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.

Exactly.

Plus, when you have kids, your priority is getting them fed. There's no point faffing around with lentils for an hour if they're not actually going to eat the end product.

Lentils, tinned tomatoes and garam masala are insanely cheap and can be cooked in 25 mins. Plus the hob is usually cheaper than the oven. Part of the problem is people have no idea how to make cheap, nutrious meals. Frozen stuff is just easier.

I think it's lots if things - poor maths skills possibly but also poor prioritisation. Poor life skills, gambling/tobacco/alcohol addiction, poor parenting skills. Any combination of the above plus other factors.
The basic lack of money is unlikely to be the only cause.

There is a huge problem with the price of food, but I don’t think it’s helpful to highlight the problem by complaining that people are missing meals. Plenty of very healthy people do that all the time through choice. Missing meals in itself is not a problem. We do not need three full meals a day.

Lentils, tinned tomatoes and garam masala are insanely cheap and can be cooked in 25 mins. Plus the hob is usually cheaper than the oven.

But if your kids won't eat the end result, it doesn't matter how cheap it is.

What is wrong with you. I've reported this post.

We do need to start teaching children how to cook. Ok, so it was really only girls when I was at school, and that isn't how it should be, but we learned about food, nutrition and how to balance food groups and how to cook (I'm in my 50s). We had very little money when I was growing up but meals would mostly be simple home made meat and 2 veg. Very little meat, meals bulked out with a slice of bread or potatoes. If money was tight we'd eat french toast (or eggy bread as some call it) for dinner. Simple stews with beans.

It's so hard for families nowadays who are struggling for money as convenience food is the cheap option especially for those who haven't been taught to cook.

However It's shocking to think so many can't afford to eat. Although clearly there are many who can as our local McDonald's and other takeaways always have queues of delivery drivers.

I’d have thought the obvious reason is that some people have bigger incomes than others.

Given this government have sat back and done nothing while the gap between rich and poor in this country has got bigger and bigger.

If anyone doubts this report is true we are already seeing people admitted to hospital with malnutrition, the average height of 5 year olds is getting shorter and life expectancy in the poorest areas is falling. Meanwhile the government is pocketing money for the rich left right and centre.

As is typical for MN on topics like this some people need to open their eyes to the conditions others have little choice to live in and spend a little less time falling for the lies the right wing media are telling you.

Joining the dots, hungry children can't thrive, can't concentrate at school, will become possibly frustrated or withdrawn in class meaning other children may get less learning

If you need the health service doctors may prioritise children. Same with GPs.

There is huge cost to society.

Hungry men, are more likely to get cross. So is that the woman's fault trapped in a house with no where to go?

Why are there so many people happy to judge about TV subscriptions and budgeting £20 a week, yet can't extend their enlightened thinking beyond that?

But I thought kids were starving, not picky eaters?

My kids eat it. No reason others wouldn't. If you raise them on burgers and chips obviously they'll only eat burgers and chips. Pasta is another cheap meal, loads of combos depending on what uour kids like. If you can find £15 for a slow cooker, soups and stews are cheap and filling, and again limitless combos. Jacket spuds in the microwave, any topping you fancy. All probably cheaper than burger and chips.

@Katypp

No. I used to work for Citizen's advice and helped people go through their finances. This was before COVID etc. With the bare minimum to survive (paying just electricity, council tax etc) people would run right into the red. There WAS no space to budget better, the incoming money was insufficient.

The options at that point was usually accumulating debt and falling behind on bills in order to pay for food.

I don't know why you find this hard to believe but it absolutely exists, yes even with WORKING PEOPLE

This thread is irritating me. Why are people blaming the families going hungry for 'not budgeting correctly' or 'paying out for iphones'

Don't people realize this is because of the growing divide between the rich and the poor? Don't blame the poor for being poor - some people genuinely are unbelievably hard up through no fault of their own

I work with the poorest people and get to see their bank statements. There are very few people in severe financial hardship and these tend to be single people, not families. I rarely see a bank statement without numerous takeaways so I think the ability to cook healthy food from scratch is an issue

And poor people aren't living on burgers and chips - they're not turning their fucking ovens on because they've got no pound coins for the pre-paid electric meter

“Hard to believe”? I have a friend with 2 kids on UC. After she has paid her rent and council tax contribution she’s left with £300 a month to live on. Out of that she has to pay all her household bills, food, clothes, haircuts, bus fares, and everything else a growing family needs.

So many people on here have top 5% incomes and still cry poverty. They don’t understand that there are many people out there existing on a TINY proportion of what they earn. It’s actually very easy to believe that food is a luxury for a lot of people right now.

I’m very comfortable but even I find myself putting things back on the shelves lately because I just refuse to pay some of the current prices. I just don’t know how some people are coping.

Because when we do eat it's calorie dense high fat high sugar foods.

So many people on here have top 5% incomes and still cry poverty.

Exactly, there are threads on here about how people on household budgets of £100k a year are struggling, its not really difficult to understand that a single income household of someone on minimum wage, possibly a zero hours contract might be struggling a bit more

Can we stop with the stereotypes of who it is who skips meals, I can tell so many of you have never had to do it!

Many of us who skip meals are working. Many who skip meals aren't on prepayment meters. Many aren't in debt, yet. Many people who skip meals don't eat junk but prioritise their children eating 3 healthy meals and only buy enough food for their children to eat - because that's all they can afford.

I believe it. When my DS was younger any increase in anything would have meant I would have to cut back as my income was budgeted to the penny.

We are storing up more problems for the future with all this.

But again the government don't care. Our lives are falling apart, our infrastructure is collapsing and nothing is being done to fix it.

Working poverty is a thing. Where you earn too much to get help but not enough to not struggle.

I'm not talking about the people in naice houses with flash cars and struggling to shop at Waitrose and pay school fees, I'm talking about the £40-50k a year earners who are one bill away from being broke.

I think part of the problem is that a lot of adults don't know how to cook cheaply from scratch. Looking at vegetables in my local Tesco last week and a large bag of ready diced carrots and swede was only 50p, a large bag of casserole veg £1.50, tins of pulses were cheap and are healthy.

Pizzas were expensive I thought and snacks like crisps, cakes and biscuits were too.

Yes they can. The cheapest food is calorie rich and nutritionally poor.

@Butterdishy - finding £15 for a slow cooker?! At points when my DS was younger £15 was my grocery budget. If your income is completely fixed and will not increase and then food and bills increase there is no money to cover the basics let alone a slow cooker.