AIBU to think the UK should have a National Food Service again? (Like we basically had in WW2)

Have you seen how good the government - any government - are at running things?

you’re really asking for communism and that’s not really worked too well when tried before

Baked beans, kidney beans, botlotti beans, pinto beans, cannelleni beans, haricot beans, black eyed beans, black beans, green lentils, chickpeas. All under a £ at Tesco. No you don't have to eat lentils every day, but pulses are cheap, balanced and versatile - nothing wrong with eating them regularly.

It's really not. Food is cheap in the UK. We have highly competitive supermarkets which screw farmers and drive down prices. If anything fruit and veg are under priced and we should be paying more.

Go to a French supermarket - the quality is much higher but so are the prices. Brits focus on cheap over good.

Food is very cheap in the UK. Exactly how much cheaper do you think a bag of carrots could possibly be?

"During the war" is pretty important here.

Is your Grandson as hungry as your dad was ?

What country do you live in ? Food is very expensive in the UK . A tin of pulses costs around a pound and if you are talking of boiling dried ones then add in the gas/electricity to that. You can't eat lentils every day. Fruit and vegetables are vastly overpriced. Carrots are now 69p a bag in Tesco - my nearest shop. I do not have the time ,nor a car to go and shop cheaper.

Like a pp, My dad was a teenager in Glasgow during the war, grew very tall, and was always hungry. My grandson is the same height, and has the typical teenage hollow legs. The portions at school dinners are tiny, cost a lot, and I basically I wouldn’t trust the government to feed anyone adequately beyond a very basic quantity of calories.

Ahh right. So you are going down the path of all data is fake. That's usually a good conversation killer.

I will say tho, there is not really much in the UK that can be called 100% subsidy (or benefit free).I reckon the concept of pure capitalism is just as impossible as pure communism.

NHS results are there for all to see. Numbers are massaged, deaths from lack of diagnosis and primary care hidden. It’s not an example to be proud of.

Off on a tangent here, but no. They really haven't.

What the CPC done back in 2011 or so, after XI declared " we will eradicate poverty", they just redefined what it is.

They set the poverty level at 6.3 RMB per day in 2011. Far lower than the world bank definition. They also do not state if this is per person, or per household. And they never raised or revised that definition.

I love this.

"We should have cheap subsidised food in this country"

Someone points out the food that is available OP disputes it saying "but that's shit quality and I can't use it".

Which illustrates part of the point and problem.

What makes you think you'd get better quality food under a government scheme. That's nuts! And if you are saying those products are unusable, what do you think other people will say?!!!!.

50p tinned lentils are absolutely perfect and easy to use btw. I have no bloody idea why you are moaning at that one.

I wouldn't trust the government to run a more efficient operation than the supermarkets. We already have very cheap food. It would be better to swap benefit payments into food vouchers to prevent temptation for those who can't manage their own money,.

Can you imagine the uproar of we stopped benefits and gave people food instead.

People would have to cook and wouldn't get treats.

This would cause riots. Like genuinely. People don't riot over many things but food is one of them.

Plus one of the issues food banks identify is the number of people who don't have the means to cook. Either through fuel shortage (potatoes take a long time and lots of energy to cook), a lack of equipment (everything from tin openers, to pans, to those living in b&b's only having access to a kettle and microwave at most) and obviously a lack of skill.

It's even more depressing to think about than it simply being about a lack of money.

I'm well aware it's never going to happen. I'm not a fool. I'm saying that before any of us can claim this will be cheaper or more expensive we would need to see the figures. Without them we are all simply making uniformed declarations about cost to support views driven by our ideologies rather than from any detailed knowledge or understanding of the economics.

They can though can’t they? They don’t need government canteens or government potatoes. It’s just this weird obsession with controlling what people eat.

We are loosing the ability to grow our own food, farms closing daily and no onebis making new land! When it's gone it's gone.

In WW2 we had a much smaller population, way more land, food rationing and food was grown on almost every available scrap if land. It would never work again.

How much subsidising to people need? Benefits, on top of benefits on top of benefits.

How about just teaching people to stand on their own two feet?

I think what the OP is asking is not really a million miles away from what the UK already has.

The taxpayer subsidises farmers.

An update on the Sustainable Farming Incentive – Farming (blog.gov.uk)

5 billion over 2 years. Quote " The largest of these schemes, the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) now has more than 37,000 multi-year live agreements and is not only delivering sustainable food production and nature’s recovery for today and the years ahead, but it is also putting money back into farmers’ pockets. "

Food security is a pretty big thing. Especially with the EU, as we can all recall.

So while the UK government do not own and operate any farms directly, food production is supported. We can argue the policy details etc, but I think it is fair to say that without this support, staple prices would be higher.

For anyone yelling COMMUNISM, I say think back to the likes of the milk marketing board.

I love the “figures will need to be modelled” as if that’s ever going to happen 😂

as mentioned numerous times these products don’t produce billions in profits for none producers. They are loss leaders or return tiny margins. Supermarkets can offer basics at such a low price because every margin is squeezed including their own (they’re not making profit on milk!)

you could argue they should simply be more expensive but that’s an entirely different solution to a national food service supplying basics

I'd rather the government enabled and encouraged households to be more food-independent, such as encouraging poultry-keeping by allowing households to feed them kitchen scraps, and running campaigns to educate people about growing food, preserving food and, most of all, not wasting food.

Its illegal but it happens nonetheless. I think its something of an oversimplification to call a farmer a self employed person who can choose to work for less than NNW.
My wider point is that it seems rather obvious that if we remove the need to make the billions in profit for non producers from an industry, then there is more money to pay the producers properly so farmers don't have to work for less than NMW, illegal workers won't be employed, and it may even be cheaper for the end consumer. As I said, the figures would need to be modelled.

I think it’s such a weird middle aged woman thing to be obsessed with other people not eating well enough.

Is it too much generational orthorexia? Being raised on a diet of super fat v super skinny, fat families, and Gillian Mckeith??

It’s a bit sinister really, this obsession with other people’s diets and their level of cooking ability.

Wow! What a wet dream for Labour backbenchers.

I'd rather live in a free country.

Oh yes, I’ve always fancied living in North Korea so this could be a sort of halfway house.

No way. Canteen style catering doesn’t even work at a profit model due to minimum wage etc. I’ve now worked on 3 contracts shutting down catering facilities on sites (one large company, one university, one government arm) because they are too expensive to subsidise and can’t work without subsidy.