But for many of us, the question of fresh v frozen is kind of irrelevant anyway. Most of us don’t eat nearly enough plant food to start with, let alone worry about whether it is fresh or frozen.

I want to take a moment to compare fresh and frozen vegetables from a cost point of view. You see, I’ve had broccoli on my mind a lot over the last few weeks. We eat a lot of broccoli. It’s high in nutrients (fresh or frozen) and it’s one of the few greens I don’t have to force feed DH.

But what to do with the stems? I’ve thrown them in the stock pot, cut them up and to put in the stir fry, I’ve even made broccoli stem soup, but mostly the stem gets wasted. This got me thinking about the true cost of fresh broccoli and whether it is better value (from a purely cost perspective) to purchase frozen.

So I did a little weighing and a little calculating.

I purchased a head of broccoli for $4.70 per kilo. Total weight for the piece was 500g so the total purchase cost was $2.35.

The actual yield after cutting the broccoli into florets was only 300g, a 40% loss. After accounting for the waste, the actual cost of the usable portion of the broccoli went up to $7.83 per kilo. Or to put it another way, I would have to buy at least 700g of broccoli (not accounting for the further waste of stem when buying a second head) to get a 500g yield of broccoli.

Now compare this with frozen broccoli. When buying frozen, there is no loss in yield as the stem has already been discarded. The cheapest brand I could find at my local supermarket was selling at $6.58 per kilo, cheaper than the true cost of the fresh.

Now, broccoli is in season at the moment, so the prices are fairly evenly matched and you will probably even find it cheaper fresh over the next few months. When it’s not in season, frozen broccoli will win on cost hand’s down.

Below is a summary of the pros and cons of frozen vegetables:

Advantages of Frozen Vegetables

• Tests have found that frozen vegetables are just as healthy than fresh vegetables and if the ‘fresh’ vegetables have been sitting in cold storage for quite some time, the snap freezing process can mean that frozen vegetables are higher in vitamins than fresh.
• Local climate conditions may mean supply of fresh food dwindles or is very expensive during the cold months.
• Cooking with frozen vegetables is easy and saves time when cooking. There is no preparation, just boil or steam and serve.
• Having some frozen vegetables in the freezer means that you always have some vegetables on hand to make a healthy meal.
• Frozen vegetables aren’t going to go mouldy if you forget about them, so there is less chance of waste. Also, the sorting for quality has been done for you, so you don’t have the problem of cutting into a carrot and finding it rotten at the core.
• As shown above, frozen vegetables can be cheaper.

Disadvantages of frozen vegetables

• Whereas you can choose to avoid plastic when buying fresh vegetables, frozen vegetables come packaged in plastic. Try to avoid the single serve wrapping to reduce plastic waste.
• Frozen vegetables are often transported over great distances, increasing the ‘carbon footprint’.
• Fresh vegetables can often taste better.
• The blanching process prior to freezing can result in some loss of nutrients, so the best choice is organic, fresh picked. Obviously this isn’t an option for all of us, so fresh vegetables come in second place and frozen are a pretty darn good third place.
• Frozen vegetables can come from overseas rather than be grown here is Australia. Check where the vegetables are grown if you’re concerned about buying Australian grown.
• There is (usually) less of a variety of frozen vegetables than there is fresh.

So buying fresh v frozen, what do I think? We buy mostly fresh vegetables, mostly ‘local’ and mostly in season from a greengrocer. While I would love to buy organic, it’s way out of our price range, so the only way we’ll be eating organic is by growing. (By the way, the Environmental Working Group has released a guide on which fruit and vegetables to buy organic, and which non-organic ones are lowest in pesticides.) We supplement our fresh vegetables with frozen peas, corn, beans and broad beans for convenience (and maybe broccoli in the future). For us, that’s a good balance.

Have you read these articles?:

1. Seasonal Eating
2. lemon and thyme roasted vegetables with cous cous
3. Garden Update – Eating The Harvest

I’m all about cooking from scratch. It’s cheaper and healthier than convenience food. But sometimes it pays to have a little bit of that convenience food in the cupboard or the freezer for days where you just don’t feel like cooking. Because a microwave meal, a frozen pie or a jar of simmer sauce is going to be a lot cheaper than takeaway and often healthier.

