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.

I'm amazed at all the people who think it's perfectly OK to have these levels of food deprivation in a country like the UK. The implication that people should just accept tasteless slop and be grateful is grotesque.

Well, most people should know that it's unfortunately not that simple.

If you have a hungry child and your options are pizza (which you know they'll eat) or a dry potato, peas and a fried egg that they'll leave half of - which option are you going to go for?

Let's be honest, parents are going to give their children food they know they'll eat - not waste their money on a random assortment of things that don't go together and that they may not even touch.

Well, exactly.

Nobody should have to accept eating this kind of random shit on a regular basis because they can't afford anything else. It's depressing that so many are justifying it because it's just as cheap as a frozen pizza or two.

How many of those commenting on this thread about how easy it is to come up with three nutritious, healthy meals a day at rock bottom prices are able to stick religiously to a diet for more than a couple of weeks?

Let alone commit themselves to years of paltry eating with no end in sight except even higher prices for food and even less available to stock their pantry.

And please do not forget - you DO NOT have the money for a cupboard full of spices and condiments, nor do you have the resources to tour each and every supermarket/independent retailer hunting for bargains, nor the spare money for endless gas and electricity to cook these alleged bargains.

I'm sorry, but in the real world, most of you would be crying with misery at the food you'd have to eat, not humming around a busy little kitchen like a budget Mrs Beeton.

I have not said that food deprivation is ok, and should be acceptable. But at the same time I do not agree that it is ok to be filling young children's bellies with rubbish food, with next to zero nutrition either. It does not have to be that way. It is the children that will suffer in the long term.

Yes this. I wouldn't eat a casserole made of a cheap bag of veg and lentils, it sounds utterly disgusting, or sardine pasta, and I certainly wouldn't expect my kids to eat it.

But the alternative to frozen pizza shouldn't be a random collection of unappetising foods that don't go together or even taste particularly nice.

The issue isn't that people are feeding their kids frozen pizza, it's that there's no decent, affordable alternative.

There are affordable alternatives, some have been mentioned already, and have been scoffed at@lifebeginsaftercoffee .

Agreed - it is the children who suffer when fed cheap upfs.

So let's ask those with the power to change that, to change that. Not the poor souls in food poverty who have little influence to change anything and are just trying to ensure their children aren't hungry.

How is it possible that upfs - which need a whole catalogue of additional ingredients in some cases, plus machinery, people, premises and time to create them, plus attractive packaging - are cheaper than foods in their natural state?

A lot more pressure can be put on food manufacturers and retailers to offer better value for money. It's not even that difficult if you look at the shopping and eating habits in other countries. However, big companies want the profits in their pockets rather than the farmers. It's something that needs tackling at policy level.

As for people can't be going hungry if they're fat - it's entirely possible to be obese and malnourished at the same time

I have so much to say on this subject, as a person who feeds her DC "disgusting" cheap veg and lentils cooked in a pressure cooker, but I should probably keep mum, as it is likely most people would be revolted at our food habits!

Because again, they're not things that most children in this country would eat.

You have to be realistic with children - most of them aren't going to happily sit down to a bowl of lentil curry. When you're poor and need to feed your children, you're not going to risk wasting your money on stuff that's just going to end up in the bin or in the dog.

You buy stuff that's warming, filling and, most importantly, that you know they'll actually eat and that will fill their bellies up.

If you have children who will eat sardine and broccoli pasta, or lentil curry, or lentil and swede casserole then great - buy those things and feed them to your kids, but it shouldn't be the case that those are the only things people can afford to feed their families with in 2024.

"Then let them eat lentils!" cried the smug middle classes.

Depressingly predictable, this thread.

Sorry if you thought my comments were aimed at you. I will definitely be feeding my child on a similar diet to what your family eat.

I was pointing out that as a child who was raised on chips, pizza and chicken nuggets I would refuse healthy cooked meals and thought they were disgusting because they were so different to anything I had ever eaten. It takes time to get used to new flavours and textures.

The affordable alternatives all depend on having a stock of spices and other things - and those cost money. When people have to ponder every purchase of basic necessities, do you really think that there is spare money for nice things like curry spices? The cognitive dissonance is astounding.

No @Ap24 I didn't mean it that way, and I am not suggesting everyone eat lentils. It's quite a complex issue and really not simple to solve.

There are lots of other things, such as rice dishes, and pasta dishes, that are cheap, and filling. They even do rice already cooked in pouches now! It does not just have to be pizza, chicken nuggets etc....

What people forget is everyone is in a different situation.

I'm fortunate. I have a grocer who sells loose fruit and veg, a Tesco, an Aldi and allotments all within walking distance but I have pre-payment meters and no car so cannot do big or bulk shops.

