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.

There's nothing wrong with dhal.

There's something very fucking wrong in the UK though when people are having to skip meals in order to fund day to day living.

We lived on that type of food out of necessity for years. They were better than the alternative rubbish foods that make you feel like crap. I'm still on a low wage but liveable now.

What's wrong with dhal? It's delicious, nutritious, cheap and easy to make.

Nothing.

The problem is that there are some people who, in the UK in 2024, are having to skip meals just so they can afford to feed their children lentils for djnner.

It’s possible to buy bit by bit, week by week and start stocking up on ingredients until you have the basics.

That's very possible when you have money spare and your budget is nice and healthy.

But you only have £1 left that month you're not going to spend it on flour or garam masala or another item that you can't actually make anything with yet. You're going to spend it on something that your kids can eat now.

Meanwhile...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/27/kelloggs-ceo-cereal-for-dinner

But you only have £1 left that month you're not going to spend it on flour or garam masala or another item that you can't actually make anything with yet. You're going to spend it on something that your kids can eat now.

This depends on the person. Finding a quid for an item that will help you out of a desperate situation, that will enable you to cook more nutritious meals on a low budget, is like keeping seed back to sow the next year to me.

Right but you can spend £1 on a pizza that's gone in one meal. Or you can spend the £1 on something that will carry over and give you a base for more meals.

And you do it on payday, not when there is £1 left.

When I was travelling in Nepal, Dhal Bhat was a staple dish. Eaten everyday as it was all people could afford to eat.

This was a 3rd world country.

Should we be seeing the same in the UK?

Right but you can spend £1 on a pizza that's gone in one meal. Or you can spend the £1 on something that will carry over and give you a base for more meals.

This is such a privileged position to be in.

If you have hungry children and £1 in your pocket you're not going to say "oh sorry darling, we can't buy cereal or bread or pizza, we're going to buy flour which will sit in the cupboard instead." 🙈

This is a thread about people who are going without meals

So that pizza might represent food thats gone in one meal, but you are suggesting that people who are already skipping meals skip another meal to buy a pot or two of spices

Doesnt sound very appealing to me. No lunch and instead of pizza for dinner buying some garam masala

But if you and your child are hungry now, you're not going to think about buying things that you might be able to eat in three months time 😬

I honestly think people just don't get it. Or are taking the piss.

You could buy a loaf of bread and 2 tins of beans, and have half the bread left for breakfast. Or flour and jam, make flatbreads and then you've got jam left. Or pasta and a jar of sauce and have change. Or rice and a curry sauce, and you've got rice left. There's loads of combos.

You could buy a loaf of bread and 2 tins of beans, and have half the bread left for breakfast. Or flour and jam, make flatbreads and then you've got jam left. Or pasta and a jar of sauce and have change. Or rice and a curry sauce, and you've got rice left. There's loads of combos.

Of course. I wasn't saying the £1 could only be spend on a frozen pizza.

The point was that you're not going to spend your last pound on something that you can't actually make a meal from.

What is with suggesting things like beans and bread?

Pizza came up because someone pointed out it was cheap, easy and reliable. No one is suggesting people who are poor are only eating pizza 7 days a week. There is a fairly high chance they will also be eating beans on toast

But this is about some people suggesting that those who are already missing meals miss another one, whether thats pizza or beans on toast, to buy some pots of herbs and spices

And you do it on payday, not when there is £1 left.

You really don’t understand that for too many people payday doesn’t actually mean they have money. It means they pay their bills, their money is already accounted for to the pound - there’s no pay day treats or an easy week. One unexpected expense knocks them off for the month.

It’s very hard to imagine living like that, but arguing that someone could, if they wanted to, build a stock of spices shows a level of privilege. I’m talking about families who don’t have anything in their cupboards, no spare packet of pasta, no couple of tins tucked in the back, no box of cereal they could opt to have for dinner.

Living in food poverty doesn’t mean I’m making bad food choices because I’m unable to cook or can’t be arsed, it means my food budget needs to feed as many people as possible with as little money as possible. It needs to be something everyone in the house will eat, because there’s literally nothing else. It means thank god the kids get FSM because I don’t have the means to give them a hot meal at night. It means I’ve been to the food bank 3 times this month and really can’t go again. The last thing I care about is a fucking pot of garam masala.

I'm speaking from experience, what I actually did. On payday though, not at the end of the fortnight/month. When I had the money I spent a lot of it, leaving some for perishables. I still do it like that, we are not in poverty now but on a lowish fulltime single wage, £1600 hit my account today.

