5 ways to shake up the weekly food shop
Create grocery lists and meal plans with your kids at home to encourage healthy eating.
Is your weekly grocery shop as healthy, ethical and sustainable as you’d like? Or is the ratio of fresh to processed food a little out of whack?
If that’s a ‘no’ and then a ‘yes’, join the club.
Since the Covid outbreak, more of us than ever are seeking convenience and safety in the form of packaged goods and online grocery shopping, where supermarkets offer us the great benefit of delivering our goods to our door - albeit in a depressing amount of (currently non-returnable) plastic.
It’s convenient, but it doesn’t help us support local businesses, or get our hands on more sustainable and ethical food. And arguably it leads us down a less healthy path, where more processed, packaged, unnatural foods are super accessible and unethically cheap.
Ingredients such as salt, sugar and fat are usually added to processed foods to enhance their flavour and extend their shelf life.
So what changes can we make?
Love or hate supermarkets, avoiding them altogether is (for the majority of us) unrealistic. But of course it doesn’t have to be an ‘all or nothing’ approach. What’s important is we become more conscious of our choices and active with our purchasing power.
Making the effort to find new ways to shop can brings countless benefits to mind, body, and soul. Here are 5 simple ways to shake things up on the food front, starting this week…
make markets a Priority
Do you know where your nearest farmers markets are? Or what dates they fall on? Get armed with that info and make space for it in your weekend by planning a family outing around it. And yes, take the entire family. It’s an experience and an education, especially for younger kids, allowing them to learn about real food, environmental issues, diet and nutrition, farming and livelihoods, and all important social skills.
TIP ~ mark dates of local markets on the calendar and prepare people in advance. Finding an incentive for each member of the household can be useful. (Check out more benefits here!)
AT THE MARKET ~ talk to the growers, sample everything, and allow young ones to take the lead. Tote bags for everybody!
in the UK? Check out localfoodbritain.com to get connected to your local markets
2. Join a local veggie box scheme
Organic, locally sourced veggie boxes can be like a breath of fresh air in your weekly food shop, especially those that come with a random selection of whatever produce is available that week. (Who doesn’t love a surprise element?!) The fruit and veg is always that much fresher, tastier, healthier, less travelled, and featuring far less plastic than from the supermarket so it’s a big win for planet Earth as well as you.
You can even team up with a neighbour for shared veggie boxes to make it more affordable. Look into Riverford or check out veg schemes via the Soil Association. Lowimpact.org is another great resource for learning about all kinds of topics relating to sustainable living.
Fresh zucchinis
3. Create meal plans together
This is a great way of minimising those unhealthy, last-minute meals and avoiding on-repeat purchases in the supermarket. High-level organisation doesn’t come naturally to everyone (believe me!), but regardless of how we feel about meal planning and shopping lists, it’s one of the most effective ways to manage our food waste, save money, and ensure we eat well.
And importantly: involve all the family. Pick a consistent time each week to go through the pantry and recipe books, ask each person to choose a meal based around a protein, and then be involved in its execution! Make it fun and ensure all meal plans and shopping lists are visible and available to everyone throughout the week.
4. Use wall charts
Wall charts can be life changing in homes with kids. There are countless ways to encourage and inspire behaviours with bold visuals, brought to life in whatever way most appeals to your audience. Rainbow charts for healthier eating, low waste charts for using up what’s in the fridge, seasonality charts to know what’s best to eat when. These can all inspire new food ideas and change the way you approach meals.
Here is a great resource for list templates, and other checklists and activities for kids and busy families.
Find a poster online to copy or print out for the kitchen.
Pinterest is your go-to for finding inspiration, or design your own and get arty with the kids.
5. Bulk buy pantry staples
A key way to cut down on big chain supermarket shopping is to buy your basic staples in bulk from zero-waste stores, of which numbers are growing throughout the world. Pasta, nuts and grains, and non perishables won’t be wasted so it makes sense to stock up. Toiletries, cleaning or laundry items can also be bought via a bulk store or an ethical online shop. Head to zerowastenear.me to find your local bulk buy, wholefood or health food shop.