Eat for £12 a week?

Allegra

weezl74 wrote: »

iodine: I make it 18906 mcg (at least, as I stopped adding when I found enough for my own purposes.) out of a required 18600 (for 31 days for a family of 4. Sources including: the bread flour and self raising flour, totalling 1800, the potatoes, at 6000, the tomatoes at 1700, and a large amount also comes from the tapwater used in the cooking (a litre and a half in every batch of bread for example.)

A-ha ! So not just vegetables, then Told you I was not an expert :rotfl:

MrsE_2

TheToothfairy wrote: »

I menu plan every week, don't impulse buy,we don't have ready meals, I buy value when I can, we don't have processed food, we don't have crisps, choc bars, cakes etc unless they are H/M...but I am still spending around £80 a week/£320 a month! :eek:
Now the only thing I can see looking at others is the volume of fresh fruit and veg we eat (and perhaps the fact that we live in the South East)!.
By my calculations though if a family of four are eating five fresh fruit and veg a day that is a total of 20 portions a day.
Over a week that is 140 portions for a family of four.
Divide that by the £48 per week (I know some do it on less than this thread is about) and that equates to 2.916p per portion.
Now that doesn't seem an unreasonable amount to spend per portion...but that is the budget spent on just fruit and veg...what about all the other food a family needs each week?
This is not meant at all as a slight at anyone, I just genuinely cannot understand how anyone can eat healthily (as per government guidelines and supermarket/market/farm shop prices) and maintain this level of low spending.

Am I alone in this thinking?...I await the rapid machine gun fire....:o

I know this is an old thread & post, but I think its still relevant.

Its because of Fruit, veg & salad that my shopping bill on't come down much more.

We eat tons of fruit, veg & salad & I think spend at least £25 a week on that alone (for 2).

MrsE_2

lynzpower wrote: »

Do you think, for future reference ( just opening it up for discussion) we should try & cost up our menu plans, ( especialy for thise of us who have bveg boxes delivered- it would be good to see who pays what, and hear about the bargains?)

I have over time had people also presuime we eat really badly on the little we spend- I find it frustrating that people seem to think its "lies" when they could embrace some of the tricks of other OSers and save themselves more money :money:

I might do that next week in any case ( if I remember)

Again I know this is an old post but I think its a great idea & could be really inspiring to others.

SusanC_2

Lizling wrote: »

I just had a quick look at that vegan meal plan (cheap family recipes link), and I'm not a dietician but at first glance it looks seriously deficient in green, leafy vegetables. I can only see 1 portion in a month (the saag aloo)

I believe a "portion" is 80g so 1kg frozen spinach provides 12.5 portions which is roughly three per person - not one.

Lizling wrote: »

I'd also think it's too low in good fats from olive oil, avocado, nut butter etc, which is important because vegans miss out on the healthy fats from things like eggs.

There is 1.5kg nuts - what sort of quantity of nuts would you expect?

Lizling wrote: »

Possibly low in protein because there's not a single source of complete proteins in there anywhere, but perhaps it's ok when you take protein combining into account.

Yes, perhaps.

Lizling wrote: »

Would be simple enough to fix from a nutritional point of view. [snip] And add at least 1 portion of fruit per person per day (and not the same one every day).

What would the fruit be replacing? And what nutritional value would fruit provide compared with what it replaced? I'm curious as to why you think fruit would automatically make it better nutritionally.

MrsE_2

queen_of_string wrote: »

Now, it seeems, you can now do Xmas week for less than £12 per adult including Xmas Day!! I've already ahd a sneaky try of some fo the recipes and can confirm there is no way you'd be feeling deprived, or that anyone could ever guess it was a budget menu.
http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/planner-christmasweek.html

Bumping up this, as the link has loads of recipes at cheap cheap prices.

Lizling

Right, ok, nowhere near enoughtime to respond to even half of the counter-arguments properly, so just going to pick a few for now

brownsauce wrote: »

ah here most of britain is malnourished of vitamins and minerals but still manage to be the size of houses.
this is a a fairly decent plan for what it is: people on a budget who want to eat something other than frozen chips and pizza.

I would be a damn sight happier having someone eat that than filling their children up on crisps and jelly beans.

People can be deficient in all sorts of things and be the size of houses. In fact, if you are getting all the vitamins and minerals you need in your diet it makes sense that you'll be a lot less likely to overeat. In this country, it isn't often the people who eat lots of fruit and veg that get fat, unfortunately it's the poorest people who can't afford it that have problems. Incidentally, I have no argument with the non-vegan meal plan.

allegra wrote:

However, just a glance at the vegan planner shows large amounts of "potassium superfoods" - potatoes, white beans (as in baked) and raisins - all of which are richer in potassium than green leafies. That's quite enough to reassure me, although anyone with a sceptical bent might wanna sit down with a calculator and compare and contrast

Here's a link to a fairly comprehensive list of the vitamin content of veg. http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR17/wtrank/sr17w430.pdf I cup of frozen spinach is over 1000 units of vitamin K or 888 boiled, compared to 4 units in the same volume of potato (baked, page 4). Kale is even better.

Here's the nutritional breakdown of a can of baked beans. http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/legumes-and-legume-products/7698/2 That's 3% of your daily recommended intake.

Raisins are good though and that's interesting what you said about iodine in the water: hadn't heard that before, but haven't been able to look into it yet. I also wasn't aware that there was so much in flour.

JillS_2

Lizling wrote: »

Right, ok, nowhere near enoughtime to respond to even half of the counter-arguments properly, so just going to pick a few for now

Here's a link to a fairly comprehensive list of the vitamin content of veg. http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR17/wtrank/sr17w430.pdf I cup of frozen spinach is over 1000 units of vitamin K or 888 boiled, compared to 4 units in the same volume of potato (baked, page 4). Kale is even better.

.

But I could easily eat a cup of baked potato but I'd be hard pushed to even have 1/4 cup of spinach (that's 8 level tbsps (imp))

Too much vitamin K can be harmful

Normally, adults don't need to worry about K because they can synthesize it. (I wonder at what age kids start being able to do that?)

weezl74

dear Lizling, potassium figures as promised. I was aiming for 240000 mg potassium for a 31 day month for 4 individuals.

The vegan planner has 253213, with the larger sources including: the bread flour at 20460 (124mg per 100g product) raisins 18725 (749 mg per 100g product) potatoes 50875, canned tomatoes 13536, onion 11680, daily piece of fruit 13000, yeast extract 15120.

If you email the website I am happy to send a spreadsheet.

best regards, Weezl x

brightonman123

to the OP / others, can someone link me to this £12 a week shopping list..? I am struggling to get basics with £20!

Brit-Wifey

Hello everyone....
Newbie here. This thread jumped out at me! If there is a list going I'd love to have a copy as well please!