The Foods Ripping You Off This Christmas

0:00Welcome to Catching Up With The Royals, a brand new show with me Richard Coles. And me, Emily Andrews. Every week we'll be going beyond the headlines, lifting the lid, and what life is really like behind the palace walls. Hello, sir. Good morning. I'm The Sun's new royal correspondent. Oh, he said, look at me up and down. Things are looking up. We'll be diving into the moments everyone's talking about. What does the world owe you if all of a sudden you've handed back your crown? Meghan and Harry can't keep hold of their staff. We'll reveal the secrets of an organisation usually shrouded in mystery and explore defining moments of royal history to see how the past still shapes the monarchy today.

0:38Now, you actually knew Princess Anne. I think one of the ways she acquired power was through that relationship with the president. But before that interview, no one had really spoken and been so open. Was that a game changer? So join us every week wherever you get your podcasts, on YouTube and on Saturdays on 5 as we catch up with the royals. it's a cost of living christmas we've all felt the pinch over the last year whether it's the price of beef dairy or even our chocolate has gone through the roof and it's all noticeable in our weekly baskets but at christmas we're all gonna feel it more we've got the pressure of buying presents but also we've got the pressure of having friends and family round that are going to mean we do bigger shops and therefore those prices are going to hit us harder.

1:30We're going to get into the health hacks for your wallet of how you can save money this Christmas, what you can do to optimize your Christmas shop. Welcome to today's episode of The Unprocessed Truth with me, Suna Van Kampen, the founder of Tonic Health. If your Christmas trolley is screaming, you're not imagining it. Food inflation year on year across the board is averaging around 6%. 6 % doesn't sound like much, but that can add£275 to your annual grocery spend. Food and drink inflation is actually still outpacing overall inflation, which is why we all feel it more on our weekly shop. And even this week, I've seen a lump of butter for£4 in a supermarket.

2:19which is insane. I thought butter used to be two at best. Let's get into how you can actionably make a difference to your budget this year because food inflation seems to be sticky. It's not going away. It's been around for quite a few number of years now and it seems to be getting worse. So we really need to understand what's driving it and how we can shop better, smarter and different to optimize our weekly budget. Number one, I always talk about why going local matters. It's so important because local food and drink is a shorter supply chain. There are less failure points in a shorter supply chain.

3:04If you go to your local farmer's market and the food has traveled, you know, five to ten miles perhaps, there's less that can go wrong in the process, which means there's going to be more availability and fewer failure points, which should keep prices down in those areas. Because, you know, in some areas we can talk about cacao prices and how drought in West Africa has put them through the roof. Now, if you're buying a turnip from your local farmer, it can't happen in the same way because we definitely aren't going to have drought in England anytime soon. So what we need to do is think about seasonality and local at the heart of this.

3:43And the good news for us Brits is that Christmas veg, especially in the UK, is in season at time of Christmas. So we're talking your carrots, your parsnips, your swedes, your turnips, your potatoes. They're all in season now. And with good yields in farming, we're going to see good crops and incredible prices. I remember last year the retailers were doing promos of get your Christmas veg for 50p a pack. So you were getting a kilo of veg for 50p because they were trying to win customers with these deals. But it just shows you when something's in season, we can bring the prices down if we're having good harvests.

4:24So invest local, check out your local food market, and that'll be a really, really good way to keep the price low. Now, number two, the blueprint of how you can save anywhere from 40 to 100 pounds without feeling it is focus on the UK winter five. Potatoes, carrots, parsnips, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, onions, leeks. These are the ones that are there for you right now. Peak in season, peak nutrition, lowest possible price. So you need to focus on those for sure. and then you can also engineer the centerpiece of your christmas dinner for a better price right so the whole turkey the whole chicken whatever you do is the most expensive part of your meal usually so why not focus a bit more on your vegetable side dishes get a bit more creative with them and make them more of the centerpieces and that way you might need a little bit less turkey or chicken and could buy potentially a smaller size.

