The cost of living crisis is affecting how we spend our money. For many individuals, this implies tightening the budget on the weekly supermarket shop.
One victim could also be fresh fruit and vegetables. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suggests Australians were consuming fewer fruit and vegetables in 2022–23 than the yr before.
The cost of living is probably going compounding an issue that exists already – on the entire, Australians don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables. Australian dietary guidelines recommend people aged nine and older should eat two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables every day for optimal health. But in 2022 the ABS reported only 4% of Australians met the recommendations for each fruit and vegetable consumption.
Fruit and vegetables are crucial for a healthy, balanced weight-reduction plan, providing a spread of vitamins and minerals in addition to fibre.
If you may’t afford as much fresh produce in the mean time, there are other ways to make sure you still get the advantages of those food groups. You might even give you the option to extend your intake of fruit and vegetables.
Frozen
Fresh produce is commonly touted as being essentially the most nutritious (consider the old adage “fresh is best”). But this shouldn’t be necessarily true.
Nutrients can decline in transit from the paddock to your kitchen, and while the produce is stored in your fridge. Frozen vegetables may very well be higher in some nutrients similar to vitamin C and E as they’re snap frozen very near the time of harvest. Variations in transport and storage can affect this barely.
Minerals similar to calcium, iron and magnesium stay at similar levels in frozen produce in comparison with fresh.
Another advantage to frozen vegetables and fruit is the potential to scale back food waste, as you should utilize only what you wish on the time.
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As well as buying frozen fruit and vegetables from the supermarket, you may freeze produce yourself at home if you’ve got an oversupply from the garden, or when produce could also be cheaper.
A quick blanching prior to freezing can improve the security and quality of the produce. This is when food is briefly submerged in boiling water or steamed for a short while.
Frozen vegetables won’t be suitable for salads but might be eaten roasted or steamed and used for soups, stews, casseroles, curries, pies and quiches. Frozen fruits might be added to breakfast dishes (with cereal or youghurt) or utilized in cooking for fruit pies and cakes, for instance.
Canned
Canned vegetables and fruit similarly often offer a less expensive alternative to fresh produce. They’re also very convenient to have readily available. The canning process is the preservation technique, so there’s no have to add any additional preservatives, including salt.
Due to the cooking process, levels of heat-sensitive nutrients similar to vitamin C will decline a bit in comparison with fresh produce. When you’re using canned vegetables in a hot dish, you may add them later within the cooking process to scale back the quantity of nutrient loss.
To minimise waste, you may freeze the portion you don’t need.
Fermented
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Fermentation has recently come into fashion, but it surely’s actually one in every of the oldest food processing and preservation techniques.
Fermentation largely retains the vitamins and minerals in fresh vegetables. But fermentation may enhance the food’s dietary profile by creating latest nutrients and allowing existing ones to be absorbed more easily.
Further, fermented foods contain probiotics, that are helpful for our gut microbiome.
5 other tricks to get your fresh fix
Although alternatives to fresh similar to canned or frozen fruit and vegetables are good substitutes, in case you’re seeking to get more fresh produce into your weight-reduction plan on a decent budget, listed below are some things you may do.
1. Buy in season
Based on supply and demand principles, buying local seasonal vegetables and fruit will all the time be cheaper than those which can be imported out of season from other countries.
2. Don’t shun the ugly fruit and vegetables
Most supermarkets now sell “ugly” fruit and vegetables, that usually are not physically perfect indirectly. This doesn’t affect the degrees of nutrients in them in any respect, or their taste.
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3. Reduce waste
On average, an Australian household throws out A$2,000–$2,500 price of food yearly. Fruit, vegetables and bagged salad are the three of the highest five foods thrown out in our homes. So properly managing fresh produce could assist you to lower your expenses (and profit the environment).
To minimise waste, plan your meals and shopping ahead of time. And in case you don’t think you’re going to get to eat the fruit and vegetables you’ve got before they go off, freeze them.
4. Swap and share
There are many web sites and apps which provide the chance to swap and even pick up free fresh produce if people have greater than they need. Some local councils are also encouraging swaps on their web sites, so dig around and see what you could find in your local area.
5. Gardening
Regardless of how small your garden is you may all the time plant produce in pots. Herbs, rocket, cherry tomatoes, chillies and strawberries all grow well. In the long term, these will offset a few of your cost on fresh produce.
Plus, when you’ve got put the hassle in to grow your individual produce, you might be less more likely to waste it.
