Frozen, tinned and dried count, the cheap way to 30 plants

Yes, frozen, tinned and dried plants all count, exactly the same as fresh. That makes the freezer, the tin aisle and the dried goods shelf a cheap, reliable route to 30 plants a week: they keep, there is less waste, and the trolley on this page reaches 30 plant points without a single fresh item in it.

Do frozen, tinned and dried plants count as plant points?

Yes. The usual scoring convention counts fresh, frozen, tinned and dried plants the same, with one point per different plant a week and a quarter for herbs and spices. Nothing in it rewards you for paying more for fresh.

5 A Day says the same thing in its own way. The NHS counts frozen fruit and vegetables and tinned fruit and vegetables, and a 30g portion of dried fruit counts as one of your five. For tins, it asks you to pick ones in natural juice or water with no added sugar or salt.

Why are frozen and tinned the cheaper way to do it?

Because you pay for what you eat rather than what you throw away, and because they are often cheaper to begin with. The British Dietetic Association’s advice on eating well for less describes tinned fruit and vegetables as cheap and quick, and frozen as good value and highly nutritious, because the nutrients are sealed in during freezing. Frozen vegetables also come chopped, which on a tired evening matters more than the price.

The other saving is the one you can’t see on the receipt. Fresh spinach bought on Saturday and found slimy on Thursday cost you money and gave you nothing. A bag of frozen spinach is still there in three weeks.

What does a thirty point trolley look like?

Here is one, with nothing fresh in it. The running total counts each plant once, so nothing in a later row repeats a plant from an earlier one.

Every item is an everyday line you should find in Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda or Morrisons, usually in an own label version. Mixes vary between supermarkets, so read the back of each bag and count what is in yours. If a pepper bag has red, yellow and green slices, the looser version of the convention would let you count each colour; I’ve counted it as one.

The butter beans and black eyed beans are deliberate. Kidney, black, pinto and haricot beans are all varieties of one species, so strictly they share a point. Butter beans and black eyed beans belong to different species, so they count whichever way you play it. World food aisle plant points goes into that properly.

How do I keep the cost down without knowing the prices?

Use the shelf label rather than the price on the pack. Unit pricing, the price per kilo or per 100g, is the fair way to compare a big bag with a small one, and it tells you whether an offer is a saving at all. Three more habits come from the same dietitians’ advice:

• look on the top and bottom shelves, because the cheaper lines are not always at eye level
• try the value range, which often tastes as good for less
• keep a stock of herbs and spices, which turn the same lentils into a different meal

Mixed bags are the quiet win for plant points. One bag of frozen mixed vegetables is four plants; one bag of mixed seeds is three. Getting the same count one plant at a time means seven bags instead of two.

Do beans and lentils count once or every time?

Once a week each, for plant points. Chickpeas on Monday and chickpeas on Friday is one point; chickpeas and red lentils is two.

For 5 A Day the rule is different. Beans and pulses count as one of your five however many you eat in a day, because they contain fewer nutrients than other fruit and vegetables. That does not make them less worth buying. They are cheap, they keep, and they are one of the easiest ways to add fibre, which most UK adults are short of: around 20g a day on average against a recommended 30g.

Is there a catch?

Two small ones. Some tins come in syrup or brine, and some frozen vegetables come in sauce, so check the label for added sugar and salt. And dried fruit is a concentrated source of sugar, so keep it to meals rather than grazing on it between them, for the sake of your teeth.

The bigger one is your gut. Going from a handful of plants to thirty in one week adds a lot of fibre at once, and that tends to bring bloating and wind with it. Increase slowly so your gut has time to adjust. If you are starting from a low count, the 30 plants a week checklist shows how to build up over a few weeks, and the gut friendly weekly shop is the fresh and frozen version of this list.

None of this replaces a GP. Ask for an urgent GP appointment or get help from NHS 111 if you have lost a lot of weight for no reason, you are bleeding from your bottom or have bloody diarrhoea, or you find a hard lump or swelling in your tummy.

If you are not sure where to start, the which book quiz points you to the right guide for where you are now.