Canadians might not be getting enough fruits and vegetables / Les Canadiens et Canadiennes ne consomment peut-être pas assez de fruits et de légumes.

[reborndestiny]

@sarammarajan They mean "5 servings", and a serving size of fruit or veg is actually pretty small. If you're eating a balanced meal with lots of veggies in it, it counts for at least 2 or 3 "servings".

 

[waterfall123]

@sarammarajan 3 meals, drinks, snacks. Can easily add up to five times a day.

 

[risen145]

@sarammarajan I eat about 5-6 times per day. 3 main meals with snacks in between which are usually a combo of fresh fruit, veg snd/or nuts

 

[lyd]

@sarammarajan It’s quite popular in the UK as a concept so for that reason I always ensure more than 5. A portion is roughly your fist.

 

[marymeg96]

@sarammarajan People are lucky to eat 2 times a day back in the day. Who made up this arbitrary number 5?

 

[becomingabeliever]

@audreyl asian leafy veggies is a good hack. Even in winter, typically you can find a variety of veggies anywhere between $1.5 to $2 a pound at asian grocers.

for fruits, bananas are cheap year round and apples store very long time so stock up when they're under $1.25/lb. Last couple years I've noticed jumbo pineapples basically around $2-$3 most of the year at walmart.

 

[vanvan27]

@becomingabeliever Buk Choy, Yu Choy, Nappa for the win

 

[authormargaretrosefrancis]

@audreyl Look I won't deny grocery prices are climbing, but it also feels like people are just straight up forgetting how to grocery shop and cook. Like I made turkey chili the other day with canned beans and tomatoes and it came out to about $1.25 a serving. Unless you live in, like, Nunavut or something, it's actually not that difficult to eat plenty of fruit and veggies on a budget, but it is a bit of a trained skill.

 

[cat7]

@authormargaretrosefrancis I think the younger generations never really learned those skills. The boomers didn't bother teaching us because they were taking copium on the whole "go to college and you will succeed and be rich" lie. The boomers only taught us to be consumerist and new-money rich. Then we didn't even get rich. Just a shitload of student debt and $15/hour with a bachelors jobs.

I learned how to be frugal from my grandparents who lived through the great depression and two world wars. I consider myself lucky to have had the privilege of living with them and learning to be self-sufficient without throwing money at everything. I feel like I'm a bit of a dying breed though. I'm an outcast when I open up and talk about that kind of stuff. People look at me like I'm crazy for doing something as simple as changing my winter tires.

 

[dlegendjr]

@audreyl Before people complain about prices, there are dozens of fruits and vegetables that are not expensive even here in NL where food is generally more expensive than the mainland. Apples, oranges, kiwis, carrots, red cabbage, spinach, frozen veggies like beans and ocra can be had for cheap.

 

[phoonsawadoam]

@dlegendjr Whenever this topic comes up, people will point at the price of berries and say healthy food is unaffordable. The people who do eat healthy diets do it by buying the better value stuff. You can walk into many grocery stores with $10 and leave with like 8lbs total of onions, carrots, and apples.

 

[carlytoons]

@phoonsawadoam carrots? what am I a peasant?

next you're going to suggest I get my protein from beans like in the third world.

(how people actually respond in these threads)

 

[christianguy19]

@carlytoons Seriously though, I think most people could get most of their protein from bread.

Just take a look at the label on your flour. Praise be to Canadian flour lol.

 

[carlytoons]

@christianguy19 There is so much protein in basically everything.

We have a bunch of people sitting at keyboards convinced they need to eat a gram/pound to be healthy.

 

[godschild0876]

@carlytoons Don’t forget “how dare you suggest most people don’t need 200g of protein a day” and “well sure I could start buying store brand but life isn’t worth living if I have to eat Great Value sour cream”

 

[jpawlowski]

@carlytoons People in 3rd worlds get their protein from bugs

I tried it

 

[izziestevens]

@jpawlowski Shrimp and lobster really are just sea bugs.

 

[car0lync]

@dlegendjr Fellow NLer and yep, always so frustrating to see people moan that it's impossible to afford a healthy diet (on an average salary anyway). Things like root vegetables (carrots, turnip, sweet potato), red and green cabbage, onions, apples, oranges, bananas, frozen & even canned vegetables are not unaffordable by any means. If you shop flyers as well its easy to get a good deal on some other produce, like a few weeks ago Foodland had asparagus on a week long special for like half price. Ultra processed prepackaged meals are by far more expensive and worse for your health but people tend to be fine with paying exuberant amounts for snack foods or ready meals. It costs like $7 before tax to purchase a microwave meal for a single person nowadays

 

[tinywonderland]

@dlegendjr I mean I guess it depends on what you say is affordable. Cabbages are now $7-$10, the last few times I’ve bought Granny Smith apples they’ve been over a dollar each (eg. 6 for $9 from No Frills) & they developed some weird brown skin thing that can apparently happen to certain apples so half wasn’t edible.

 

[godschild0876]

@tinywonderland Is cabbage the only option for a vegetable? I notice a pattern in threads like this of commenters cherry-picking whatever expensive item they’ve seen lately to argue that produce is unaffordable.