How Buying Expensive Veg Boxes Can Save You Money.
If your here you’ve probably come to have a read about being more sustainable. That may well be because you hate the idea of all your babies nappies ending up in landfill, because you don’t want to support the fast fashion industry or you need tips on how to cut plastic out of your life. All are great steps on the road to becoming an eco-warrior and living a more ethical life.
But hows your food shop going? Sustainably and plastic wise I know mine isn’t all that great.
There’s a few reasons for that….
1. We’re in lock down at the moment. If your reading this from the future things may be very different but right now it’s not always possible to shop the way I did before. The main reason for that is that I really don’t like going to the supermarkets during this time. Whereas my partner Mat doesn’t mind so he’s doing ALL the shopping. Mat also does 90% of the cooking in our house because he loves it. Therefore I cannot have complete control over what he buys. This is not to have a go at him, he does make many great ethical choices but not always when it comes to food. Pre lockdown we were only eating meat at the weekends, now we have the boys home more of weekdays, Mat is home more to do more big family meals and has therefore been cooking with more meat.
I also used to pop into our local zero waste shop as it was very close to my work a couple of times a month to stock up, which is not happening at the moment either.
I’m not going to beat myself up about it, these are unprecedented times but it’s something I hope we can work on.
2. It’s not always in my control. Like I said before Mat does most of the cooking, so while I can try to sway him to more ethically seasonal meals it’s not just me in the house so we have to come to a compromise. In normal times this usually looks like my decisions Monday to Thursday and Mat is let loose in the kitchen to cook a leg of lamb at the weekend. Which I’m not necessarily against as he does buy organic from the local butcher.
3. Nutritional Value is important to me. Of course you can have a healthy vegan diet and I’m not one to get into this argument, but I do believe a balanced diet is good and I know that fish oils are good for us too. Therefore we try to have fish, especially for the kids once a week. Often buying from our local fish mongers but I do know that much of the fish this country buys is unsustainable.
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You may feel your food shop is the same and have no idea how to change it?
If you feel the same and hope to make your food shop a slightly more sustainable one have you thought about getting a veg box delivered with seasonal veg.
Okay so when I first suggested this Mat rolled his eyes. Because he is right they are a more expensive way to buy veg and feel like a luxury. He also worries we won’t use all that we get in it;
There are a few ways that these expensive veg boxes can and will save you money.
First of all you need to plan your meals and plan your meals around the veg box.
Don’t plan your meals for the week on a Monday, only to receive your veg box on a Wednesday and then realise a week later half of it has gone rotten.
See what your going to get or wait for it to get there. A lot of veg with last well if you store it right, so you can also plan next weeks meals with what you’ve got. Ours used to arrive on a Friday and Mat would do our supermarket shop on a Sunday so we would plan for Monday onwards.
Be adventurous with your meal planning.
The beauty of getting a veg box is that it pushes you cook outside the box. No pun intended. Have a look for recipes including what you’ve received. Don’t be afraid to try new things, what the worst that could happen?
Bulk cook.
I love nothing more than bulk cooking.
We actually now get our veg box every two weeks rather than weekly. This is because we get so much in it and often more of one vegetable than I would normally put in a meal. This is where you going to save you money and for that matter your time. BULK COOK.
Anything I cook I make at these 2/3 meals worth and freeze it. It means we often have at least 5/6 meals in the freezer for when we have a busy day. Or the suns out and we would rather be in the garden than cooking.
Bulk your food out with veg.
If I do make a meat based meal, such as a Bolognese for the kids for example I will bulk it out with all the veg. Chop it small, no one with ever know, it will taste better and you’ll get at least 2 more meals out of it. This again is going to save you time and money.
Store your veg well.
Make sure you veg is stored how it likes to be stored.
Potatoes in a dry, dark spot and away from onions. Herbs in water. This Blog has some good tips on how to store your fruit and vegetables to make them last longer.
Talk to your local green grocers.
While I highly recommend companies like Riverford and Abel and Cole for their ethics, organic produce and soil regeneration practices, I have actually now started getting a veg box from our local green grocers for two reasons. We are order as a street. He deliveries to a number of houses in the street and we all do an order together. This mat not be a possibility for you but if it is it works out to be highly money saving. It’s time and money saving for the green grocer himself, only having to make on trip to deliver to multiple house. Number two I’m keen to support local business especially in this time. Lastly he gives us such good value for money. We are able to request what we do and don’t want and he will try his best to do this depending no season and stock. The real bonus for us has been he gives us way over what we pay for. I think this is because whatever surplus stock he has he will add in bits and bobs for us.
Eat less meat.
I’m not saying go vegan over night. We have certainly not done that but cutting down on your meat consumption is one of the biggest things you can do to cut your carbon footprint. Despite the world telling us it’s cheaper to eat proceeded food that fresh veg I simply believe this is a lie told to us. It’s all about cooking cleverly, bulking out with veg, carbs, pulses and eating less meat.
If your interested in cheap meals you can bulk cook head over to the food section here.
I wish you luck in your quest for affordable veg boxes and healthy, carbon neutral eating. We will all never be perfect but a little goes a long way for the planet and for our wallets.
Much Love
Hannah xxx
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