Our current fall back meal is frozen fish pieces. And I use the term ‘fish’ loosely. They’re not particularly cheap, and when I read down the list of ingredients, there are things in them that I usually avoid eating, but… it’s better than KFC and they can be on the table with little fuss and preparation in less than half an hour. And if I’m really good, we might have real vegetables to go with them.

We also rely on frozen pies, instant pasta, spaghetti bolognaise sauce and surprisingly, Thai curry paste, because a Thai beef curry is one of those dishes that is really quick and easy for us. I’ve yet to serve up popcorn for dinner, but it has certainly crossed my mind.

What convenience foods do you rely on, on those days that you just don’t feel like cooking?

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I think that the problem is that we see homemade lunch as boring, or we’re just not organised enough to get lunch ready in the morning before work. Also, I don’t think that twelve years of warm, soggy schoolbag sandwiches encourages sandwich taking to work.

Keys to an appealing work lunch

• Assemble at work. The problem with a sandwich or salad is that it can be pretty soggy by the time lunch rolls round. If you have the kitchen facilities at work, take the ingredients in separately and assemble your sandwich or salad each lunchtime (a weeks worth of lunch ingredients prevents takeaway temptation).
• If you don’t have kitchen or food storage facilities or the time, you can take your lunch ingredients pre-cut in separate Tupperware containers and assemble before eating. While it might be impractical to take every ingredient separately, you may choose to butter the bread at home and add the ‘dry’ ingredients, adding wet ingredients such as mayonnaise and tomato just before eating.
• Make the deli your lunchtime friend and take advantage of the pre-sliced cheeses, roast beef, lunch meats, salads and antipastos. Coupled with some fresh crusty bread you can make a gourmet sandwich for a fraction of the price of a purchased one. Making your sandwich on fresh bread is important, so buy a roll or two on the way to work so that you’re not facing stale bread (or waste).
• Add flavour with your favourite condiments. Whole egg mayonnaise, chilli sauce, pesto, chutney or relish can take a boring sandwich and make it gourmet. If you’re stuck for ideas, check out the range at your local sandwich shop and imitate your favourite fillings.
• If you get the 3pm slumps, then cut the carbs and the caffeine and get plenty of protein and vegetables / salad. This reduces the blood sugar spike/slump cycle, giving you more constant, slow-release energy.
• To save money and reduce packaging waste: rather than buying individual portion packs, buy food in bulk, divide it at home and take it to work in reusable Tupperware.
• If you don’t have access to refrigeration, then keep your food cool by investing in a mini lunch esky or keep an iceblock / frozen drink in your lunchbox.
• If time is an issue, spend a little while on Sunday night preparing food (chopping, washing salad, portioning snacks, baking etc) for the following work week.

Some lunch box ideas

Leftovers

If you have access to a microwave leftovers can be the most tasty, filling, cheap and easy lunch solution. Leftovers would have to be my all time favourite lunch despite their negative wrap, and your workmates will be salivating at the smell of last night’s lasagne.

Wraps and other breads

Make your sandwiches more exciting by changing the bread option. Wraps make a nice change and tend to be less ‘carby’ than bread, or you could fill a pita bread pocket, or enjoy a fresh baguette or some Turkish bread.

Crackers and…

Know as the “diet” lunch, crackers (Cruskits, Ryevita, Saos etc) and topping doesn’t have to be boring. They are convenient to keep at work as they don’t go stale and mouldy like bread does.

My favourite cracker topping was a slather of ricotta / cream or cottage cheese, topped with a little lettuce, some tinned tuna and drizzled with a little bottled pesto. Far from boring and I could keep all the ingredients in the fridge at work. Rather than cheese, you could use a dip or spread like hummus, bubaganoush and top with salad and protein of your choice.

Savoury muffins

I sometimes make these for DH because they are a healthier option than plastic cheese on white bread (his usual fair). Made with wholemeal flour (and of course eggs and butter, which add nutrients and essential fatty acids) and contain grated vegetables, cheese, corn kernels and either ham or shredded chicken.

