To be horrified at the price of food

Yes, and food that doesn't leave you hungry and feeling like crap because your body is looking for nutrition, not just empty calories.

No it isn’t. You could get a massive bag of oats, jacket potatoes, lentils,pasta, tinned tomatoes, veg…

Iceland do 5 for £5 on a ton of things. A pizza for a pound. 4 crispy pancakes for a pound. It's much more than £10 would get you in fresh produce.

Oats and porridge is cheap, ditto 50/50 toast and peanut butter for breakfast. Aldi fruit and fibre is v cheap for a big box. I often have leftovers for lunch. Jacket potatoes are cheap for tea with cheese and baked beans. Flapjacks cheap to make ditto soup. You need to be creative. We all have phones. Search cheap meat free meals, there is loads out there.

Think it's so easy and cheap to eat healthily. Please take me to this alternate reality

Equally shocking how many people think a diet without avocados is a peasant diet.

If you have £10 for food for the week, you're going to reach for the cheap UPFs because it's something to get you through. You're not going to grab a pack of mince and a couple bits of veg, because it won't be enough!

Frankly £10 in UPF isn’t going to be enough either, because £10 isn’t enough for 21 meals no matter what you’re buying.

Sorry but very few people work 12+ hours. Pasta sauce made with an onion, tin of toms, garlic and chilli flakes takes minutes, ditto Dahl and veg, hominy pie you can make ahead, egg fried rice… all very cheap and meals I make in mins when we return from our full time jobs .

People are going to have to step up and start doing their own research into cheap meat free meals on a budget. It is possible, I’ve had to do it.

Think it's so easy and cheap to eat healthily. Please take me to this alternate reality

Absolutely shocking how many of you seem to

@BMW6 I literally listed my weekly shop a few posts ago that cost me £50. For one person. Unless you're denying yourself any joy and only buying the cheapest vegetables, it's expensive.

Thats not a huge amount for meals for the week, I spend around £100 for three of us and we eat well. There are a good few economies you could make if you don’t have £50 - it’s a choice to spend more to suit your preferences.

It is not "incredibly privileged" to have more than £10 a week for food, stop setting the bar so low. I'm a lone parent and know what it's like to be poor, lived solely on benefits for 3 years and was able to feed my child veg daily.

Thankfully, I can make choices but like everyone else, I'm feeling it too.
A few yrs ago, we went through some tough times where dh was out of work for a year. I found buying upf food to be more expensive than buying chicken, mince, veg, pasta and rice for meals if I was looking at budget across the week for our family.
We had bread of course as that was pretty cheap but meals were cheaper made from scratch.
How much upf food do people buy for a week? Chips? Pizza? Chicken nuggets? How much is being spent on this and can you spend the equivalent on healthier food?
Of course, I believe healthier food should be affordable for everyone but if people need to make choices then, as I said before, nothing is more important that your health.

I buy a lot at market. Pound a bowl today was a HUGE washing up bowl of small tomatoes, 5 avocado, blueberries in bulk, 8 conference pears, 3 aubergines and about a kg of grapes. Then at tesco 15p each bag of brown onions, white cabbage, bag of carrots. Two bundles of asparagus for £2.20.
I have found by fitting what I eat around availablity and working backwards food is stil cheap. You just have to adjust expectations that this is what you are eating

People have preferences. They should be able to afford those preferences. Especially when their preference is fruit and vegetable

Of course people have preferences, I’d eat steak 3 times a week but my budget won’t accommodate that. I could complain or I could find another equally good source of protein.

People should be able to buy fruit and vegetables, that doesn’t mean avocado and strawberries.

No. I judge posters who insist that all poor people eat UPFs and if you do cook things like porridge and soup then you must not be genuinely poor enough.

I'm not a high earner but I don't think food is particularly expensive.

It's all relative. If your local charges £6.50 for a pint of lager, you can make that stretch to a couple of meals at least.

@Kalevala and yet you're still here judging other people for their actions?

I'm a lone parent. I've worked long days. I cooked on other days and reheated. I rarely used to put the oven on because I was scared to as it costs so much more than the stove top.

Eh?? Yes they are healthy. Yes you can buy them. I encourage you to buy them. I buy them too.
Not quite getting why that statement is directed to me though.

Having spent time in the US 15 years ago, I was horrified by the price of their supermarkets. It was cheaper to eat out (NJ/NY).

I do think that as more people switch away from UPF, the basic fruit and veg that we could get cheap as chips pre-covid is now rocketing in price.

Only thing I think we can do is to start growing our own fruit and veg for certain parts of the year, in our windows, balconies or gardens.

My neighbours have chickens too for their eggs.

@Kalevala that's not the only factor and you're being incredibly ignorant to pretend it is.

What about people who are working 12+ hours who need something easy? Those who don't have the room in their budget to cook on the stove top for 25 minutes while also running the oven? Those who don't have the time because of their kids?

If it's their only choice then it's their only choice. I feel for those stuck in temporary accommodation without cooking facilities to cook something like porridge or soup. That isn't all poor people though. If you have an oven for UPF oven food then you would have a stove top.

Of course it does
Fruit juice is one of your five a day and value Apple juice is still... fruit juice

@AstralSpace again, you're not getting it because you have the room to prioritise that.

If you have £10 for food for the week, you're going to reach for the cheap UPFs because it's something to get you through. You're not going to grab a pack of mince and a couple bits of veg, because it won't be enough!

You can buy cheap bread for 40p which is a week of toast and sandwiches. Cheap crisps and maybe an apple or a cheap chocolate bar is lunch. Cheap pizza with some cheap chips for dinner. If you have the room in your budget to make those choices, you're incredibly privileged

People don't have to be upf foods. I wish they wouldn't as it's just making them unhealthy and ill.
How much would they spend on a weeks worth of shopping? Could they really not eat healthier on the same budget?
Being healthy is probably the most important thing to prioritise.