Several people have mentioned eating fresh produce. It may be healthier but it's not cheaper, which is why the poor tend to eat less healthy diets. More
here from CEDAR at Cambridge University, (full report
here).
This is how the foodstuffs in my diet compare:
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FSA NPS Info
It is, and it isn't.
Quite often, it's down to a) knowing what to do with ingredients, b) the actual facilities to cook stuff and c) time to cook.
A lot of costs on some fruit and veg is down to the fact that they're flown in, especially tender and unseasonal stuff. I mean do we *really* need things like asparagus and strawberries in the depths of winter?
I mean take strawberries. Last summer, UK grown strawberries were £2 for a 400g punnet, and two punnets for £3 at the height of the season. Once the UK season is over, the strawberries stayed at £2, but the punnets shrunk to 227g (weird quantity I know, but that's what it was).
Never mind that the quality drops as well. Ergo I very rarely buy strawberries outside of April - September, except on yellow sticker. But if I can't smell them, I don't buy them, as so much of a strawberry's flavour is locked up in its aroma.
@mudsticks is right IMHO saying we need to eat more local and more seasonal.
As for meat, it isn't cheap, that's true. But going on general observation of what other people have in their trollies and what some of my cat fancy friends say, I think on the whole, people eat too much of it - above what the guidelines actually are.
When I cook a spag bol or a shepherds' pie, I'll use half meat, half green lentils. Mind, I love pulses, so it's no great hardship, and when it's all done in the crock pot, it's really hard to tell there are lentils in there.
Plus I rarely have a roast joint. I tend to cook a chicken, say, and then use that cooked meat in other things e.g. enchiladas, stir fries, curries and the like, where the meat is alongside other vegetables and pulses. It really does add extra mileage rather than just eating the meat "straight up".
