Vegetables are expensive

organic_wanabe

rhubarbs, thanks very much for that info. The Craighall one is near to me so I'll give it a go. I had never heard of this organisation before.

Tiggerwoos

The one thing that concerns me with Lidl is that the fresh produce has the highest level of pesticides and herbicides in their fruit and veg... A large proportion of which are actually listed as banned in a large majority of the EU nowadays.

I've started buying an organic box due to the amount we were spending on organic fruit and veg in regular supermarkets and found our shopping bill has probably dropped by about £15 per week and the quality is superior.

You can buy small boxes for as little as £6.50 for single people rather than letting stuff go to waste that you don't want from most companies.

Bogof_Babe

I've been to Morrisons this morning and all their veg on its sell-by date was 15p per item. Got a huge bag of carrots, 2xfairtrade avocados and a good sized January King cabbage, 45p the lot. All look good for several days life.

Then I blew it by buying a reduced triple pack sandwich, which I could still have made cheaper, but I was on a roll...:o

pudding06

I've started buying an organic box due to the amount we were spending on organic fruit and veg in regular supermarkets and found our shopping bill has probably dropped by about £15 per week and the quality is superior.

I would agree with this except I found it much harder to plan measl ahead and ended up spending more trying to get things to go with the veg from the organic box. Also I had to order extra fruit as there was never enough for us, and inevitabley we'd end up at asda anyway.

in such atight spot now that organic isnt an option unless reduced.

pudds

beer2006

Tiggerwoos wrote:

The one thing that concerns me with Lidl is that the fresh produce has the highest level of pesticides and herbicides in their fruit and veg... A large proportion of which are actually listed as banned in a large majority of the EU nowadays.

Is that true, is Lidl worse than other places?

annie-c

beer2006 wrote:

Is that true, is Lidl worse than other places?

I just did a quick 'google' on this - as far as I can see Greenpeace has targeted Lidl recently, noting that they have introduced new more stringent rules on pesticiceds in Germany only - and Greenpeace is asking that they reduce levels of pesticides in all their stores across Europe... but apart from this most reports seem to lump Lidl in with the rest of the British supermarkets for having too-high levels of pesticides on ordinary fruit and veg.

Personally, I can't afford organic at the moment so I do my best to wash and peel from wherever I buy....

beer2006

annie-c wrote:

I just did a quick 'google' on this - as far as I can see Greenpeace has targeted Lidl recently, noting that they have introduced new more stringent rules on pesticiceds in Germany only - and Greenpeace is asking that they reduce levels of pesticides in all their stores across Europe... but apart from this most reports seem to lump Lidl in with the rest of the British supermarkets for having too-high levels of pesticides on ordinary fruit and veg.

Personally, I can't afford organic at the moment so I do my best to wash and peel from wherever I buy....

Thanks, I could have just done that I suppose, I thought it might be common knowledge.

Unfortunately from what I understand, washing and peeling doesn't really do very much to help, it goes all the way through

vivaladiva

Did anyone see the Tonight programme on toxic kids? When they tested the country child fed on organic food she apparently had more toxins in her blood than the town kids fed on supermarket veg. (I wonder if the study was funded by the supermarkets?)

tawnyowls

annie-c wrote:

I just did a quick 'google' on this - as far as I can see Greenpeace has targeted Lidl recently, noting that they have introduced new more stringent rules on pesticiceds in Germany only - and Greenpeace is asking that they reduce levels of pesticides in all their stores across Europe... but apart from this most reports seem to lump Lidl in with the rest of the British supermarkets for having too-high levels of pesticides on ordinary fruit and veg.

Greenpeace have their own agenda, and should be only one of the sources of information used when checking anything like this. They've frequently been hauled over the coals for their inaccurate reporting.

The government pesticides residue committee report (http://www.pesticides.gov.uk/prc.asp?id=1673&link=%2Fuploadedfiles%2FWeb%5FAssets%2FPRC%2FQ1%5Fbrand%5Fname%5Fannexes%2Epdf has several mentions of Lidl on it, only one of which does not have 'none detected' after it - a lot better than most of the other supermarkets.

wigginsmum

Couldn't agree more with the allotment comment - we've taken on two this year despite working fulltime, and expect to pretty much supply all our organic fruit & veg needs from them for £30 rent and the initial cost of seed. Fab exercise, very sociable and very emotionally satisfying.