Shoppers could save £440 a yr swapping wheatgrass for broccoli

The Which? report located that purchasing kiwi fruit instead of blueberries expense half as a lot and had a similar amount of nutritional vitamins. Photograph: Bon Appetit/Alamy

Shoppers could conserve hundreds of lbs a year by swapping pricey and fashionable “superfoods” this kind of as blueberries and wheatgrass for less costly options, according to research published on Monday.

Which? stated shoppers could save up to £440 a year by ditching popular superfoods in favour of much better worth choices that offer you equivalent wellness advantages.

Substituting a handful of blueberries, at 69p, for a portion for two kiwi fruit, costing half the value at 34p, for example, would give a weekly conserving of £36.forty a yr and the green fruit has a similar sum of vitamins C and K.

In one particular of the greatest single financial savings, shoppers could save £268.32 by buying fresh sardines, costing 42p for 140g, alternatively of fresh salmon at £3 for 140g and nevertheless get a good amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids EPA and DHA. The government’s food watchdog, the Meals Specifications Agency, recommends we eat two portions of fish a week – one of them oily.

Richard Lloyd, executive director of Which?, mentioned: “You will not need to have to break the bank to consume healthily. We have found you can swap some superfoods for less expensive alternatives and save a packet even though even now acquiring the nutritional vitamins you require.”

The customer group calculated the annual saving that could be manufactured by swapping 5 superfoods with less costly choices using prices from Tesco.com and healthfood shop Holland &amp Barrett in early July. The total of £438.88 assumed buyers normally ate each meals twice a week.

The notoriously expensive wheatgrass – championed by celebrities this kind of as Gwyneth Paltrow and Elle McPherson as an crucial ingredient in a juice or smoothie – does not count in direction of your five a day, but a portion of broccoli does.

Broccoli is less expensive as nicely as easier to discover in the outlets, although each have chlorophyll, vitamins A, C and E, iron and calcium. Wheatgrass generally fees 90p for 10g even though broccoli is a much more affordable 11p for 80g.

Similarly goji berries – favoured by Madonna and Mischa Barton but used in Chinese medicine for much more than six,000 years – can be substituted with spinach for similar well being rewards. It is claimed these shrivelled red berries – rich in vitamins A, B2, C and iron help boost the immune program and brain activity, protect towards heart ailment and cancer, and improve existence expectancy.

A 30g serving of dried goji berries – the equivalent of a heaped tablespoon – and costing all around 53p – counts in the direction of your five a day. But the dried fruit also consists of large amounts of sugar. A portion of spinach (32p for 80g) can be a less costly stand-in, saving 42p a week and £21.84 a 12 months.

A more healthy – as nicely as cost-effective – alternative was identified for coconut oil, which is hailed as one of the very best sources of heart-healthy medium-chain fatty acids, notably lauric acid, however is high in saturated body fat. When Which? surveyed 1,032 members on the internet in Could, 13% explained they had utilized coconut oil in cooking.

The buyer group’s nutritionists recommend swapping the item – which charges 32p per tablespoon – for rapeseed or sunflower oil – 3p per tablespoon – conserving 58p a week and £30.sixteen a yr.

Shoppers could save £440 a yr swapping wheatgrass for broccoli