult sheep, not the cute little things you see gambolling in spring fields.

So lambs born in spring won't necessarily be eaten until late summer or even winter.

If you want lambs to be sold in spring for eating, they need to be born in winter.

It's worrying how sone people seem to have no connection or knowledge about where their food comes from these days.

Shopping came this morning - apples, bananas, pears, oranges and grapes.
Will run out by Friday pm but that's ok as DS will go to his dad's for weekend and I am going to be out most of that time so don't need it sitting there!

Not much veg - just cucumber and tomatoes for our lunches. We have a variety in the freezer but I don't cook a meal until Wednesday (visit grandparents in the interim, bonus!) so to buy it now doesn't guarantee its still good.

It is just the 2 of us.

"Lamb" be can anywhere between 10 weeks to 18 months old.

Yes, they're typically born in spring (in the UK at least) but they're slaughtered year round. Eating lamb in October doesn't mean you're eating out of season.

Strawberries are definitely one fruit I'm fussy with, will only eat British ones. So in season I eat them by the punnet!

Weirdly a strong memory with my dad - There's a tiny farm shop I stopped at one year with my dad, I got some strawberries as they were cheap and he commented how they never seemed to taste as good any more
Got back to the car, bit into one and it sort of exploded with juice, I remember my dads face of sort of oh my god. We got back out the car and bought a shit load more

@Whatevershallidowithmylife - that’s standard cress not watercress. Watercress is more a large leaf salad, and cress just a small peppery leaf for garnish. We started cress seeds a few days ago on windowsill as they grow really quick so instant delight for 3 year old. They have already sprouted in 3 days, and should be edible within 2 weeks

I should have said I had increased our food budget at home, and I was easily spending at least that just on myself here which is not sustainable. But I am slowly finding ways to reduce it a little - the small shops are very expensive and food is definitely more expensive generally here. But it is getting a bit better in the past few weeks.