The “bento box” lunch

A bento box is usually a selection of sushi and sashimi etc in little compartments, but you don’t have to restrict your meal to Japanese. You could have a selection of crudités and dip coupled with cheese, fresh or dried fruit, nuts, antipasto, lunch meat, tinned tuna or hard boiled egg.

Soup in a flask / tinned soup

There is nothing like homemade soup in winter, with a little bread on the side. If you have the facilities to reheat it, then you can take it in a Tupperware container or bottle, otherwise a flask will keep it warm until lunch. An alternative is to take tinned soup that can be heated.

Salads

Salads can be partially or fully prepared at home or you could make them up at work. The key to a great lunch salad is protein. Alternatives to the usual garden salad include pasta or rice salad. These are best made at home but can be purchased cheaply at the supermarket deli.

Go mini

For these kinds of lunches, you have to be a little prepared before hand. Mini quiches, frittatas, pastries, meatloaves can all be made in a muffin tin ahead of time and last for part or all of the week and the great thing is that they are packed full of protein and vegetables, a great lunch choice.

Bakes and Baking

Another prepare ahead lunch, something like tuna pasta bake or vegetable bakes can be eaten both hot or cold at work.

And some homemade muffins or biscuits or slice make morning tea a little more exciting without trekking to the vending machine.

Fresh fruit

The great thing about fruit is that it comes in it’s own packaging and can make a nice ‘desert’ after lunch.

Dried fruit, nuts and seeds

These are great to keep at your desk or in your pocket for a healthy and cheap snack. An alternative is the humble muesli bar, either purchased or made at home.

Yogurt

I used to take my yogurt in a small Tupperware container and stir in some honey, seeds, fruit or crushed linseed. It’s cheaper this way than individually portioned and you can make it to suit your own tastes.

Have you read these articles?:

1. the cost of food wastage: an example
2. Seared Beef Salad
3. Easy Bircher Muesli

If you want to cut down on the grocery bill, the first thing to do is to reduce how much food gets wasted. But what does this mean in practical terms? The other day I was thinking specifically about wasting bread.

I was eating the crust end of bread so it doesn’t get thrown out (DH tells me he leaves them specially for me), and I was thinking that throwing the thin crust out doesn’t at first seem like much waste. But then I did a little maths:

• We go through about 2 loaves of bread a week.
• This adds up to 104 loaves a year
• If we throw out the two crust ends, that adds up to 208 slices of bread wasted a year…
• or around 10 loaves of bread.
• We spend about $1.20 on a loaf of bread, so we would be throwing away $12 a year (and we buy the cheapest bread possible, throwing away the equivalent of 10 loaves of Helga’s would set us back almost $50!)
• Or more correctly we would have to buy an extra 10 loaves of bread a year if we didn’t eat the crusts.

Of course when it comes to food waste, we’re only talking bread here. It is possible that wasting one food item might be indicative of a whole attitude to food and waste. A little bread here, a mangy zucchini there, some spoiled cream, jam that’s grown mould… and the wasted food (and money) adds up.

Some ideas to help reduce bread waste include:

• Store extra loaves in the freezer
• If you find that one loaf is too much to eat before it goes mouldy, repackage it into portion sizes before freezing
• Here at this time of the year, bread goes mouldy really quickly, so we keep it in the fridge
• Toast stale bread. DH seems not to mind stale bread, but I absolutely hate it. So I toast it and then you can’t tell that it’s stale. I’ve even toasted bread, let it cool and then taken it to work as a cold “toasted sandwich”. It just takes the staleness off.
• Alternatively, you could process the stale bread and use as breadcrumbs (freeze if you have excess).
• Or make bread and butter pudding, French toast, use the bread as a pie crust, push slices of bread into muffin tins and fill with quiche filling, vol a vaunt type filling and bake, or blind bake and fill with custard and fresh fruit.

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1. food blog roundup – 10 favourite food blogs
2. Save Thousands on Your Groceries with One Simple Tip
3. un-boring brown bagging – lunch box solutions

I generally think that we’re pretty frugal, but sometimes I wonder. So I thought I would share how much we spend on food and groceries, and some of the rationale behind the choices that are appropriate for us. ‘We’ are currently a household of two adults and a cat.

