The FastDay Forum

Hello to all of you (bien sur!) but especially to those based in France...
Where are you living? I'm in SE/central France, near Roanne (42)
What food have you found easy/useful to get hold of - or the direct opposite?!

I've been 5:2ing for about 12 weeks now, generally cooking from fresh - but envying those in the UK talking about M&S goodies!!
How are you finding it?

Hi
I'm in 47, Lot et Garonne, in the SW. Land of duck, foie gras and prunes!
What a good idea, to get ideas re. Foods ici.
Like you, I tend to cook from fresh, but every now and then, like now, I drive to the UK to fill up on essentials like spray oil, brown sauce, rectangular pillows etc
Things I havenT been able to find are
1 low/no fat greek yogurt
2 good cheap fruit
3 M&S goodies, as you say
By & large i can find what I want though, we are not in a very "English" part of France, by choice, so when pushed we drive up to the Dordogne to a shop that sells goodies from home
Bon chance et bon courage

Hello,
I live in Paris, so I could go to M&S, but to be honest it's a bit far away so I haven't bothered so far...
I'm vegetarian so I generally cook all of my own food from scratch anyway. So far I have had salads and stir fries on fast days, and my personal favourite crudités and dip that I make from aubergine, garlic and lemon or a bean dip or hummous etc. You can even buy platters in the supermarket of crudités and low fat dip which would probably work, but I haven't looked at the calories in them.
I sometimes buy things like 'poilée de légumes' or chargrilled vegetables from Picard so that I have stuff in the freezer that I can make into a meal, read the packet carefully though as some of that stuff has loads of oil added.
I'm looking forward to the summer when there will be loads of nice fruit and veg at the market, so far I've had some asparagus which is a sure sign that summer is on the way!
I'm finding that cheddar is everywhere now, suddenly in the last 6 months even my local franprix stocks it, and as I love cheddar that's one of the things I'm finding hard to resist!

Hello from 61 (Orne) near Bagnoles de l'Orne - I can't find low fat yogurt in our supermarkets but other than that the thing I do wish we had is Holland & Barrett - their zero noodles are fabulous (as is the pasta that I tried the other day, but NOT the rice)
My OH does all the cooking (I know, how lucky am I!) so I'm not sure whether there's anything else particularly difficult to get for 5:2 but we do have a standard shopping list for the UK that includes

tea bags (we can get them here, but horribly expensive)
brown sauce
chilli dipping sauce
all things indian/oriental

Anyhow, back out into the sunshine, veg patch calls, if I want to be able to tell the veg from the weeds then I'd better keep on top of it!!

AnnieD - have you tried Grand Frais or CotéHalles for chilli dipping sauce? I buy my sweet chilli sdauce/ Sauce pour Nems from there. They aren't bad for Asian things - rubbish for Indian though. Oh! I do miss a good Indian take away! Going to an Indian and to Wagamamas are two things we HAVE to do when we go back home!