Friday was the last day of the holidays and a staff member asked me if I would like to take some extra fruit home as they still had a large bag full. I sure did! I happily accepted half a dozen. FREE produce is a healthy bonus I am VERY HAPPY to receive.
I have made changes to our diet to incorporate even more fruit and veggies. In the past 2 months I have watched four documentaries; Food Matters, Hungry for Change, Numen the Nature of Plants and Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead. All of these documentaries have taught me about the foods we eat and what they do to our bodies and inspired me to care for myself and family better.
Every morning I juice a salad bowl full of vegetables and fruits for us. I start off with Dolly's juice who is a little more fussy so hers is often just apple and lemon or watermelon juice. For The Rambling Expat and myself I juice the remainder making a highly nutritional drink. We then eat a bowl of raw fruit or vegetables before having any toast.
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| Watermelon, carrot, celery, mandarine, pear, water apple, lemon, apple and fennel. |
This has meant an increase of fruit and vegetables purchases and smarter grocery shopping strategies to keep the groceries at $100 a week. Not easy, but challenging and sometimes fun as I learn to use my Flybuys Card and Super Specials to my best advantage. I've also been learning what I can eat, such as watermelon rind and kiwi fruit skin. This allows for less waste as we use more of the fruit. So you see, receiving free fruits really helped us out in saving a dollar.
Any challenges in your grocery shopping to stick to budget? Fussy eaters? Guests to please? Dietary changes?
Looking forward to reading your comments,
Stephanie at Frugal Down Under.
It's good to get free food, helthful food. Not eating the pulp eliminates much of the nutrition from the food you juice. Do you eat the pulp? Losing part of the fruit's nutrition is the main reason I have never wanted to juice. I REALLY does sound delicious!
ReplyDeleteFree fruit is great. I love it when I can go and forage wild fruit to add into our diet, or when my home grown veggies and fruit are ready to pick. This past week I have foraged redcurrants and picked strawberries,blackcurrants, raspberries, gooseberries and my first cucumber from the garden.I was also given half a dozen lemons by a friend. It all helps to keep the food bills down and is healthy too.Here in Scotland we aren't having good weather this summer so my veg growing is suffering a bit, we could do with some of your lovely sunshine to perk things up a bit :)
ReplyDeleteHi Linda, I have a Champion Juicer which masticates the produce so the nutritional content is very high and waste very low. The benefit of juicing is that the nutrients are absorbed in your cells within 20 minutes and you can get a whole lot more into your body in a short time. If I had to eat that huge bowl of produce for breakfast I would not get through it especially raw carrots are hard to chew through in the morning rush. So I juice and then some time latter I eat my fruit and veggie breakfast salad. The waste from the colander in the picture was a small handful of pulp as much of it gets masticated into the juice. Many people use the waste in their cooking. I use it for some cooking or smoothies but not everyday. The compost, plants and chooks get the left overs.
ReplyDeleteWe are making gradual changes.
ReplyDeleteMr Sft is having minimal processed meat (only that eaten away from the cottage).
He is joining me with more non-meat meals too.
But we need to introduce more fruit for sure.
I love that you got some freebies from your course-a win-win situation!
Really enjoying your posts.
Sft x
I have seen Fat Sick and Nearly Dead and agree that it is inspiring. He recommends green leafy vegetables in the juice. There is a school of thought that holds that eating the fibre of the fruit and vegetables has enormous health benefits. Research suggests a high fibre diet is vital for the health of our intestinal system and is highly likely to remove the threat of colon cancer in later life. Why do you feel you need all that juice early in the morning? Is your body actually using the vitamins or would you be better off drinking water? If you eat the fruit rather than the juice then the tummy feels full, but this is healthy and teaches us to stop eating and avoid obesity. Of course you love your family and want the best for them, but I disagree with all this juice.
ReplyDeleteDreamer you are lucky to forage redcurrants. Not too many things to forage here unless I had some indigenous foods knowledge.
ReplyDeleteHi SFT, We eat meat only 1 to 2 times a week. I LOVE meat and would eat it everyday for dinner if it was healthy and ethical. But it's not so we don't.
Hi Louise, We start the day with 2 glasses of water each. Then we have juice usually once we are dressed, then fruit/veggie salad and then a slice of toast if we still want something to eat. I also drink green smoothies as the basic champion is not great with too many leaves. You don't see it well in my picture but I also have the celery leaves under the fruits. Some days I have more veggies and leaves then other days. We eat a lot of greens from our garden. As schools don't have time anymore for classroom eating and monitoring my daughters lunch box has been returning home from school with the fruit and vegetable untouched so this is why we are starting the day with fruit. When I was a nanny I lived with a family for 2 years who lived a strict Fit For Life eating program. It was the healthiest time in my life. No period pains, great skin, great hair and lots of energy. So I using that as a base of knowledge.