It’s increasingly unaffordable to eat 5 a day

[HappySnake]

Is anyone else struggling with this currently? I know some veg is not too expensive, but I just find with fruit it’s so expensive now. My kids particularly like blueberries and strawberries - I’m spending about a fiver a day. I feel like others who are less well off financially must be finding it even more difficult.

Any tips on affordable fruit etc and how you ensure you get 5 a day would be welcome!

Everyone saying apples are cheap. What am I missing? They are £3.99 (Pink ladies, Gala) or more even,depending where you go, but that's around the average, for a mere six. Anything cheaper and they are tiny baby sized coxs that are finished in one bite. If you have a family and buy two that's £8 or more just on apples. Berries are atrociously expensive, practically gourmet. Kiwi's you again only get 4. I think grapes are the cheapest fruit, but yeah agree with the OP fruit is increasingly expensive.

Holland and Barrett is great if you stick to special offers and clearance, and the staff are trained so can answer questions. The quality is excellent, but they're not the cheapest.

I have never seen fruit and veg in Holland and Barrett.

@GreenApplesRedApplesYellowApples ,Results for "apples" - Tesco Groceries. Greengrocers tend to be cheaper and sell items individually by weight,

Pink lady apples are thd most expensive sort. I think you need to sit down and research the prices of various foods online from different supermarkets. We grow our own lettuce - not from seed, just stick the stump of a supermarket lettuce (after you’ve taken all thd leaves) in the ground and it will grow. Raspberries provide a lot of fruit on repeat. Free blackberries from late August.

You can grow many veg from stump or crown.

Lidl wonky box,get there early,massive box of assorted fruit and veg for £1.50.

I buy frozen broccoli and green beans and frozen blueberries and cherries. Apples ,bananas and oranges are fresh.

I only buy strawberries when they are in season in UKfrom end of June. I buy frozen berries and make a smoothie, bananas, apples, easy peelers, grapes, melon and a pineapple are all relatively cheap. Also cucumber, cherry tomatoes, carrots buttons and peppers sliced up all make good dipping veg. I have raspberry plants in my garden because they are very easy to grow. They fruit in July and the beginning of October.

The price of fruit and veg in the UK is shocking. Eating seasonally helps a bit but not much. YANBU

I get a veg box, veg is cheaper esp if seasonal. Tinned peaches?

In our weekly shop we get apples, pears, bananas, blueberries, grapes and strawberries (plus veg of course). The berries and grapes are gone after three days, the rest of the week we eat the other fruit. What's gone is gone.

Lidl and Aldi do reduced fruit and veg of the week. Pretty good rotation and variety. We don’t buy the berries, they’re too easy to hoover up in seconds without being filled. Labour intensive fruits like pineapple and oranges work better in our house. Big bags or carrots and frozen broccoli pack out our dinners.

Its not easy but it is doable.

I buy bananas, apples, kiwis, grapes, watermelon, occasionally a bag of easy peelers. Veg staples are carrots, broccoli, peppers, courgette, mushrooms, frozen green beans and peas, tomatoes, spinach or some other kind of leafy green.

ALL of the above comes comfortably under £20.

No it's not. I've had some excellent fruit and vegetables from Aldi and the only 'inedible' fruit I can remember buying was one kiwi from a pack of four from Sainsburys. It seemed to be made out of wood and was almost impossible to cut.

It's interesting isn't it, I wonder if this pattern will continue next year?

Obviously climate change will lead to many negatives but this might just be a positive!

Agree about spinach beet. I planted a row 2 years ago and it comes back, with a vengeance, every spring and lasts until way into the autumn. We eat it as a salad, steamed as a side, or shredded and stirred into soups, pasta sauces, risotto, etc. A very easy way to add another of the 5 a day.

Our local berries are just coming into season. The local fruit farm has started selling their own strawberries and raspberries, I’ve already bought a few punnets from them, and the milkman has started offering strawberries from the farm with the milk deliveries, so better days are coming! We still spend a fortune on berries, we only buy in season but they’re still expensive and get eaten so quickly. But kids love them, as do I.

Oh good, loads more posts about feeding people raw carrots and cucumber.

Only kidding, I know some love them...just not me. 🤮

What a fantastic excuse for loads of humble bragging on a lovely sunny Saturday morning. Eat what you want and feed your kids what you want. There's plenty of choice around.
Food is food and the cost of living is enough to make your eyes bleed so just do your best.

I just had a Terry's chocolate orange creme egg I found hiding in a random bowl in our kitchen, forgotten from two months ago when DH got it for me. I was looking for a more healthy snack and struck gold. It was very nice. That's orange. That's one of my 5-a-day and only cost 75p.
I'm going to slap DH on the bum and give him a big kiss when he gets up for being the thoughtful stasher of chocolate orange eggs.

Low income here so I have to choose wisely

We have Lidl, Tesco, HB and lots of independents - Spar's, Vivo etc

Both Tesco and lidl do Super Six weekly on fruit and veg - they are my go too - they dictate the menu for the most part - and who knew I actually have come to love asparagus and bok choy ? lol

Frozen berries are used, which I do eat most days with greek yoghurt for either breakfast or dessert. I prefer Lidls mixed berry medley but will buy Tescos wonky fruit

I was in the local spar yesterday and they had a pile of punnets of berries being reduced so I lifted some raspberries as a treat

I also look at the reduced section in Tesco, I quite often pick up beautiful pears - the posh ones in the cardboard and plastic lid container - for half price or less, and because they are at the end of their shelf life, within a day or three at home - ripe for eating

But fresh fruit doesn't make a big look in on our five a day

Frozen cauliflower, peas, spinach, casserole veg and mixed veg are staples in the freezer. Carrots , cabbage , onions, parsnips and turnip ( swede) are weekly staples for the fresh veg along with salad veg - lettuce, rocket, cues, peppers and tomatoes

I also use jars of veg - beets, peppers, walnuts, onions, artichoke hearts , red cabbage etc . Not weekly buys, because they add flavour and texture and colour - a little goes a long way

And we use a lot of tinned tomatoes and pulses and beans - all sorts of beans from the baked bean to the black eyed and everything in between

We eat cheaply and we eat well

Apples, pears, kiwis, bananas, frozen fruit are all cheap as chips. Try to get your kids used to eating mostly seasonal fruit and more vegetables. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cauliflower and peas are all quite sweet.

Pink ladies are a modern premium variety. All apples are currently out of season, so are more expensive. Berries have siesta been a premium product because they are highly perishable and need to be picked by hand. The five a day is veg as well as fruit. Carrots are never expensive. Cucumber; broccoli; courgettes; cabbage; leeks; iceberg lettuce. Try sautéing cabbage or leeks in butter. Also try growing cherry tomatoes. The kids will pick them and eat them like sweets.

In late August / Seotrmber take your children blackberry picking. We do this, then we make jam and fill the freezer with backs for crumble and blackberry tarts.

Anything you can do to increase your child’s involvement with growing, harvesting and cooking fruit and veg will broaden their palate.

£5 a day on berries?! That’s insane. Oranges, melon, apples, bananas are more cost effective. Also Aldi frozen fruit is great price - my DSC love smoothies - frozen fruit, banana, part water/part oat milk or whatever your preference. They do pineapple, mango, mixed forest fruits, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries etc

Agree berries are ridiculously expensive. Might try and grow some myself if I can muster up the motivation.
i wouldn’t recommend eating frozen berries without cooking them first. They are linked to infectious diseases including hepatitis and it is recommended to boil them before eating.