Britain's Hidden Hunger

[KanelbulleKing]

www.itv.com/hub/britains-secret-hunger-exposure/2a7613a0001

Just watching this on catch up and I'm sobbing. How has Britain sunk so low as a country that children are frightened of school holidays because they know they'll be hungry? Children thinking it's Christmas because their family has received a few bags of basic food items?

The existence of food banks in one of the richest countries in the world is a national disgrace. My MIL is knocking on 80 and spends her spare time peeling potatoes and carrots for the lunches her church provides for anyone who needs them. She should be putting her feet up and being served herself but she won't because she's too worried about her 'guests' going hungry.

Time for change?

And the poor have to pay more than the comfortable or well off. My meter is more expensive per unit of fuel than if I paid quarterly bills. I'd love to spend 50 quid on a proper warm coat for ds. However, that's out if the question . I have to try and get the best I can for 20 or 30 quid and hope it lasts. I will have to replace cheaper items faster than if I had bought more expensive, better quality items in the first place.
I don't drive so if I wanted to go into town to the big Sainsbury's that's 3 quid on the bus for a single and £5 taxi fare home. Online shopping would be good but the minimum is £40 and you don't get the reduced items.
It's not called the poverty trap for nothing. It's frighteningly easy to fall into and desperately hard to climb out of.

my heart has been broken seeing what children suffer because the adults were rubbish

Those adults were once children.

@HoofWankingSpangleCunt how old is ds? I have a range of coats in most sizes that my three boys have grown out of so if you dm me I will send you a couple if you like.

A large part of it is because housing is so bloody expensive, especially renting. Why not make it easier to get a mortgage ? If someone has been paying rent long term then that should be enough info for a mortgage of equal or lower value.

Childcare. Family members who traditionally would have provided care are a thing of the past because everyone now needs to work, that and the fact that kids are expected to need some sort of care until secondary school age (( whereas kids of my generation would be left with the neighbour keeping an eye out )) it's just crippling for a lot of families. I actually know more people who have chosen to remain childless because they don't don't see how they can afford them than people who have children now. I can see the population plummeting in the coming years

I was in a bad place 25 years ago when things weren't generally so bad. I fled an abusive marriage with my baby and was lucky enough to be housed by my council. But I had nothing. It's all well and good saying you can cook pasta or porridge for pennies, but I had no way of cooking anything. I didn't have a cooker or a microwave, I didn't even have any pans or plates. It was the kindness of strangers that got me through those dark times.

I think that's why I found the programme so upsetting. Since my time on benefits it's just got worse and worse, and yet the country has got richer and richer. This should be a golden era for our children.

SweetP How are children supposed to get the nutrients they need from porridge made with water? That kind of diet would sustain an adult but does not produce a healthy thriving child.

They are adults now and with that comes responsibility and putting yourself last.why should each generation suffer?yes I wholeheartedly agree that the poor are systematically screwed on utilities etc but that is an issue to fight with your mp on. Payday loans at 100000% I do get it. But do something constructive people not whine on here.

do something constructive people not whine on here.

People can do both.

anniemac as you know, having worked in SS, parents spending money on drugs doesn’t change the fact that the children haven’t been fed. What do you want, for them to starve to death for being unlucky enough to be born into the wrong family?

There is some truth to what you say, however. What is generally happening is that something has happened to these families which means they can no longer afford to eat. Quite often that’s debt- repaying the cost of a house move, broken appliance, school equipment or birthday presents- one missed payment and the costs spiral out of control

Other times it’s because benefit payments have been missed- the switch over to UC being a big one

Other times people are not yet in the “system” but have sudden, significant life charges such as illness job loss death etc and very quickly go from living hand to mouth on their wages to having nothing.

All these people may need food banks. I don’t understand how you can blame them
Or their children to be honest, but there is some truth in what you say.

Your second point about cooking is utter, uneducated, horseshit though.

@ClientListQueen

Child is hungry, you have £2 and no money for gas. Do you buy spices or cheap noodles that just need boiling water?

The purpose of a pantry of basic essentials is that you AREN'T buying them when you're down to your last £2. If I was down to my last £2 I would buy a few parsnips and an onion and make soup. I wouldn't buy cheap noodles. Soup goes further and has more nutritional value. This is what I mean about cooking properly.

You can't risk making anything new because what if it goes wrong or your children won't eat it or it's inedible?

Making soup or stew is not some weird and wonderful thing that could go wrong. It may be bland but that's about the worst of it. If your child is hungry they will eat it. If they don't eat it then they're not hungry enough yet.

Maybe you don't have a car to get to the cheaper supermarkets and have to use the expensive local shop. Maybe you are housed somewhere with only a kettle and microwave, or your oven has broken or you can't afford to slow cook cheap meat for hours because it costs more in gas and electric.

True, you could in a situation where you're limited by your cooking appliances. I'm sure you can do a lot with a microwave though. I never said slow cook cheap meat...if you're on the breadline and you can't afford to cook meat then you get your protein elsewhere. As a student I didn't eat meat cause I couldn't afford it.

I can prance about doing cheap meals because I can afford the gas, I can get more food if it goes wrong and I have the time, energy and headspace to hunt reduced items

If you're living on the breadline you eat what goes wrong. It's still nutrition. I'm not on the breadline and I wouldn't throw out food that went wrong...that's a waste. I'm not even talking reduced items. I'm talking buying things which are just cheaper by default. And again, if you're on that breadline and it's the difference between eating and not eating, you would find the reduced stuff.

I work 40 hours a week and I can still manage to budget my money...

