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!

Also OP tell them they can’t just help themselves to as much as they want or buy £10 worth a week and once it’s gone it’s gone and don’t restock it - buy grapes and bananas too - as they go further

I've given up buying fresh pears as they remain rock hard..waste of money.
Moved to tinned fruit for peaches and pears and rinse in water to wash off syrup/juice.

Berries have always been expensive. I don't find they've gone up much at all in comparison to other things.

We buy raspberries, strawberries and blackberries twice a week, blueberries and apples once a week. We also eat lettuce, red pepper, cucumber, corn on the cob, sweetcorn, peas, green beans. I also have tomatoes (children wont have that).

We are a family of four I get raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, grapes, satsumas, bananas and apples for the week and if we run out it waits until the following week.

Pink ladies are really expensive, more of a premium variety, buy cheaper varieties.
It's OK to buy cheaper stuff and then maybe one premium version a week.

Maybe my post was badly worded, it was really more of a comment generally about supermarkets taking the piss with some pricing of food generally, seems like an extra 10, 20p on everything every other week. . I don’t live anywhere near an Aldi or Lidl so they’re never going to be practical for me so I don’t know about their pricing.

It's mainly radishes, lettuce, rhubarb, herbs and lovely fat strawberries currently here.
Don't get me wrong we also have loads of white and green strawberries currently so will have loads more in a week or two than we do now but 7-10 a day currently which is a nice portion x 2.

I think vegetables are actually just as important carrots and broccoli are cheap and if possible why not grow a few pots of strawberries outside? I never buy berries anymore. They’re just sprayed with loads of crap and flown from across the world.

CARROTS are definitely underrated.
I love them
#grated with a little olive oil

grated with an apple, the sweetness of the apple and the nuttiness of the carrot x

#Carrots whole in the air fryer with a tiny tiny bit of olive oil turns the carbs into sugars and it’s exquisite

thinly sliced on a platter with sliced banana

The recommended 400 g a day would cost £2 per person per week

Sorry about that I don’t know how some writing became so big

I’m ND too and will only eat Pink Lady apples. The reason being I can guarantee that Pink Lady apples will be crunchy. I can’t tolerate soft apples!

@whynotmereally yes that’s my attitude too - luckily it’s just the 2 of us now but I made it clear to our son from around 10 what an ok daily amount was and if he took more I wouldn’t be rebuying - tell your kids when they are paying they can have as much as they want

Height of the junebearer strawberry season right now. Less than £6.20 per kilo on Ocado. That's less than half what they were 2 weeks ago

You need to do 80’s fruit 😆 apple orange banana

Cheap salads:
Chickpeas with finely chopped red onion, tomato and pepper. Filling and full of protein

Shredded red cabbage and carrot. Dress with lime juice and ginger. Spectacular colour

Homemade coleslaw, white cabbage and carrot, mix mayo or salad cream with yogurt for lighter dressing, or use oil and lemon. Add peanuts or chopped apple if you like

Stir Fry cheap veg:
White cabbage, savoy cabbage, carrots, broccoli

Use frozen fruit:
Blueberries in yogurt.
Make smoothies with froz fruit and a banana

Frozen peas are not expensive.

Veg is better for them than fruit. Find ways to incorporate loads of economical veg into their diet. Sweetcorn or courgette fritters, make your own pakora, have corn in the cob, make soups.

Swap expensive strawberries for satsumas.

As some others have posted, we buy frozen Berries/mango/pineapple, very cheap, just as nutritious and these are easily made into a puree or compote by just boiling up in a pan with a tiny little bit of water. If it comes out very watery, drain off some of the water through sieve and mash or blend the fruit. It is delicious in porridge, weetabix, smoothies, natural yoghurt (makes cheaper, better quality flavoured yoghurt - we often freeze in ice cube trays for a fun healthy desert), on granola, or put the cooked fruit with ice cream for desert.
Also we buy cherry tomatoes and cucumber for snacks, on their own or with hummus.

I add fruit into porridge for DS at breakfast - chopped up whole apple, banana or frozen dark cherries

Like pp I also grow a fair bit (not enough to sustain a £5 a day habit mind!) I love seeing Ds picking sun warmed fruit and eating it straight away - strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, tomatoes... Peas are quick and easy to grow too.

Otherwise for snacks I'd echo pp and suggest carrot sticks, cucumber etc

Yours might be. I buy local strawberries from the stalls at the side of the road, 2 large punnets for 5euro. They're incredible right now

Crikey don't mention watermelon on here, seemingly watermelon is racist.

It’s cheaper to eat healthily than it is to eat rubbish, we had a complete diet spring clean last year and not only feel better but even in this cost of living crisis our food bill went down and we eat well just no processed foods ( or very little) and at least 5 a day

Few mentions for apples - I find a pack of 4 pink lady’s to cost more than berries!

Well yes, pink lady's have always been an expensive type of apple. 6 apples for 89p in sainsburys earlier- lovely crispy flavoursome ones too! £5 on berries a day is crazy, DS used to love them but I'd cut some up for him and add something else to them like yoghurt or something otherwise he would have happily eaten loads too. Frozen fruit and veg is just as nutritious and very reasonably priced.

I wouldn’t feel guilty about giving them a greater range of fruit, not just the ones they love most. A wider range will be better for their gut health and vitamin intake. Frozen blueberries are great, as many have said.

I read an article last week about how climate change has closed the hungry gap, this year at least, as fruit and veg is ripening earlier.

I have lots of rhubarb, spinach, chard, lettuce, parsley, coriander, chives and mint already, and my gooseberries are nearly ripe.

I know what you mean my son is quite fussy he likes strawberries and melons he wont eat the cheap fruits like bananas and apples! I Dont recommend frozen fruit it's gross, it goes slushy and is bitter. I buy two punnets of strawberries (£4) melon (£1.89) carrot batons only 50p and cucumber (80p) that lasts a week for packed lunches. Veg is quite cheap. I don't mind paying it if he eats it

This.

We mostly have apples, bananas and carrots here.

Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries etc all only get bought in season, yellow sticker or as a treat - I tend to buy a punnet a week.

I like pineapple too, which can go quite a long way.