15% of households skipped meals last month because they couldn't afford to buy enough food

[cakeorwine]

‘Health emergency’: 15% of UK households went hungry last month, data shows | Food poverty | The Guardian

"Millions of people – including one in five families with children – have gone hungry or skipped meals in recent weeks because they could not regularly afford to buy groceries, according to new food insecurity data.
According to the Food Foundation tracker, 15% of UK households – equivalent to approximately 8 million adults and 3 million children – experienced food insecurity in January, as high food prices continued to hit the pockets of low-income families.

Expects warned the persistence of high levels of food insecurity among low-income families was a “health emergency” that would drive the prevalence of conditions linked to poor nutrition, such as malnutrition and rickets.
Nearly two-thirds (60%) of food-insecure households reported buying less fruit and 44% bought fewer vegetables as they struggled with the ongoing cost of living crisis. By contrast, just 11% of food-secure households bought less fruit and 6% purchased fewer vegetables"

This is awful data - and something that should be being talked about. Being in work does not protect you from this. Life is just very expensive for some people - and costs are still going up.

@Menomeno I agree the figures for the amount of people currently on the housing waiting list is increasing with more and more people being placed into temporary housing. Not because they want to but out of desperation.

Have a look at what Leeds are planning to do to curtail the list. The figures for how many require housing are stunning.

https://democracy.leeds.gov.uk/documents/s252003/Lettings%20Policy%20Review%20Cover%20Report%20041223.pdf

Only if you're using dried pulses rather than tinned. And what do you think beans on toast is if not cooking with pulses?

I don't think a 99p pizza would feed 2 children, they are very small.

Anyway to break mine down to feed a mother and 2 children
4 jacket potatoes 0.70p
6 eggs £1.09 so 0.18p each
900g frozen peas 0.99p so 0.23p for 3 x 80g portions

That works out at 0.23p for peas, 0.54 for 3 eggs and 0.53 for 3 potatoes so a total of £1.30 and there's still a potato, 3 eggs and 3 portions of peas left over.

Delivery slots are not an option when the minimum spend far exceeds your food budget! 🙄

@2dogsandabudgie where are you getting 6 eggs for that money?

They are regular-sized pizzas?

https://www.iceland.co.uk/p/iceland-thin-and-crispy-garlic-and-cheese-bread-245g/16881.html#start=1

Gas central heating and hot water won't work without electricity so people have to prioritise topping up the leccy even if they turn the heating off and use the gas just to get a warm shower. And turning the heating off full-stop is a really bad idea, the cold causes damp, which leads to mould, harming people's health and damaging their possessions.

If you are in that position, you can't find the £200 that a Meaco DDL8 dessicant dehumidifier costs, even though that would dry your house and heat the room it's in whilst it does so.

Asda essentials eggs are 15 for £1.99

Do it once a month then. ASDA minimum is £30.

So this fresh healthy food we are all meant to eat because the UPFs make us fat and sick will last for a whole month, will they?

Bulk buying and shopping monthly only works for non-perishables. Which, if you are avoiding cooking because you can't afford the fuel, means UPFs, fat, salt.

Instead of assuming that people are incompetent and thick why not just accept that 15% of people are missing meals because they can't afford them ? Why not accept that when you are struggling for money everything becomes much harder to work out? You are more likely to be disabled or working very long hard hours which affects the energy for working out where the cheapest eggs come from

True.

I never even considered that. We keep the electricity on because apart from the oven and heating everything is electric (including the shower). I'd never considered that the gas wouldn't work without electric anyway.

We do have a dehumidifier. I make big purchases like that when I get overtime which is often but unfortunately not last month (or for much longer as my job is being made redundant).

I was wondering the same tbh… It’s not strawberry season.

Frozen, tinned, dried. Even fresh fruit and veg keeps ages if you've got a fridge. UPF can be fresh, just like whole foods can be shelf stable/long life. Eat the fresher stuff first. And realistically nobody is spending £30 a month for all their food, they'd starve - the budget would be higher or they'd be using food banks, or both.

The gas cooker will work but you'd need to light it with a match, a gas lighter, or piezoelectric clicker. Good luck trying to light the flame in back of the oven floor with one hand whilst holding the knob on the front of the cooker down with the other.

The boiler uses electricity for its controller so you need both gas and electricity topped up for hot water and heating to run.

Why can this type of topic never be discussed reasonably on MN? It always ends up in a mud-flinging mess with insults being thrown at the few if us who dare question the hive wisdom.
For the record, I did not say I didn't believe people were skipping meals, I said I didn't believe 15% of people could not afford to buy food. There is a difference.
I am also curious to know how many people on this thread have actually experienced poverty and how many are either concerned on behalf of others or those who like to blame the Tories for everything?
I have been in the situation where our household income was way under UC level with three kids to feed, and we never came anywhere near being unable to buy food.
And I am sorry but I don't see the increase in food banks as a symptom of need, I see them as creating a need, both for those who use them and those who - as upthread - use them as an easy way to virtue signal.
I visit food banks regularly for my job and I see - and hear from the volunteers - that there is a lot of taking advantage of the situation just because it's there. But no one on here will want to hear that.

The venn diagram of shelf-stable whole foods and foods that need ages to boil is a circle. Which brings me back to food choices being dictated by how much is left on the gas and electricity meters.

