Choosing what to eat

Affordable good Quality food. I prefer hot meals when in Office but as there is no canteen facility I have to eat out. Hot food in London is not cheap unless one sticks to Soup which can get a bir boring. I often get street food which is of a high quality but much cheaper than going to a chain outlet.

I would prefer it if my company had a canteen where I could eat good quality subsidised food and where I could relax from work. But my company sees canteen facilities as taking up valuable desk space so I have to go out and get food and eat at my desk.

Good quality, healthy, organic, sustainably produced, minimal transport miles.

This is a good question, even if you live elswhere. I choose to eat lots of fresh and cooked vegetables, meat only twice a week, some eggs and tinned or frozen fish too. I avoid rice, potatoes and many starchy foods including bread, although I do eat some. Dairy foods of low fat content I also consume. I grow my own fruit which lasts through the summer, mangoes, peaches, grapes, apricots and ptangoes. This diet is Medeterrian, which is not surprising because I live in Israel.

Lots of cafes and restaurants with healthy options and more specialised shops and supermarkets offering healthy produce, but a lot is expensive. 

Would be great if there was increased allotment space to grow your own, where I live the local council has a 18 year waiting list, even though many spaces are uncultivated.

We do a main shop once a week, either in Lidl or (more recently as Lidl has closed for refurbishment) in Tesco. The bill is always around £35-£40 (more in Tesco) and this covers the meals for 2 people for a week. I cook from scratch most nights (apart from Friday, which is fish finger night!) and have a healthy balanced diet with meat (usually chicken) or quorn used as the protein for each meal. We both take a packed lunch to work and thus don't have to pay out for extra food and drink during the day. I find this way of shopping and cooking very sustainable; my partner and I both work full time yet cooking every night is not a problem, we usually eat around 8pm. 

We rarely eat out though, i don't like take away food and restaurants tend to be over priced for what you get. When we are out for a day (on a weekend) we do go and buy our meal in Wetherspoons, which is cheap and filling (and calorie counted as well, which is a huge help). I count my calories every day, losing 3stone last year and i have maintained ever since using this method.

What we don't do is eat between meals; we don't eat biscuits, cakes (apart from the occasional treat when we have a cake for pudding) and this is what stops us being overweight and spending too much money

When choosing food, I want to know it is fresh, as healthy and tasty as possible, I want toknow it is vegan, I want to know it is reasonably priced and readily available. Just because something is vegan somehow the price is higher. So prefer fresh fruit and veg. I am able to eat healthily in London. But I am not one for eating out. I do not like take-aways. Prefer to cook my own food. 

A healthy, nutritious and balanced diet for the whole family.
Although fresh veg and fruit are expensive, I consider them an investment in a healthy lifestyle!

Sustainable and organic must be accessible for everyone.  People shouldn’t be forced to cut corners with their health, and the planet’s because they are poor.  

I never eat intensively reared meat, free range at the minimum, but preferably organic or a food that does not reward the destruction of environments such as the Amazon or Indonesian forests, and give the animals that I eat a decent life, short as it might be.

I'm also concerned about the workers producing the food and the environment where it is grown.  We have already greatly degraded the countryside in Britain, so I try to eat organic where possible.

Cost, convenience, time and whether I enjoy it. Sometimes calories

Fresh produce, fruit & veg preferably from street markets; fish from fishmongers, meat from good butchers. Not necessarily organic, but good quality, & competitive price.

Concerns: Dominance of supermarkets, stallholder rentals for streetmarkets, and business rate pressures for small shopkeepers (such as butchers, fishmongers or traditional delis). Far too many fast food outlets (with accompanying litter/disposal/recycling/obesity problems), and a slight worry over the emergence of 'cashless' shops - such as a bakers! (Albeit it an 'artisan' establishment). Surely traders of all description should be obliged to accept legal tender in all its forms.

I'm from New Zealand. When I moved here 11 years ago I couldn't believe how cheap food was. Convenience food was far more available. I'll admit, I gained some weight! However, eating well and healthily has always been important to me. My main considerations are health, environment, and taste. I prioritise food in my budget so cost is less important to me.

What I eat is even more important to me now I have been diagnosed with MS. While my diet has always been plant based including fish, I have to pay even more attention to what I put in my body. I am also a long distance runner so my caloric needs are high.

I get my vegetables from Crop Drop and my fish from Sole Share. Mindful of single use plastic I buy as much as I can from bulk stores. In New Zealand these are pitched at the cheaper end of the market (there is a shop called Bin Inn full of cheap bulk food, and supermarkets have bulk food aisles) but I feel these are less accessible to lower income households here, which is a shame.

Eating out has become a lot easier for me since veganism went mainstream. The abundance of ethnic restaurants also helps.

I do my best to eat a lot of unprocessed & organic (if affordable) vegetables, wholegrain, with no or very little dairy / meat.

I prefer non processed food that I can prepare myself with basic ingredients. I purchase preferably from Supermarkets because their goods are freshest and have the fastest turnaround. 

Hi. We always used to buy organic produce at Waitrose. No with the slow reduction in plastic wrappings we are buying unpackaged fruit and veg whenever possible. Going to a local fruit and veg shop in Acton has helped reduce single use plastic further. Finally produce off our allotment at the moment is supplying a lot of our needs. We are vegetarians. We shy away from all processed foods. If it doesn't grow in or on the ground my 100year old aunt says not to touch it.