I would, when I was able, walk down to Teso at 9 pm/10 pm and have a look at their reduced section but that relied on me not being at work at 9/10 pm and the kids being old enough to be left home alone for an hour. What I could cook with what I managed to get on the days I could get there depended on how much gas I had and how many hours I was working the next day.

There were times when we struggled for food when I was working in an apprenticeship role Mon to Fri 9-5 and then working nights in care to make ends meet. I would sometimes be on shift for 36 hours straight. Those days I ate pizzas even though I do not like pizza because the thought of having to walk to and from Tesco with heavy bags and then stand in a cold kitchen cooking after being awake for almost 48 hours was just too much to bear. I lived mostly on chicken nuggets and cheese garlic bread for the 2 years I did that.

Other times I have worked split shifts and could cook between shifts but couldn't get to Tesco until midnight (if I had the energy at all) when most of the stuff had gone.

The times when I've been unemployed have been easier than the times I was working and in poverty but you need to remember a lot of people in poverty are working, studying, or disabled, and not everyone has a big supermarket within walking distance or is physically able to walk/carry home shopping.

Although, at no point have I ever had to resort to sardine pasta or peas and potatoes. Beans and jacket pots - yes, omelets with whatever fresh or frozen veg I had to hand, yes, but plain potatoes and peas, no. I would take a pizza over a plain jacket potato despite liking jacket potatoes and hating tomato-based pizzas.

Really? And what is so hard to understand that if you are used to cooking a certain way, you would have these things in rotation anyway? No doubt tomato ketchup is in plentiful supply.

@LadyKenya of course it doesn't have to be a zero sum game. But the fact of the matter is that making food that is appetising and will tempt children whilst also being cheap and nutritious is hard to do on a very tight budget if you can't afford the things that make bland veg, stodge and pulses taste good.

FWIW my children would happily have tucked into pasta with veg and cheap fish and I still make vegetarian curries because we like them and one of mine is a vegetarian. But when you have so little money that every scrap of food is crucial, you can't risk food waste - and 'eat it or go hungry' is really something that shouldn't be happening in a country as wealthy as the UK.

And let's not forget that a lot of people on a low income are also time poor and need something quick that will fill them up enough so they can sleep before they have to go to work for 12-14 hours again.

I'd like to see some of the posters here do a 14 hour shift in a care home and go home, cook and eat lentil curry or something that's been suggested as cheap as well as nutritious and do that day in day out.

I don't actually Ike lentils, or most fruit, love veg though, except beans, even baked beans or anything milk based except hard cheddar, but it seems like I'm supposed to like these things because they're cheap, or put up with them if I want to eat and have a roof over my head despite working full time.

And woe betide I eat something I actually enjoy! Even if it's nutritionally crap and cheap through necessity - that would just never do, I might get fat and then my betters who I serve would have to look at me and be all offended!

I mean I'm getting a bit carried away there but the issue isn't that people are too stupid to know or because they don't care or because they can't be bothered, it's because they haven't got the time and resources. But to look into that might uncover some uncomfortable truths as to why they don't have the time & resources and who is cultivating and encouraging this culture.
I'd hazard a guess some of those telling us to eat lentils and be happy about it!

And what is so hard to understand that if you are used to cooking a certain way, you would have these things in rotation anyway?

We are talking about people who are NOT used to cooking in a certain way and don't have these things in rotation...

@Carnewb it's the narrative of the 'undeserving poor' dressed up in extra smug clothes, isn't it?

@justonemorebikkie

I've been a debt counsellor for 7 years, whilst there are more people with food insecurity now than 7 years ago, the number 1 issues is still debt, benefits if you don't have debts are sufficient (just) but our clients have had typically a fall in income (eg relationship break up, loss of job) and are carrying unsecured debts from the past; though another sub group didn't ever have a higher income yet irresponsible lenders/orgs lent to them, lack of maths skills meant they didn't really understand compound interest.

These debt repayments cut the amount available to buy food

I'm not. The Tories have been in power for 14 years, they're not known as the Nasty Party for nothing. Some of their supporters are just as nasty. Others are pretend ignorant or real ignorant. Some like Virtue signalling.

Threads like this attract them all like flies to shite.🤷‍♀️

The frozen pizza was just an example of something easy to prepare and that doesn't require loads of additional ingredients or spices or any special skill. You just whack it in the oven and serve it.

Of course there are other cheap options out there but most of them require additional ingredients - sauces, spices, condiments etc. to turn them into proper meals. Frozen pizza/nuggets/chips is ready for you - you don't need to worry about having the budget for anything else.