Alternative ways to get your crucial nutrients despite the rising cost of veggies

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’d have noticed that the cost of veggies (and everything else) have skyrocketed recently!

Lettuces can be up to $5,  broccoli and cauliflower are over $10 in some shops, and even strawberries are over $7 in supermarkets.

So how can you get your crucial nutrients without having to spend a fortune on expensive fruit and veg?

One of our Healthy Mummy nutritionists explains how you can boost your crucial nutrients in alternative ways…

How to find alternative ways to get your crucial nutrients

Fruit and vegetable price hikes are hurting household budgets right now. Australians are noticing the pinch when it comes to their regular grocery shop — especially when it comes to fresh produce.

One of the best things you can do is shop seasonally, as these items tend to be less expensive. But if you can’t do that, you can find alternative ways to make sure you aren’t depriving yourself of the crucial nutrients you need in your diet.

Fibre

Lettuce is packed full of fibre, which is great for your digestive system. To increase fibre intake, you could also try:

• Dried apricot and almonds
• Nuts
• Corn on the cob
• Cabbage

Vitamin C

One cup of sliced strawberries provides around 97 mg of vitamin C.

However, oranges, grapefruit, lemon, limes and kiwis are your best ways of getting vitamin C, which helps support your immune system.

Dairy

If you have food intolerances, it can be hard to know what are good alternatives for ingredients, especially dairy, when following a healthy eating diet plan, to ensure you get the best results with the recipes.

Here are some suggestions for substitutes you can use if you need to be dairy-free and/or lactose-free.

• Yoghurt – if you’d prefer to try something other than tofu as a substitute, you could use a dairy-free yoghurt such as coconut yoghurt.
• Cheese – there are a number of dairy-free and/or lactose-free alternatives for tasty cheese, cream cheese, mozzarella and parmesan and can be purchased in many supermarkets or ordered online.
• Milk – there are so many substitutes for cow’s milk these days. So many that we’ve dedicated a whole post to some of the options available and their various nutritional content. Read more here.

Protein

Protein is essential for health and weight loss and is critical for every cell in our body.  It helps to build lean muscle, increase the metabolism and help you stay fuller for longer.

It’s also key to recovery and your body needs protein to function properly and stay healthy.

Most people think you can only find protein in meat. If you want to keep down the cost of your food shop, you can lower the meat and find protein in other foods such as eggs, dairy products and nuts and seeds.

Vitamin D

You get this from sun exposure, but when the days are shorter and the sun is less bright, you may want to top up on vitamin D by consuming foods such as eggs and salmon.

However, the sunshine is free and plentifully available in Australia – just make sure you are sun safe!

Iron

Broccoli is high in iron, but there are alternative options that are cheaper ways to boost your iron with different veggies:

• Legumes: black beans, chickpeas, lentils and kidney beans.
• Nuts and seeds: pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, pistachios and cashews.
• Whole grains like brown rice, rice bran, buckwheat, millet, oats, and wild rice are good sources of iron.
• Dried fruits, especially apricots, figs, and prunes.
• Vegetables-wise, choose spinach, Jerusalem artichoke, and corn.
• Tinned salmon and tinned tuna also provide iron.
• The Healthy Mummy Super Greens