SW shopping essentials

[AnotherOriginalUsername]

I'm contemplating joining SW, I'd like to join on Tuesday but can't due to work, so will have to wait until the following week. I've done it in the past (years ago, badly!) so have a vague idea of what's involved. We are in need of a big food shop that cannot wait until a week on Tuesday!

I would rather buy stuff that I know will be SW friendly. We're usually pushed for time, so I tend to do a big shop to last the whole month. My usual shop consists of:

Fruit & veg (fresh and frozen)

Milk - I use skimmed for coffee and plant milks for cereal/porridge etc.

Bread or bread products (wraps, muffins, crumpets etc.)

Yoghurt - mainly full fat Greek yoghurt for me.

Cupboard foods - cereals, pasta, rice, cous cous, lentils, tins of various beans, chickpeas, tomatoes etc.

Freezer fodder: mainly quorn staples (veggie household) - mince, pieces, sausages etc - things that aren't coated in breadcrumbs etc.

Eggs. Lots of eggs!

So my questions:

What have I missed? What are your SW essentials? I prefer to cook "real" food rather than packet things, but I'm open to suggestions.

How do plant milks fare on SW? I don't use soya milk, but I do use nut milks (almond, cashew, hazelnut) and oat milk.

Break it to me gently...what's the SW take on avocados?

Will full fat yoghurt slaughter my "syn" allowance?

Fry light is v handy

Avocado is 9.5 syns for 100g I think.

My herbs and spices have been my go to. So cumin, oregano, paprika, tikka spice, Cajun seasoning and Chinese five spice too.

I think a litre of almond milk is your healthy extra A choice but you would need to syn your yoghurt and skimmed milk.

Full fat would be about a fifth of your allowance for 100g. Avocados are most of it but this seems controversial. Nut milks are fine.

Fat free fromage frais (insyead of Muller lights that I was having - I read up on mullers and am avoiding them now)

Kingsmill crustless wholemeal - 3 slices for a b choice

Fat free yogurts, cottage cheese, quark.
Bacon medallions, pork loin steaks, chicken, steak, gammon steak.
Cooked meats such as chicken slices, beef, turkey for snacking.
Lots of tins: tomatoes, mushy peas, beans, spaghetti.
Eggs.
Potatoes, pasta
Alpen Light Bars.
Fresh and frozen fruit and veg.

Thanks for the replies. There's a lot about SW that I don't agree with and it looks like avocados is going to be another one added to the list 😂

I'm hoping to only do it for 6 weeks or so, so not the end of the world, I may have to "adapt" the plan to fit with my own requirements a bit!

Am I right in thinking there's no recognition of exercise in terms of food allowance? (Like WW has activity points for exercise etc.)

Also as per my original post, I'm vegetarian so there won't be any snacking on cold meats 🤢

Sorry OP missed the part were ot said you were veggie. The quorn mince and pieces are free foods though and some of the sausages are too. Iceland sell vegetable burgers as part of their slimming world range too. My sister is veggie and struggles with slimming world as it uses so much meat.

Garlic, baking potatoes for SW chips. Muller light yogurts.

dp and I are both doing slimming world and are finding fat free natural yoghurt and fat free creme fraiche is coming in very handy to splodge onto meals to feel like a treat . We've stuck to semi skimmed milk but only have a small bowl of cereal and a couple of hot drinks a day.

Carrots! I'm snacking on them lots - easy to nibble on - don't bother peeling them and they stop me from snacking on naughty stuff. Similarly with cherry tomatoes, apples and easy peelers.

Red onions to add to everything to give some welly - and balsamic vinegar as a salad dressing to save using any oil.

We hate fry light so refuse to use it, but did buy an oil sprayer a while ago and just fill it with ordinary oil - so using much less than usual.