5:31If you love your luxury fish or whatever you eat at Christmas, you know, your smoked salmon with breakfast, maybe try and switch to a different fish. Try and just have it as a starter perhaps to try and mix things up or even go vegetarian. You could have a mushroom lentil Wellington, which would be far cheaper than a beef one if you know how to make it, of course. But this side heavy strategy of focusing on four amazing vegetable sides, whether it's just nailing the crispy potato or the honey roast carrots. I personally love a cheesy leek. All I do is roast some half cut leeks in the oven and then grate a load of cheese over them for the last 10-15 minutes and you get this delicious cheesy leaky flavor which you never normally make.

6:18But at Christmas it's simple and it can be delicious and people absolutely love it. So another way to look at this is also you've just got to be a bit smart about how you read labels, right? You get fancy cheeses in the shapes of Christmas trees, but I promise you they will be more expensive than a square block of cheese. So always check the unit price of everything per kilo, per 100 grams, per 100 mil, whatever it is, that will expose you to the cheapest, most affordable way to shop. And often you're just paying for a fancy gimmick with Christmas packaging so try and buy the normal stuff because when it's on your plate you're not going to notice or care another thing to do is pre-commit to your supermarket and your local shop retailers always roll out the discounts earlier at Christmas so if you go in there now and we're talking beginning of December you will see discounts on Christmas chocolates discount on Christmas platters, Christmas items, because they launch them early.

7:25They discount them for the early shoppers. But I promise you those discounts won't be there come the week before Christmas. So you need to go early and make sure you stick to one or two. You don't need to go to loads of different stores because you can get enticed by different offers, different promotions, different things. So just pick your main retailer, pick your main local farm shop or market to go to and get what you need from there. You don't need to do any more than that. Another thing you can do is when you're doing drinks, let's not have to go for the expensive champagne, the expensive wine.

8:03Why not just buy some cheap bottles of wine and make a nice mulled wine at home? Add your oranges, add your cloves, add a bit of honey for sweetness and just make it because then no one's gonna know that it was a cheap bottle of wine. You don't have to spend 20 quid a bottle or, you know, even a tenner a bottle. You can just get a cheap bottle for four or five quid and away you go. So go for the mulled wine over the expensive bottles and that will help the maths on your budget this year. And also think about the maths of leftovers because the best thing you can do is make a huge Christmas dinner on Christmas Day and then not have to worry about any food on Boxing Day because you've got so much leftovers.

8:48Batch cooking, batch meal prepping, you know, it's complicated, it's hard. Just make loads more food than you think you need and you'll have a ton of leftovers for the next few days that will feed you. And the more you do that, cook once, eat twice is the theory, the more you will save money. It'll be far more efficient and you'll spend less time in the kitchen. So these are really, really important. some other simple things to avoid this christmas avoid the pre-prepped veg do it yourself you're gonna have time at christmas buy the whole sacks in kilo or more bags buy big buy bulk and you'll save money make your own gravy firstly the gravy granules like bistro ain't gonna cut it if you're serving that at christmas i'm sorry it's full of crap also it ain't good enough we can do better at Christmas.

9:40Learn to make your own gravy with some stock and the pan drippings from roasting the meat in the oven. It's really simple. You all have how-to videos on YouTube. Just do it yourself. You will save money. And you don't always have to go fancy. Some of the traditional things are Christmas classics that are far more affordable. So stuff like prosciutto, insanely expensive and overpriced often has nitrates added not great for us pate can be way healthier we're talking chicken liver nutrient dense cheaper and delicious if you prepare it in the right way and then always always always look for where you can save money and often it's in the freezer aisle so frozen fruits are far cheaper than imported out of season berries so you can use those frozen fruits on a cheesecake or a pavlova or whatever you want and it'll be cheaper and no one will know they're frozen and saving you money don't be scared to freeze ahead so you know a week before christmas you might want to make your gravy base or your stock or your pastry or your stuffing and just freeze it in save yourself the stress you get the food on those early promos and you freeze it in and you're good to go and also if you're doing you know a big meal with friends or family don't be scared to split the bill right or in that sense ask someone to bring a side dish get other people in your friends and family circle to do some of the cooking and bring it over it's what communities all started as we shared and looked after our neighbor right and that's normal and it's totally fine don't feel the pressure that you have to cook and buy the whole thing or even just get someone to bring the alcohol.