Regarding renting I live in the north where housing is a lot cheaper. A house on my street is around 90k for ye basic, 3 bedroomed semi.

A mortgage would be around £400 a month ? Tops. To rent a house on my street it would cost £600 a month. And they're snapped up.

We actually bought our house in 2001 when my dp was working 30 hours a week in Tesco. We paid 24k for it, our payments never went above £180 a month. If we hadn't been able to do that we'd have been in dire poverty as we then went on to have DC with disabilities. As it was despite a low income our DC never went without.

Poorer people are kicked and kicked again with barriers that they often just need a little support to get out of.

I find it utterly shocking that we have so many young children and families in such poverty. The benefits trap is awful.

I'm far from well off and currently have no savings nor do I yet own my own house but are in a position after nearly 10 years of earning more so are working on it however some families don't have that luxury do they.

I've seen and still see families that don't help themselves financially and have come to rely on the state which is now creating more debt for them when the opportunity has been there it to rely on the system but I've also seen families that just can't get out of that trap.

I donate a huge amount of clothing bedding etc to homeless charities and always buy extra and put in the food bank boxes but the problem won't ease or change for people unless something radical is done.

It's appalling that a country like ours in this day and age has such a problem with poverty it really is.

There is some truth to what you say, however. What is generally happening is that something has happened to these families which means they can no longer afford to eat.

The research that came out a few days ago said that 75% of food bank users were in families affected by disability or serious illness.

I too, shall get shot down for my opinion. I totally agree with @anniemac1 but I also feel some people are having children when they know they are not in a position to raise them.

We don't live in the 1800s where in that day, you'd have a large number of children as you'd expect to lose some to disease. Life is hard enough as it is. Children born into poverty are behind before they even start.

Food banks are only for short term use so I can only presume those Disabled people were facing the kind of challenges I’ve identified in my post kanelbulllking?

Of course they do indie.

The problem is no one, but no one is denying that people who are poor make poor decision or lead chaotic lifestyles that make their children suffer

The question is what do you want to do about it? Most of us want to support them, and are saying food banks are an inadequate way to do so.

By yours and anniemacs post I’m guessing you don’t want to help them, and instead see poor children ransacking bins and dying of hunger in the gutter like children in parts of africa or India.

It shouldn't be a race to the bottom. I mean we are talking about making porridge with water FFS.

@SweetPetrichor but what if you never have the spare money for the spices or oil? This is the situation people are in. And you're not buying the bigger bottle because it works out cheaper because you can't afford it
One week of eating cheaply is very very different to having nothing for 52 weeks a year

They are adults now and with that comes responsibility and putting yourself last.why should each generation suffer?yes I wholeheartedly agree that the poor are systematically screwed on utilities etc but that is an issue to fight with your mp on. Payday loans at 100000% I do get it. But do something constructive people not whine on here.

Boy oh boy - you really do lack imagination and empathy. With each and every family there comes a million different factors and combinations of circumstances. As someone said earlier - it's not all black and white. Also, I don't hear anyone 'whining' on here. Are we not allowed to discuss the increase in need for food banks all over the UK in the last decade?

I can't find the original posted but this sums it up and was posted on another thread about food poverty

It isn't just the money, or lack of skills but also the time and effort that goes in to cooking cheap meals from scratch. It takes bloody ages to produce meals from dried lentils or really cheap cuts of meat. This uses loads of fuel but it's also the last thing you feel like doing when you come in from a long day being treated like shit by customers for minimum wage (for example). And even if you do, people will be hoiking their judgey pants up about how your kids didn't get dinner til 9pm and went to bed late. Or talking nonsense about batch cooking and freezing when (1) you can't afford to run a freezer, even if you had one and (2) you have loads of other stuff to squeeze in to your days off work so can't spend the whole day cooking (even if you could afford the fuel for that).

It is fairly easy to come up with a one off misery shopping list for 2 for £15, but try eating that stuff every day for the foreseeable future. Lentil soup every night for the next 15 years is not something I'd be looking forward to.

Also, these lists never include stuff like cooking oil and salt/pepper (never mind all the other store cupboard stuff most of us take for granted). If your food budget is £15 every week, then at some point you'll need to buy this stuff. And you won't be buying the big bottle of vegetable oil that works out cheapest, because you can't afford to waste that amount of your weekly budget on oil. No, you'll be buying very small but cheaper bottles that work out more expensive in the long run.

Question for those who blame poor parenting etc

Why did parenting suddenly get so much worse in 2010?

Food banks are only for short term use so I can only presume those Disabled people were facing the kind of challenges I’ve identified in my post kanelbulllking?

Yes, with sanctions probably being the biggest challenge. Too ill or disabled to attend a meeting and you'll be sanctioned. I can;t remember who it said it, might have been Ken Loach on Question Time, but they pointed out that under the current system the government are using hunger to punish people. Shameful.

@SweetPetrichor

I work 40 hours a week and I can still manage to budget my money...

Wow - that's great. Well done you.

Strangely enough though, this thread is not about you - is it?

It shouldn't be a race to the bottom. I mean we are talking about making porridge with water FFS.

Nothing can warm the cockles of a cold heart like the sight of kids eating gruel.

I havent watched this yet and will later on.The cost of living has risen gradually and supermarket bills are high . I struggle to keep mine around the £150 mark for 4 of us .Even with getting low priced goods or LidL/Aldi etc, many people who are in poverty are often behind with their other bills too ,and get into a cycle of debt or borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.This is a cumulative effect on their lives and it is very difficult to get out of .