Since when are strawberries an ‘everyday essential’ in the depths of winter?

I don't eat fruit in winter hardly at all. Am I alone in this? I eat plenty of vegetables

M0nica

^If the only way your child will eat fruit in winter is strawberries then maybe you would buy but not essential.^

Perhaps one would ask why a child has reached a stage where strawberries are the only fruit they will eat.

WWM2 Much of the winter salad veg are grown in the UK in Kent and Sussex. Avocadoes,no and I am not sure about peppers.

Many children go through a picky stage when they will prefer to eat certain things over others, and autistic children, for instance, often have very specific foods they will only eat. My grandson used to eat almost every fruit you could think of - then suddenly, for no apparent reason, he went right off eating bananas.

Germanshepherdsmum

I have never had success with freezing strawberries. When thawed they have always been mushy.

I pick, wash, slice, sugar and freeze quickly. Delicious.

Use in children's drinks, on breakfast pancakes, in baked bread pudding, in syrup, and I make summer pudding all year as we love it.

Bananas aren't grown here nor are oranges or pineapples, I still buy a plethora of fruit year round. Frozen in-season fruit is a good substitute.

Gin

They do not even have any taste and are very white in the middle but my OH insists on buying them with raspberries to have on his cereal. However we need our vitamins and I am just as bad as I have pineapple but what British fruit is there other than pears and apples?

Dh often has a satsuma or clementine on his cereal. Citrus fruits are at least in season in the UK, winter, and not on the other side of the world.

He also likes stewed apple with his cereal, when I’ve bothered to make any.

If the only way your child will eat fruit in winter is strawberries then maybe you would buy but not essential.

Perhaps one would ask why a child has reached a stage where strawberries are the only fruit they will eat.

WWM2 Much of the winter salad veg are grown in the UK in Kent and Sussex. Avocadoes,no and I am not sure about peppers.

Aveline

M&S had white strawberries when I was in yesterday. They looked perfect yet a ghastly pearly white. Didn't fancy them at all.

I ‘taste-tested’ those in America last year. Their selling point was that they tasted like pineapple. I can assure you, they didn’t, and anyway, if I wanted to taste pineapple I’d eat….guess what!…a pineapple. 🍍

I do like to try to eat in season which includes fish. Tbh I’m not entirely successful as I eat tomatoes, salad and avocados, peppers.

Come to think of it I don’t think I do eat in season!

I sometimes buy frozen mixed berries to defrost, cook up for crumbles etc. as I don't grow enough

No thanks to tasteless hard strawberries in winter. Summer ones from Cheddar or your own are the best. I did buy blueberries from the organic blueberry farm in Dorset which I then froze. Cheaper and tastier than supermarket ones. Just pushed some into my porridge where they thawed out and with a drizzle of honey it was delicious.

If the only way your child will eat fruit in winter is strawberries then maybe you would buy but not essential.

BlueBelle

If I was a child and given these winter strawberries I d spit them out I think

Some children may only eat certain fruits though...

If I was a child and given these winter strawberries I d spit them out I think

The strawberries bought in the winter are awful totally tasteless and white ….yuk
There are so many other fruit that you can encourage children to eat without these yukky items
And agree grandmaderby the tomatoes are totally tasteless as well not worth the money so if I have a sanctimonious attitude I ll keep it
I grow my own strawberries raspberries and gooseberries in the summer

I agree with the OP. We are all mixed up and have lostlosing touch with nature.

I picked some curly kale, fresh new leaves from my garden and popped them in the hot oven for a few minutes to crisp up. My friend who came to dinner couldn't believe how delicious they were!

I am guilty too though if buying blueberries for my breakfast muesli and things that take my fancy.

I avoid strawberries at this time of year. Oranges are good.

aonk

Strawberries may not be an essential to many people but fruit is an essential for a healthy diet. It really doesn’t matter which fruit you eat or where it comes from. I’m puzzled by the somewhat sanctimonious attitude of some to strawberries when they may well eat bananas. These travel a long way all year round. Why pick on any particular fruit?

I'm with you on this. I do prefer to eat home grown fruit when in season, but when we're trying to encourage everyone to eat more healthily, especially children, then surely eating more fruit - any fruit - has to be a good thing?

M&S had white strawberries when I was in yesterday. They looked perfect yet a ghastly pearly white. Didn't fancy them at all.

There are extensive areas of glass houses in Sussex and Kent, so a lot of our winter salad crop is home grown and d when I did a bit of googling I discovered that strawberries are now being grown in Britian all year round
www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/aldi-somerset-farm-collaboration-sees-22740075

I still think they will be tasteless.

Most cheaper tomatoes are tasteless in winter too. I bought some clearance price Italian small vine ones recently and they tasted as though they had actually been seasoned!

I would class fruit as essential. Frozen blueberries or raspberries are a good standby. I do buy fresh bananas, oranges , lemons, apples, kiwi, melon fairly regularly, I’m sure most of these are grown some distance away. I avoid winter strawberries as they don’t taste so good as the locally grown ones.

I rarely buy strawberries in winter, because of the lack of taste.
I do buy bananas all the year round and satsumas when they’re in season so I can’t really comment on carbon footprint as a reason for not buying strawberries.

I only like our home grown summer strawberries. None of the others taste good to me. And I like the idea that they are just a summer treat to look forward to.

Our strawberries here are not as nice as your ones, not so much flavour and the same applies to our raspberries and blueberries. We do a good mango,pineapple and avocado but they are all tropical. Our apples aren’t too bad and tomatoes vary, some vine ripened ones are ok. I pine for British raspberries, so,so good.

Strawberries may not be an essential to many people but fruit is an essential for a healthy diet. It really doesn’t matter which fruit you eat or where it comes from. I’m puzzled by the somewhat sanctimonious attitude of some to strawberries when they may well eat bananas. These travel a long way all year round. Why pick on any particular fruit?

To us they're not. I've seen Moroccan ones in the Co-op. The environmental cost of flying/shipping strawberries around the world is enormous. We try to eat what's in season so most of it is British, or at least European.

Essentials are fruit and veg, grains and pulses, as I’m doing veganuary. Desperate for some carbs I made bread (wholemeal of course) which I ate with Flora Plant spread and Marmite (vitamin B)
Tea with oat milk or black coffee.
I’m missing cheese.

This thread has made me ask myself what I personally consider to be everyday essentials, and I am struggling to think of anything that I consume every day! I always eat a variety of things from the different food groups, such as fruit and veg, dairy, proteins, but not always the same things within those groups.
I suppose that my weekly shop would be rather more revealing, though I can still only think of a few specific things that would always be on that shopping list - bread, milk, cheese and wine/crisps for the weekend .