Monday, August 22, 2011

The price of produce...

We currently have one adult male, one adult female and a teenage female in our household. I have just been shopping for fresh vegetables and fruit. I shop several times each week for fresh stuff as I prefer to get it as I need it so I don't waste it.
The fruit will be made into 2 lots of fruit salad (added to oranges and passionfruit) and consumed over 3-4 days. The carrots will last us a week. The corn and mushrooms will be eaten tonight and the lettuce and cucumber will last us all week for salad. I have plenty of potatoes which will last the rest of the week too. Tomorrow I will go back if I need stir fry ingredients for dinner tomorrow. That's me - I prefer to grocery shop than shop for clothes! I'm a weirdo! Lol!
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The cost:
1 kg carrots $1.45
3 Granny Smith Apples (delicious and juicy from the Adelaide Hills) $2.41 or .80c each
Iceberg lettuce (expensive but one will last the week) $3.28
Strawberries 250gm punnet $2.48
6 mushrooms (134gms) $1.40
Continental cucumber $1.98
4 brown onions $1.84
2 bananas @ $11.98/kg... wait for it.... $4.41 or $2.20 EACH!
2 sweetcorn cobs (will feed 3 of us tonight) $1.96
tiny knob of fresh ginger for tonight's recipe .82c
2 Kiwi Fruit (from NZ obviously!) $1.31 (cheap!)
1 red spanish onion .57c
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TOTAL $23.91
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What do you pay for an apple, an orange, a kiwi fruit, a banana, etc? We have 3 supermarkets in our small town and I shop for produce at each of them at different times. We don't have a farmers market and as I have said, I don't buy in bulk because I find I end up throwing things out - and I am fussy as far as freshness goes. If a potato or carrot looks a bit old, out it goes! I guess I am a convenience shopper - I choose what we will eat tonight, consult the pantry then shop for it and cook it.
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Tonight it is Annette Sym's Hot and Saucy Steaks - and believe me, you don't want to know what I paid for the 3 steaks!
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This mushroom sauce, with just a touch of heat was absolutely delicious! I made the sauce in a separate pan then pan fried the steaks to our liking then tipped the sauce over the steaks and gave them 2-3 minutes in the oven to get the sauce sizzling.
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Most delicious!
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Cheers - Joolz


6 comments:

  1. My comments will be biased as I am a grower. The carrots here and there are to me the very best buy. The grower will have got almost nothing. The supermarkets here hold us to ransom they put in some case up to 300% mark up produce. They pay growers very poorly and if a grower complains the supermarket refuses their product from then on. Sue Keegley a NZ MP is currently looking in to this whole area.

    You realised most of the Oz banana crop got flooded so hence the high price. Over here we seem to be getting bananas from somewhere else as our price hasn't changed. Often they are only NZ$1.99 a kilo. They use them as bait to get customers into the shop they said.
    I would be interested in the quality of the kiwifruit. Are you happy with their taste ?

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  2. Well Joolz with all the rain you get down there you could grow most of those veggies. If I can, you definitely can lol.

    I have been concerned about the quality of our fruit and veg for a while, and the pesticides used on them, no wonder people get cancer!

    I have convinced hubby that any plants that are not edible are going and being replaced with something edible. With the price of water, I may as well grow stuff we can eat instead of green lawn...

    Rant over now, I sound like a hippie lol.

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  3. Well Joolz I'm paying what you pay but have the advantage of organic f&v which of course I pay more for. I grow heaps of my own as well, but we still spend a huge amount on fresh produce. I'd rather spend it on that than processed crap

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  4. Thanks, Ali. The kiwi fruit I bought have Seeka stickers on them. Having only tasted Kiwi fruit in Australia, I can only say that they taste... like kiwi fruit. I am sure if I tried one from your orchard it would be an experience for the taste buds. These kiwi fruit are quite tart but add a nice touch to a fruit salad.
    I have still been buying bananas, mainly to support the Qld growers. I would not buy imported!
    At the moment, there is talk of NZ apples coming to our shores. I am afraid, I will not buy them either as it means our Aussie growers miss out on the sales.

    Tania, I would love to have a productive veggie patch but working 5 days a week, I don't think it allows me enough time to care for it properly. I will do tomatoes in pots again this year as I had minimal success last year - I need to get just one variety and go with that (and that will probably be cherry tomatoes).
    If I had a couple of days off each week I'd love to potter around but that just doesn't happen at the moment. (sigh!)

    Cheers - Joolz

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  5. We just love everything fresh, too, and shop every couple of days while we are out doing other errands.

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  6. Happy Belated Blogaversary!

    My prices U.S. organic are $.99/apple, $.79-$.99/orange, $.59-$.79/kiwi, $.99/lb. bananas. I do not have any of the nationwide natural foods markets close to me (like Whole Foods) nor are there really any local organic farms from which to purchase.

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