Cheapest Way to Five a Day. 6 July 2009 at 3:43PM edited 7 July 2009 at 8:29PM in Old Style MoneySaving 213 replies 37.7K views

thriftlady_2

Make_do_and_mend wrote: »

I priced up Hula Hoops on offer at them moment and worked out at Tesco they are something like 7-8p a packet. Yet a piece of fruit is nothing like that.

This is something that has been getting on my nerves for a while now. It is easy to feed your children nutritional rubbish - but difficult to buy reasonably priced healthy fruit and veg.

I agree, it gets on my nerves too. Simplest thing I've found is just to ignore that which is not food and never buy it. So no hula hoops and their ilk. Make sure the only foods you put in in your basket are just that -food and not rubbish. Make every thing you buy earn its place in your basket by being nutritionally worthwhile. Buy ingredients not 'made' things;)

5 a day on the cheap (or reasonably cheap)

A glass of value orange juice
An apple
A serving of frozen peas
A handful of carrot sticks
A large sliced tomato

Can you grow things? I'm getting 5 servings of raspberries from my garden at the moment.

freebiequennie

tinned and frozen fruit and veg count towards 5 a day

potatoes dont count

fruit juice does but only one glass so cant cheat and have 5 as still only counts as one.

be careful with tinned fruit and buy in juice not syrup as this is less healthy unless wash syrup off.

can get some good value tinned fruits in juice in sainsburys.

we often make a sugar free jelly with a tin of fruit added (use the juice as part of total liquid needed to make jelly) as a healthy pudding- also can make in those little pots with lids for luncboxes much cheaper than those ready done ones.

freezspirit

I think I might be in the minority but I've been told to cut down my daily fruit and veg portions from the dietician. You see at the beginning I misunderstood the "5 aday" as I was eating 5 fruit and 5 veg a day sometimes multiplying the fruit so I would have 5 apples, 5 pears, 5 clemintines etc in aday. Plus I would forget to include fresh fruit juice in my portions, if anyone wants to know a litre of juice as the small calories as a pint of beer about 500.

In my house, my parents don't mind spending on fruit and veg as I'm not really into junk food and noone drinks or smokes.

To be honest in the house we always have fresh fruit juice, in season fruit and veg, dried fruits and nuts and only in the past couple of months have we started to buy tins of fruit as I can work out my portions better, the tins work out cheaper than fresh fruit and they seem to last longer.

drinkupretty

Getting your 5 a day when you have little money is difficult. I recently moved house, where I used to live the nearest supermarket was a Morrisons. Their so called fresh fruit and veg was very poor quality, a lot of the produce was overly soft and in many cases starting to grow mould!!! Now Tesco is my nearest store and their produce is far better quality.
I have started to plant some of my own veg, it will take a while to reap the benefits but it will be worth it eventually.

got-it-spend-it

I cannot recommend Aldi's super six highly enough. http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/product_range/4862.htm

I also second the recommendation of frozen veggies- it's cheaper but it also cuts out the waste you often get with fresh fruit and veg. We always have frozen peas, sweetcorn and spinach in.

LameWolf

I'm able to buy lovely fruit'n'veg at Stony Stratford market for not too much money; my problem is managing to eat 5 portions a day, without missing out on other nutrients.

I have a really tiny appetite, and if I ate 5 portions of f&v in a day, I'd have no room for any other type of food.

[Deleted User]

the easiest and cheapest way to get the 5 down is via hm soup

stock
+ maybe lentils
tinned tomatoes
celery
chunk of squash
carrot
onion
garlic
cabbage leaf

whizz and it slips down

You don`t need fruit as it is all in veg and many fruits are high in sugar too. The fibre in veg is equally important

because of doing soup almost every day, we eat at least 10 a day

Lois_and_CK

kittie wrote: »

the easiest and cheapest way to get the 5 down is via hm soup

stock
+ maybe lentils
tinned tomatoes
celery
chunk of squash
carrot
onion
garlic
cabbage leaf

whizz and it slips down

You don`t need fruit as it is all in veg and many fruits are high in sugar too. The fibre in veg is equally important

because of doing soup almost every day, we eat at least 10 a day

Good idea with the soup. I avoid too much fruit as it raises blood sugar too quickly and I have PCOS, so get most of my five a day from veg. I use dried beans (kidney, aduki etc) as they're cheaper than tinned and add them to one-pot meals, I also use frozen veg.

Curry - add chickpeas, lentils, mushrooms, cauliflour, onions and peppers

Chilli - add kidney beans, aduki beans, black beans, lentils, mushrooms and onions

Stews - add lentils and various veg: carrots, onions, squash, peas, etc.


My husband eats a lot of fruit though, so I look out for supermarket offers and buy value/basics ranges.

Confuzzled

bc3000 wrote: »

Aldi have their super 6 fruit/veg on offer every week

if you have one nearby GO! today i was delighted to find large bunches of bananas, 3 packs of peppers, vine ripened cherry tomatoes, nectarines, and punnets of grapes (and a bag of new potatoes i think) all for just 49p each!

i'll get my fresh fruit this week too vs 95% of the fresh stuff going to my daughter who's an absolute fruit hound. this is the best week i've seen so far for their 49p selections so definitly worth it for a venture in!

Confuzzled

got-it-spend-it wrote: »

I also second the recommendation of frozen veggies- it's cheaper but it also cuts out the waste you often get with fresh fruit and veg. We always have frozen peas, sweetcorn and spinach in.

i agree on the frozen veg too, with just me and my daughter in the house i have problems with fresh veg going off before we can eat it as i try to stay out of the shops as much as possible.

i can buy frozen veg cheaply in my online shops (every 4-6 weeks, preferably 6 weeks!) and have enough for the entire month, i buy enough for one weeks worth of fresh fruit during this shop then just top up the fruit as we run out BUT i try to push that trip to the local shops a bit further each time by using the odd bit of frozen fruit (when i can get a good price) and/or dried fruit like apple crisps and raisins... one way or another we're getting veg and fruit even though we're really skint

i also have a small amoutn growing in our backgarden, not a lot but it's something and now we're getting into foraging so there will be that for a supplement as well.