Good luck

Muller light yoghurts seem to be a SW staple? Besides the fact they aren't vegetarian, personally I think I'd rather take the hit of full fat yoghurt over something so processed. Admittedly I'm planning on calorie counting alongside so can make it work (along with my beloved avocados!)

There's other yogurts that are fat free that are possibly vegetarian.
It depends if you're willing to use your syns on full fat yogurts.

Weight watchers wraps are nice and can be used as a healthy extra. Linda McCartney red onion sausages are free.

Danone light and free flavoured yoghurt are suitable for vegetarians. They are processed but have less sugar and fewer calories than muller lights so might be worth a try.

Mullers are SW staples but I googled them the other day... they're really high in sugar and have aspartame in 😣

I've not eaten a muller light the whole time I've been on SW this time.

One of my friends is a SW leader and she seems to use Quark a lot! It's a cheese a bit like ricotta that's good for pasta sauces and I think it's sin free. She eats a lot of salads and fruit!

I eat quark with a bit of sweetener as a protein snack. Me and cooking with it just doesn't work.

I just use quark as a mayonnaise substitute or with chopped fruit.

Quark is brilliant in my opinion, but I know a lot of people don't like it. It's high in protein so great for vegetarians, and I love it with fruit and find it doesn't need any sweetener. You could also swap your full fat Greek yoghurt to 0% fat, which is free.

Fat free natural yogurt, not full fat. I don't eat Muller yogurts either!

Also I do occasionally "swap" free rice for avocado to the same calorie value - so I have a syn free chilli recipe and have it with avocado rather than "free " rice

Ditto swapping a "free" jacket with a salad for Avocado... Just don't have both!

low fat dressing (must be 50kcal or less per 100ml)

Bread and bread products are the big no-no on SW

so today I'm having (note - not veggie!)

Breakfast - Overnight oats - banana, oats from allowance, milk from allowance and fat free yogurt.

Lunch - Small Jacket with salad, prawns and fat free dressing

Tea - Stir fry veg with chicken, garlic & soy sauce, small portion brown rice

Fruit for snacks

probably 1 gin & slimline tonic

I'm veggie
I've been eating a lot more eggs but you might not notice that if you already have lots! chickpeas so a few cans of those might be handy, I mix them through salads or in warming Moroccan spiced stew. Also tofu for stir fries, keeps for ages (thinking of your monthly shop) and free, I like the smoked tofoo one.
Linda McCartney onion and rosemary sausages are nice. The only completely free quorn sausages are the frozen fat free ones, which I don't like (but the lovely garlic and parsley quorn ones are only 1.5 syns each) quorn pieces and mince are free so go nuts on those! Lots of tinned tomatoes as a base for soups /stews/curries/pasta sauce

Today I'll have:
Breakfast: baked oats with yoghurt, egg and fruit (synned because it's cooked, but only 1syn)
Lunch: homemade Miso soup with tofu, noodles and veg, fat free yoghurt, fruit
Dinner: vegetable lentil dahl and brown rice
Snacks: fruit, yoghurt, berries, sometimes air puffed crisps (which are about 4 syns a bag) if I'm craving something crunchy (hula hoops puft, frazzles, French fries, skips) lots of tea with milk!

We eat a lot more potatoes now as we have less bread and a lot more veg in general. We also eat less butter and cheese and buy reduced fat cheddar instead of the normal stuff

If you crave sweetness, curly wurlies are a lowish syn choice (6) and meringue nests are good to crumble onto yoghurt and berries for Eton mess (2.5 syns each)

Definitely quark, I had overnight oats with home made lemon curd (no sweetener as I like it sour), quark and frozen fruit.

I like quark or fat free cottage cheese made into crestless quiche with eggs and what ever else you want to include, mushrooms, tomatoes etc, with a topping of your healthy a cheese

The queen sausages work brilliantly in a veggie spicy sausage casserole. Brown the sausages, add onions, peppers and mushrooms, kidney beans, lentils, lots of chilly and tomatoes or passata, plus tomato purée