Finding a quid for an item that will help you out of a desperate situation,

Never in the history of man has someone truly desperate thought “I know what will help me out of this awful situation… some garam masala and a pot of cinnamon”.

Way to miss the point. Thanks for resurrecting my post though. It’s well worth repeating.

I'm speaking from experience, what I actually did. On payday though, not at the end of the fortnight/month. When I had the money I spent a lot of it, leaving some for perishables. I still do it like that, we are not in poverty now but on a lowish fulltime single wage, £1600 hit my account today.

And what if you can't afford it on payday? Because payday means all your money is gone and you're already budgeting down to the bone as it is.

For many families, that £1 at the end of the month might only exists because there was an offer on value pasta or because non uniform day was cancelled, not because you spent it on something unnecessary on payday.

I hope that is not directed at me, seeing you have no idea what my circumstances are.

I have compassion for people struggling, but recognise that poverty is usually temporary and strikes, for instance, when kids are young and you split up with someone, or are temporarily destitute, if you lose your job etc.

leaving health concerns and illness out of the picture, which is a different kettle of fish altogether, poverty in the uk tends to be a transient state for many.

there are opportunities to work, to lift yourself up eventually. It’s not easy but it can be done. Then another poor soul takes your place at the bottom of the pile as you have lifted yourself up.

it’s not fair, but it cannot be any other way. You might rage against the system, but it cannot be that people who are not contributing to the system (in terms of paying tax) receive anything but the bear minimum in order to just get by because there would be no incentive to work. It’s supposed to be uncomfortable so you get yourself out of it.

I have had no hand outs or financial help from anyone in my life. I arrived at my current home town penniless, and slept on a friends floor and started to work my way up from an admin job.

think of that for a moment. I was 21. I left my family home and my parents with a single bag. I got on a train. I travelled for five hours. I slept on a friends floor in an unknown town where I had no connections, no family and only one person. I took myself off the the job centre the next day and began work in an office making coffee for the boss for a wage that barely covered the rent for a room in a shared house with a load of strangers.

would you do that? To make a life for yourself?

i did not choose that moment to have kids or move in with an undeserving male to try and escape my plight. I sorted out my life, on my own, with no help.

That was 30 years ago and it’s been a struggle ever since, although you’d look at me and think I was privileged. Does that sound like a privileged start in life to you?

the thing is with me is that I never once thought that my impoverishment was anything other than circumstantial and that it came about through my own decision making and actions.

yes it’s hard when you have young kids and can’t work, but that’s where the dad comes in. He should be contributing and if he isn’t why not? He’s free to work in one of the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are currently open, and better himself. So you may say ‘he’s a feckless twat’. And I’d say, well don’t have kids with feckless twats then and expect life to be rosy.’

I’d then also say your kids will grow and then you can enter the job market. So start preparing for the time in which your circumstances can change.

Your fate is in your hands. You have to do it. There’s no escaping that. So excuse me for having an opinion on how to get by. But very few people have it easy and most of us have been terrified of the boiler breaking at some point.bits taken me to 50 to get a rainy day find in the bank so I no longer need to panic about those things. But Life, as they say, is suffering and the one thing that will make it less shit is your own personal drive. And things change along with your circumstances.

Sorry for not doing poverty the acceptable way.

I work as a bank receptionist. This means I am not working all the time, I got off UC when my Mum died and had left some money. All was ok for a while as I lived off my savings. Now they are gone which means I will probably have to go back on UC. Dreading it.

I have not had work for the past few weeks so no pay coming in. I have lived on pasta and white bread, a few veg, no fruit. A loaf of white sliced has very little nutritional value but you can get some cheap if you are lucky and it does 20-22 slices. I normally avoid bread and pasta but needs must.

I remember when I was last unemployed years ago and lived on sliced white bread and pasta. It certainly had an impact on my health. The pasta I cooked was plain because I could not afford any tomato puree, herbs, garlic, onion or anything to flavour it. Sometimes if I had a cuppa soup I used that!

The reason I do not work all the time is because of my health although there will be a vacancy when someone leaves in November and hopefully I can have that spot. They know about my health and are accommodating.

Oh and by the way I do not have anything fancy on my tv. No streaming, Amazon/netflix just the usual freeview and no fancy phone either.

Christ. What's happened to us as a society? We've gone from looking after each other to sneering at people less fortunate/poorer than us within the last 30 or forty years.
There are some horrible, horrible attitudes on this thread.
I suppose if you tell yourself that people are suffering because they're stupid/lazy then you don't have to care or try to improve anything.
This explains so much about the governments we've had recently. We've adopted the American attitude of if you're not rich/successful it's because you don't believe hard enough.