JOANNA'S FOOD: family cooking, from scratch, every day


Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Affordable superfoods

Superfoods: it's a daft idea, really, especially with all those newspaper scares that generally accompany them. But they don't have to be expensive (blueberries), ecologically unsound (summer fruit in winter), impossible to pronounce (quinoa), or otherwise exotic. Here's a list (not exhaustive, just to get you going) of healthy heart superfoods which are delicious, cheap, plentiful, and won't cost the earth:

* dark green cabbage / spinach
* lentils, any colour
* herrings / kippers
* carrots
* porridge
* onions
* pumpkin
* black tea
* plain unsweetened yoghurt
* dark chocolate

Soon you can add a couple of other readily available items to that list:

* tomatoes
* berries

... but not until they don't have to be air-freighted here.

My complete list (excluding any mention of quinoa) was posted when I began this blog in May 2005.

A lot of our superfoods come from Riverford in a veg box. Recommended, because a veg box forces you to think of vegetables first, make them centre stage (as in, "what shall we have with the pumpkin?" or "how shall we cook our onions tonight?"). No need if you live near a really good market, and use it regularly. But there's something about a veg box which forces creativity on you, and the Riverford produce tastes good better best!

3 comments:

Ilva said...

Great list and it's so true!

barb said...

wonderful list thanks so much! You mentioned in the beginning about the amount of cheese you ate. We are the same way. What did you do to replace that? I look for a post referring to that and couldn't find it. Thanks again looking quite forward to this new habit.

Jo said...

I get Riverford as well and it's it's lovely. Plus as a busy student something that saves me time in shopping trips is also wonderful.