Organic food in supermarkets

Kirri

Edwardia wrote: »

I just posted a tip on another thread which I'm embarrassed to say I haven't ever thought to include on this thread Soo..

If you meal plan, it works out cheaper to meal plan around offers, rather than meal plan and have to buy expensive ingredients.

Clean version of a British military proverb is Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Poor Performance, known as The Six P's.

In Blue Peter fashion, you will need:

Ring binder
A4 size junk letters, faxes, print outs with a blank side
Glue
Plastic pockets
Dividers (optional)
All those recipes from magazines, supermarket flyers and veg boxes which are cluttering up the place

Simply trim and stick however you want, by type eg meat, fish, veg, salad or alphabetically or just random. You get two A4 pages per pocket and when you want to cook something you have a wipe clean recipe.

If you can't be bothered another way of pulling out recipes by ingredient is to use a supermarket recipe search. Good ones suggest recipes, tell you what else you will need and let you order online.

One of the things that makes trying new cheaper ingredients a barrier is not knowing what to do with them. Collecting a few recipes or browsing online gives a starting point.

Eating more organic, wild and additive free food isn't like going on a low carb/fat/calorie diet, you can still use old favourites but hopefully they will taste even better.

Wilkos do I think they are called display folders, they are just over £1 and come in two sizes, the biggest has 40 pockets so 80 sides and they don't take up much room. Not as flexible as having a file with loose pockets but they work well for what I want.

I have one for baking, one for snacks, one for main meals and one for world foods. Within those I sort of loosely file recipes for certain ingredients together and in my case it tends to be based around a type of mainly a vegetable ie butternut squash I keep all the recipes for it near each other as it tends to do more than 1 meal so I don't waste it... I have a mixture of recipes from mags, websites, in store cards and especially the Waitrose mags. I also collect meat recipes even though I don't eat it, if I can convert it to a veggie meal or even if I just like the look of the presentation and can use the idea or even part of the recipe..

I don't really meal plan but may roughly plan a week based on what I have (either from the allotment or at the mo in a veg box). I've got most of the basic wholefoods so don't tend to buy much in for specific recipes at the mo.

lindseykim13

Just recieved my amazon order of so called orgain brown rice, looking at the suma label makes no metion of orgainc whatsoever. So looks like amazon are falsly advertsing it as orgainc. Did get a refund after live chat but now i'm stuck with a 10kg sack of rice i don't want and no way to buy another sack as i don't trust amazon with it now. How annoying.

Beckyy

If you got a refund you could see if any local food banks could make use of it?

I'm getting on really well wth my Greenscents organic washing up liquid. I got 3 bottles on amazon subscribe and save and it's much kinder on the skin and still cleans well. It's not ridiculously expensive so I'll be buyng more when I've worked my way through it

Kirri

lindseykim13 wrote: »

Just recieved my amazon order of so called orgain brown rice, looking at the suma label makes no metion of orgainc whatsoever. So looks like amazon are falsly advertsing it as orgainc. Did get a refund after live chat but now i'm stuck with a 10kg sack of rice i don't want and no way to buy another sack as i don't trust amazon with it now. How annoying.

I would probably eat it.. annoying as it is and bad they advertised it as organic but at least it's been refunded (and hopefully they will amend the listing), presume they sell two types as Suma do both don't they? Given that I'm dubious about anything that comes out of that part of the world, even organic, so although I'd choose organic I'd probably eat either and hope it's ok. I do eat some non org foods anyway if additive free.

Could also try Freecycle though if you really don't want it and want to get rid quick, sure someone would love it. Or even an animal rescue place might make use of it.


Has your farmaround order arrived yet? Interested to hear how you find them given Edwardia's experience!

Kirri

Beckyy wrote: »

If you got a refund you could see if any local food banks could make use of it?

I'm getting on really well wth my Greenscents organic washing up liquid. I got 3 bottles on amazon subscribe and save and it's much kinder on the skin and still cleans well. It's not ridiculously expensive so I'll be buyng more when I've worked my way through it

Never seen Greenscents anywhere but entered a comp for it the other day and was first I'd heard of it.

Edwardia

Kirri wrote: »

Given that I'm dubious about anything that comes out of that part of the world, even organic...

I never thought of Yorkshire as dodgy myself
http://www.suma.coop/contact-us/suma-contact-address/

Myself, I've only found organic stuff from Suma. Shops here don't stock them but Ma's local Budgens does both the crunchy and smooth peanut butter which has no added sugar, salt or vegetable oil and is megafab. OH not too keen on some of their soups.

lindseykim13 I'd have been really annoyed if that had happened to me too, but well done for (a) spotting it wasn't what you had ordered and (b) getting a refund :T

Just got the Lidl leaflet and from Thursday, 04/04 Lidl has frozen Trawlic Alaska pollock fillets 1kg reduced from 3.99 to 3.29

Beckyy I' not heard of Greenscents either, well found :T

Edwardia

Kirri I will look for the display folders next time in Wilko thanks.

Anyone else ever used oil (organic or not ) on hair ? Watched catch up of Dr Oz online and a woman was demonstrating oil massage. She used neem, said you could use coconut and almond. On the comments a woman from some institute or other said you could use olive oil too.

So I've done it with the special offer organic olive oil from Morries. Am feeling a prat with towel round my head now. :rotfl:

System

not organic but additive free, innocent veg pots £1.89 half price in Tesco, I recommend the mexican one, its amazing

Edwardia

Just got email from Soil Association giving results of their shopping survey which took place during September and October last year.

Broadly speaking it does show that lack of availability in supermarkets, (which is why I started this thread actually) and shows that many people buy organic food online.

To me the availability figures seem too high, given how difficult it can be to buy organic here. What do you think ?

http://www.soilassociation.org/buyorganic/shoppingsurvey

Got an email from Lidl to say that they will be replying to my query about organic food, which I spent oh pages back.

Edwardia

Eating fish rich in omega3 can ad 2 yrs to your lifespan
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fmcg/eating-fish-rich-in-omega-3-can-add-two-years-to-lifespan/238024.article

Department of Health, as usual, millenia behind the times wants yet more saturated fat cut out of food so more carbs obviously
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/topics/sat-fat-in-food-must-be-cut-by-100000-tonnes-says-dh/237998.article

Waitrose lambs get biodegradable blankets
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fmcg/fresh/waitrose-dispatches-plastic-jackets-for-lambs-in-wintry-weather/237984.article

Free Rangers egg hit Morrisons
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fmcg/fresh/eggs-and-poultry/family-friendly-free-rangers-eggs-win-shelf-space-at-morrisons/237203.article

Waitrose exploring rye grass packaging
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fmcg/fresh/waitrose-to-trial-rye-grass-packaging-for-fresh-fruit-and-veg/237531.article

Waitrose tuna to get MSC label
http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fmcg/fresh/fish/all-waitrose-canned-tuna-to-get-msc-labels/236577.article