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!

The frozen berries are good value for breakfasts on top of cereals , smoothies and for summer pudding, Eton mess etc, and just as nutritious as fresh, but a lot cheaper. Raspberry , blackberry blueberries redcurrants, blackcurrants all freeze well. Strawberries less do but are fine in smoothies.

Some Lidls do a fruit and veg box for £2.00 for items near to use by date. They contents vary but you can see what's in the boxes before you buy. Find out the day and time your stores put out these out. They are usually place behind the checkouts somyou see them after you've done your main shop , as obviously they want to prioritise selling the full price veg and fruit but there are bargains to be had.

Grow your own strawberries? I know it’s too late probably for this year to get a good crop, but we planted our first strawberry plants five years ago, and have quite a good crop now. A friend grows her own raspberries too.

Why is every post about fruit? Get a turnip, or some broccoli.

Because this is MN, the place where you have to buy the most expensive option available and then complain your money doesn't go very far.

MN definition of 'struggling', being unable to afford daily buckets of blueberries for your DC to 'inhale'.

That’s not fair. There are lots of posts about fruit because the OP asked/talked about fruit.
Lots of replies are actually along the lines of ‘buy more veg instead’.

Aldi do a deal on 5 fruit and veg each week buy those.

59p per pack/ item

buy what’s in season.

apples pears oranges are usually a decent price

Bananas, tangerines, apples, tinned pears/pineapples/peaches, frozen berries.

The frozen berries & mango from the supermarkets are pretty good, especially if you eat them with yogurt or ice cream to mop up the inevitable juice when they defrost. They're cheaper than fresh & you don't get any waste either.

This is ridiculous. When I was a kid, strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries were something we ate only in the few weeks they were in season. Any kind of exotic fruit (including grapes) were a rare and special treat that we had maybe two or three times a year. The rest of the time we had apples, pears, bananas and oranges, and that was it. Sometimes if we knew someone with some rhubarb or a plum tree in their garden and they were giving it away, we'd be inundated with those for a while.

It is easy to eat 5 a day. Buy the cheap stuff and the kids will have to lump it.

Indeed. The idea you would have strawberries outside of a few months in summer would have blown my mind as a kid - and I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s.

It’s summer, you could grow your own. I just picked up some strawberry plants for £1 each. A blueberry bush will cost around £20. You can freeze what you don’t eat straight away.

Would that it were so simple! Not everyone has outside space. Or good places to put plants. Or wants or is able to buy the stuff that goes along with growing plants: compost, pots, plant food, trowels…
I try to grow things every year (mostly herbs). Sometimes they grow a bit, but it's really not a market garden; there's never enough to justify the cost or to provide more than one or two bits of garnish.

I have a small 3 m x 7m space and it is crammed with fruit and veg. My blueberries are in pots and my strawberries are in hanging baskets. Of course not everyone wants to, or can, but the OP might have the space/capacity...hence the suggestion.

Well, good for you. I have a decent garden but, as I said, I still find it hard to grow things in any worthwhile quantity.
The way it was expressed you seemed to be assuming the OP could/should do it, rather than making a suggestion but recognising that it might not be possible.

I said 'you could grow your own'. A suggestion amongst the others for the OP to consider to keep down costs.

I don’t know where the idea came from that ‘berries’ are somehow a daily essential. They’re very nice when reasonably cheap and in locally-grown season. Otherwise except for treats you stick to affordable F and V.

Pink ladies are notoriously expensive as apples go.

Plus don’t buy them in packs of four as that costs more - buy loose apples.

We do fruit salads so we get some of the expensive berries but bulk out the bowl with cheaper fruits.

Last night's was 1 strawberry, 3 grapes, 1/3 apple, handful of pomegranate seeds, and some cucumber each topped with some oat yoghurt.
I bought the pomegranate a week ago to go in a grainy salad dish for dinner and used the rest in a couple of fruit salads. We probably buy fresh soft fruit when it's particularly warm or a treat only 1 punnet of grapes and a punnet of soft fruit. The rest of the time we use frozen fruit warmed in the microwave for 30-60 seconds. It's tasty but we do generally end up with a warm compote to have with yoghurt which is fine most of the time.

In terms of 5 a day in general we try to put frozen peas and sweetcorn as we'd as tinned chick peas in most dishes. Veg can be an issue for us as my daughter is allergic to nightshades and alliums which limits our options

We tend to eat apples 🍎 bananas 🍌 and pears 🍐 here with grapes 🍇 sometimes.
I try not to buy fresh berries until they’re in season and cheaper .
However, frozen blueberries 🫐 and raspberries are good .
Defrost in fridge overnight or use microwave carefully 😂
When I make porridge I often add a few frozen blueberries straight from the freezer to it and that cools it down a bit faster.

That seems a lot and very cheap for £23 esp with 2 caesar salads

I cater for me and DS(16).

I buy meat for four days, fish for two days & then he'll have pizza & garlic bread on Friday and I'll make a risotto, maybe mushroom, pea or asparagus. with some cheese.

My budget is tight so I go for good butcher sausages, chicken legs which I have learned to bone, pork shoulder livened up with spices, unsmoked gammon baked with apple juice, beef meatballs or burgers. Frozen breaded cod, frozen hake fillets or frozen mussels.

The price of lamb or a roasting joint is scary, but DS doesn't seem to mind, and he's just hit 6' so he's not starving🤗

Get them onto the boring but cheap fruit and veg, less of the fancy soft fruits.