I keep a detailed cash flow budget in excel – basically we track every cent we earn and spend. This year, I did something a little different: I track our groceries in a separate sheet, linking the totals into our overall expenditure. What does this mean? It means that not only can I see at a glance how much we’ve spent on groceries for the month, I can click over a sheet and tell you exactly how much we’ve spent on milk v meat v toothpaste etc for each month and for the year. This also reveals how often we buy things like toothpaste.

Before I give a weekly total I want to tell you exactly what our ‘grocery’ amount includes and how I calculate it.

It includes all food: meat, vegetables, dairy, dry goods, tea coffee etc., all toiletries such as toothpaste, toilet paper, moisturiser, shampoo etc., all cleaning and laundry items including brushes and essential oils etc. It includes cat food and cat litter. It includes little gourmet things we might buy like jam at the markets or herbal tea from the health food store. It includes all alcohol that we buy in bottles to consume at home or at friend’s. It includes any extra trips to the store or servo for bread or milk or chocolate.

Apart from the spinach and a bit of lettuce that we grew this year, we buy all of our food. I have made bread and yogurt a couple of times, and have visions of making them regularly, but the reality is that we buy everything.

As we purchase meat in bulk and our vegetables every two weeks at the market, our actual weekly spending can fluctuate quite a bit, so I take the total and average it out over the year. Our weekly grocery spending comes to an average weekly amount of $85.

But let’s not stop there. We also buy takeaway about once every ten days. Seeing that this is food that we consume regularly, there’s no point ignoring it – it puts our weekly average up to $115.

(Eating out at restaurants is something we do once in a blue moon and it goes under “entertainment” along with the fortnightly coffee that I have with my MIL).

Sometimes I feel like this amount seems a lot for two people. Obviously, the first thing to go is the takeaway. There really is no good reason to buy takeaway except that I get lazy (which is not a good reason). All the menu planning in the world doesn’t seem to save me from the “I can’t be bothered” nights. KFC is $25 worth of garbage that makes me feel sick afterwards, so why don’t we kick the habit?

No really, why don’t we kick the habit?

When I look at my spreadsheet, I can see immediately where else I can save money (even without gardening and home baking), but I’m not necessarily willing to make these changes unless I really, really have to.

For example, I buy organic, un-homogenised milk, which is over twice the price of home brand. For some things I buy the more expensive brand name items because home brand quality just doesn’t cut the mustard (ugh! Woolworths mustard!) or because home brand often has more ingredients or unhealthy ones we don’t want to eat. For example, I like to buy pure, no additives coconut cream, also twice the price of other brands. Brown rice is more expensive than white. Wholemeal flour is more expensive than plain. Pure cold-pressed olive oil is more expensive than heart stopping vegetable oil.

One of the things that we did learn straight away when breaking up and tracking our groceries, was just how much we spend on bread. I didn’t think I even ate that much bread. We now buy reduced to clear bread at the end of the day, and that has cut our bread bill in half.

So what do we do to save money on the groceries? Well as I mentioned above, we buy meat in bulk from the wholesaler and freeze it in portions. I menu plan vegetarian meals in between meat meals and also plan meat stretcher meals like stir fry. We buy our vegetables from a grocer/market, much of it is local and it is a lot cheaper and better quality than the supermarket. We steer clear as much as possible from packaged foods, making almost all meals from scratch. There are a few conveniences that I feel are well worth the outlay, like curry paste and mayonnaise, but generally we stick to the basic vegies, meat and carbs. I make cakes, biscuits and deserts, but occasionally we buy ice cream. We eat leftovers and try not to waste anything. One day we’ll be more self-sufficient, but not yet.

For cleaning, we hardly spend anything ($80 per year) as I make my own cleaner and laundry powder, however this is balanced out by the fact that I buy all natural toiletries. Having said that, I found that my deodorant, for example,  although twice as expensive as DH’s, lasted 5 times longer than his, so I’m actually spending less by spending more (yearly total of $9 (yes, I use it everyday) compared to DH’s $25). 

So, how do I fair? How much do you spend on groceries? And what ways do you save money on those groceries?

Have you read these articles?:

1. Save Thousands on Your Groceries with One Simple Tip
2. How Much Should You Save On The Groceries?
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