YOU opinionated
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Healthy food not necessarily expensive I
you
fully understand how hard it processed nasty in the superis to feed a family nowadays. market, like processed chicken There are certainly mes and cheap museli bars, but they when the cat and dogs eat can’t afford some mince or vegmore expensive food than the etables and fruit in season. humans do in my house. Vegetables and fruit in season And there are weeks where can be just as cheap as prothe bills mean I have to be really cessed foods, so is it price that careful what I buy at the grocery keeps the bad carbs coming, is it store. ignorance? Or is it laziness? It’s not just the fact that dairy Every situa on is different, and meat are horrendous pricbut to buy fizzy because milk MUM ON THE RUN es, or that our rates have shot is too expensive is ridiculous. BY LISA FENWICK up higher than my incredulous Here’s a p, water is s ll free in eyebrows, or that insurance has this country. If your child has a skyrocketed, it seems that everything is just get- paddy because there’s no carbonated sugar, ng more expensive and wages aren’t keeping too bad, they’ll drink water when they get up with the neverending increases. thirsty. I know that there are people out there comThere is no nutri onal value in fizzy, it’s not a pletely on the breadline and I consider myself food group, it’s for special occasions. I buy milk, lucky that most of the me I can feed my but it’s only for coffee and boy teenrager’s masteenragers good food. sive Weetbix breakfast. I don’t let them drink But you know what? In between jobs when cups of milk because it is that expensive. I also I was on the DPB - which I also considered buy bacon, not the healthiest I know, but if I myself lucky to receive - I s ll managed to feed buy a kilogram on special and split it up into lots my children well. of two to four pieces and freeze them, it helps I am amazed at the reasoning behind why flavour many a meal. some parents say they can only afford chips In fact I never buy meat that’s not on special and fizzy and every other piece of cheap and I can do six million things with mince. I al-
DO YOU HAVE ANY TASTY, CHEAP RECIPES TO SHARE?
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Do you have tasty, healthy recipes you use when you’re ge ng low on supplies and haven’t got the money or me to stock up? If so please share them with our readers! email lisa.f@theguardian.co.nz, write to Lisa Fenwick, PO Box 77 or just drop it into our Burne Street office. Maybe, as a community, we can help towards making a healthier future for our children. Share your ideas and let’s help our kids eat well. ways have frozen veges on hand for the nights I’m running low on me and want a quick fix of veges. I have pumpkins si ng in the ra ers of my garage (staying nice and cold) from last season’s crop that just appeared. I must’ve accidentally missed the compost bin and ended up with a huge crop of pumpkins. I s ll have a very basic, old-fashioned tomato soup in my freezer from my own massive crop of cherry tomatoes. It wasn’t even much effort, the tomato plants grew despite me. If you have a few square metres of soil at your place, you have room to grow some veges. Trial and error does it and there’s also Hand Over a Hundy which will not only finance your first foray into vege gardening, but will help you along with support and advice. You can buy chicken carcasses for next to
nothing at the supermarket which can be the base for a wholesome tasty soup with some cheap seasonal veges. My friend makes a lot of dahl, which is basically len ls, but man it can taste so good and costs virtually nothing to make. There are a million ways I can make cheap and wholesome food when mes are ght. There is no excuse for constant takeaways and bad food, with some forward planning and some me and effort, decent meals can be made for very li le money. In fact, how do people afford takeaways several mes a week? I can feed my family healthy meals way cheaper than it costs us to get takeaways. Perhaps, along with Hand over a Hundy, we need a basic 101 course in making healthy food out of “spare” change.