Anyway to break mine down to feed a mother and 2 children
4 jacket potatoes 0.70p
6 eggs £1.09 so 0.18p each
900g frozen peas 0.99p so 0.23p for 3 x 80g portions

You can’t see how a frozen burger and chips might be more appealing than a jacket potatoes, eggs and peas? And I’m assuming no topping for the jacket potato or anything to make the eggs more palatable. It’s funny how people are happy to suggest unappealing, mismatched foods for others - cos beggars can’t be choosers I guess.

There's very little point in getting into competitions to Google the cheapest food you can find, unless it's to satisfy your own desire for reassurance that you're too smart to starve.

If anyone honestly believes that people in poverty haven't thought about living on 25p tins of beans, they are very naive. We are already living on the cheapest possible food we can find. We already can't afford even that at times. No, it's not because people are too stupid to stop wasting their money on caviar and blinis.

People don't have ANY money in their budget for food. It's that simple!

I am also curious to know how many people on this thread have actually experienced poverty

I grew up in poverty, no heat, handed down clothes, no food poverty. My parents simply didn’t have enough money coming due to health issues, they regularly went without, patched their shoes with cardboard, eaked out food for the week. They were neither reckless or incompetent - it’s not hard at all for me to understand some homes having literally no money for food.

I am also curious to know how many people on this thread have actually experienced poverty

Yes, after dropping out of university and working in catering and food retail. Twenty years later, I still have binge eating disorder that I developed because of eating as much as I could when food was available (e.g. getting dibs on the yellow sticker stuff if I was on a late shift or there being leftovers from my waitressing shift) and going hungry when it wasn't.

Eating disorders (and not just ARFID) are more common in neurodivergent people than our neurotypical counterparts anyway, throw disability-related poverty and lack of mental run-time to deal with food preparation and you have a perfect storm for neurodivergent people to be obese and malnourished at the same time.

There was also three months of my childhood post-divorce when my mum was unemployed. She didn't have central heating and had an electric immersion heater in a jacket tank for hot water. She couldn't afford to heat the water and had no shower. She told us to bathe at dad's before we came to her for the week and bathe when we got to his. So a week between baths, or else a cold bath or strip wash in cold water. She took cold baths. She didn't turn the heating on and my clothes grew mould from the damp.

I am also curious to know how many people on this thread have actually experienced poverty

This is the third time I have been made redundant and I am a single parent, so yeah, I have experienced poverty.

We're not exactly well-off when I am working and we usually rely on top-ups from freelancing/overtime to make the money last which irks me as I work full-time in a relatively skilled job. We should have enough to last us a month without having to consider how long the gas is going to last or how much I am going to manage to squeeze out of freelancing work. We usually manage, atm, it's not often we are left short but like I said, that's going to change again soon.

You do pick up tips and tricks as you struggle through (allotments are great for free/cheap eggs and veg if you're lucky enough to live near one) so being told you're doing poverty wrong when you've already tried literally every bit of "well-meaning" advice being given is fucking annoying.

And no, we will not be eating eggs, plain dry-ass potatoes, and peas when I am no longer working, FFS. For one thing, DD2 is allergic to eggs. I'd also much rather have a slice of cheese garlic bread and enjoy it but remain hungry than shovel that tasteless, bland crap down.

How much do some posters think those on low income/benefits have to spend on food per person per week? I think some might be shocked.

Back in the late 90s I fed myself on £10 a week and that included a bottle of wine (99p from Tesco - those were the days!).

In 2010 I was feeding myself and 2 small children on £30 a week. That was hard as that price also had to include toiletries etc. I often went hungry but we managed, largely because I am a good cook and had access to credit to buy those staples that are so essential to eating healthily on a very low budget. I accumulated debt though, my house was permanently freezing because I couldn't afford the heating and all clothes, shoes and toys were bought second hand. I rarely had an alcoholic drink as I couldn't afford it and had to turn down invitations for coffee because I couldn't afford even one cup in such a tightly budgeted situation. I wasn't on benefits, I worked full time. But because I had a mortgage and wasn't renting (my mortgage was less than rent would be) I didn't qualify for anything other than some help with childcare. It didn't cover it but was a huge help. I was actually more than £100pcm worse off than my friend who was in a comparable situation but not working and on benefits. It was a bloody miserable time quite frankly. And that was then.

These days DC are grown up and my financial situation is very very different. My many people's standards I am now well off. I have never ever forgotten how hard it was back then though. People who haven't lived it have job idea how much of your time and energy is spent trying to creatively find ways to make that £1 stretch further and further. It leaves very little room for anything else. This is part of the reason we have a poverty trap. It can be impossibly hard to break out of it when every waking thought is dominated by making money go far enough.

All of you who are struggling - I hear you. 💐

Not everyone has access to cheap supermarkets where they can buy things at those prices, though. You're very privileged if you can access an ALDI or an ASDA.

You have to spend £50 minimum at Tesco now or they add £5 to your total spend. So if you don't live within walking distance, you either need at least £50 spare (plus delivery) or have £5 to chuck away on nothing.

Our local store doesn't sell anything at the prices you list - eggs start at nearly £2 for six, for example. No own-brand beans, you have to pay for Heinz. Potatoes are only sold in fours so no chance of bulk buying.