Tips

You should seek to keep shopping trips to a minimum, if you are not ill and are only undertaking social distancing, you can still visit the shops to buy normal supplies.

Below are some tips from ourselves and the Association of UK Dietitians’ Food Services Specialist Group to help you plan your shop and how to make best use of the food that you buy:

• Always use up your fresh ingredients first. At times like these, you don’t want any food to go to waste, so use up perishable ingredients before foods with a longer shelf life.

• Know what food keeps longest. Fresh foods with relatively long shelf life includes root vegetables such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions

• Do a stock-check of all the food you’ve got at home. When writing your shopping list, it’s easy to think about what you want to eat and forget about what you have at the back of the cupboard. If you add a reminder of what you have to your list, you’re more likely to get around to using that tin of butter beans you keep meaning to cook with.

• Carefully wash, rinse and drain salad leaves and fresh herbs and spin dry in a salad spinner, place into a suitable plastic storage tray, cover and keep refrigerated. By following this procedure your salads and fresh herbs will last for several more days than if just stored in the fridge un-covered.

• It might seem obvious but make sure you aren’t storing things in your fridge that don’t need to be in there. For example, fresh tomatoes, un-peeled onions, un-peeled jacket potatoes, whole butternut squashes don’t need to be stored refrigerated. Removing these items from your fridge and storing them in a cool dark place will free up fridge space for more perishable items.

• If you are stuck at home, take the opportunity to tidy and declutter your kitchen cupboards to free up space for ambient food products.  This is a great opportunity to get rid of those unused & unwanted items that end up “living” in your valuable storage space. Remember to re-cycle as many of the items you are discarding as possible.

• If you do get sick, it is worth having a few easy to cook and prepare foods in the house on standby. Canned soups, microwavable rice and frozen ready meals are easy options that you can keep in stock in reasonable quantities if you don’t have the energy to prepare more complex recipes.

Cheap Recipes

If you’ve picked up items of shopping that you’re not normally used to cooking with and want to know how best to efficiently use them and save money, you can search by ingredient on the BBC Good Food website here

The BBC also has a collection of family recipes which cost less than £1 per head. You can view these recipes here

Jack Munroe also has a recipe website which is solely dedicated to creating the cheapest recipes. You can visit the website here

If you’re new to cooking and need some help on cooking and food preparation, the BDA’s Let’s Get Cooking programme have some great advice.

Foodbanks

If the Coronavirus has put exceptional pressure on your finances and you cannot afford your weekly shop, do not feel shame in using a foodbank. Although some foodbanks have shut, some are still offering emergency delivery parcels. To find your local foodbank and what they may be able to offer you in this time of need, visit the Trussle Trust website: Find my local foodbank

You may need a referral, this can be obtained by speaking to Citizen’s Advice who will ask you a few questions about yourself and your situation. Click here for more information