11:26Simple little things, smart little choices with conscious decisions can make a big difference to your budget this time at Christmas. Another few little hacks for your local shop. Try and get a veg box from your local farm if you can. They'll give you a broad range of veg. You won't necessarily get to choose what it is, but usually in those bulk buys, it's cheaper and learn how to use the different veg that's in there. It might make you cook something new for the first time make sure if you're going to your market try and hit it late when does it close 3 p.m on a saturday be there at 2 30 see what deals you can get away you can get big bags of fruit and veg on the cheap because they're just not as fresh anymore and they may need to clear it if they're not doing a market on sunday so you can save your some money there make sure you get those bulk buys in now on to that centerpiece the turkey or the chicken up to you.

12:23I like a chicken personally, but turkey's fantastic. Turkey's delicious. Now I want to save you about 20 % on the cost of your turkey because most of you will go to maybe your supermarket and buy a nice big fresh bird ahead of time or pre-order it potentially online or go to your local butcher and pre-order your turkey. But did you know the cost of a frozen turkey is about 20 % cheaper on average. Right now on Tesco, you can get a whole turkey at£4.10 a kilo that's frozen. By contrast, the fresh is anywhere from £5 to£10,£12 per kilo. Really depends. But the offers aren't on fresh turkeys right now.

13:13The offers are on frozen. So you can save, dependent on the type of bird, obviously anywhere from 20 % to all the way, almost double depending on what you're looking for. But the truth of the matter is everyone think, oh, but frozen won't taste as nice. It'll be different, yada, yada, yada. The reality is if you handle it right, that means thawing it properly in the fridge for 24 hours before you even start to do anything with your turkey, right? We're talking this might need a three-day prep on your turkey. You buy it frozen, you thaw it in the fridge for 24 hours, then you brine it. You brine it for 24 to 48 hours with added salt that gets all the moisture back into the turkey and makes it super succulent.

13:58And then when you roast it properly, you can still get a crispy skin with a high heat blast. One of the tricks to cooking a chicken or a turkey and getting that crispy skin, make sure you have a 15 minute high heat blast. You can do it at the start of cooking the bird. It crisps up the skin really quickly, locks in the moisture so the meat stays juicy, and then you get that skin. And because of that, that brining, basting process, you are going to basically get a turkey that tastes the same. I challenge you to try it, and I don't think you will be able to taste the difference. So you can save yourself some good money on your frozen turkey.

14:40In essence, the simple mantra for this Christmas, if you want to save some money, is shop local. Make sure you look for the unit pricing in your stores. Don't get sucked in by the fancy Christmas packaging. Pick your supermarket, pick your local shop, and try and shop towards the end of the day so you can get those deals and bulk buys. Go for four sides of veg. make the veg sides the focus so potentially you can have a smaller centerpiece of meat if you need to save money maybe buy one hero bottle of champagne or wine and then for the rest buy the cheap ones make mulled wine no one will care it'll be a great festive time also buy early you've got to get in early because the christmas deals are on early so you buy your cupboard items early get them on the deals, buy your veg late in the local markets.

15:37That is the way to save money. Make sure you cook more than you think you need. A, because we all love to eat a lot at Christmas, but B, those leftovers can feed you for the next days and it's a cheaper, more efficient way to do it. So that is the way you can have a cheap and healthy Christmas. And at the end of the day, you can eat whatever you want at Christmas. Have a fantastic time. We'll give you lots of tips around how you can hack your health, but this is how you hack your wallet. So thank you for listening to The Unprocessed Truth and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.