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.

@Naptrappedmummy at Morrisons (needed a delivery as was unable to get to Aldi)
I guess some people can't use Aldi or Lidl due to where they're located too, I'm lucky to have a choice but for someone who only had say Morrisons locally...

Rye bread has more fibre in it. There are many associated health problems with the lack of fibre in diets and if I can avoid it with my DC I will. They don't like peanut butter

Whole Earth peanut butter is nearly a fiver!

That is not to say others shouldn't have wholemeal bread though. I was just trying to point out that the snacks are essential for my teenagers but they aren't all junk.

IHT isn't the answer. Annual land value tax is the answer.

And my MIL told me Houmous is easy to make and was shocked that I don't make it so I could probably do that.

I'd like to highlight the point about feckless men and I'd also like to say that it is misogyny to blame a mother for the father's choice to be a deadbeat dad.

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 do that back in the 90s. It would be completely impractical now I'm in my 50s with 2 children at school and aging parents. What's your point @Hoppitybobbins?

Hummus - sorry keep misspelling the word!

Probably that Norman Tebbit would be so proud! 🙄

Well 🤷🏼‍♀️

I buy ASDA own brand. Rye bread, hummus, £5 peanut butter… no wonder you all think eating is so expensive!

Yep. The cheaper stuff is full of palm oil. Though Aldi do a good cheaper PB that is 100% peanuts.

Rye bread is also what I grew up with as have Scandinavian heritage and it's what I am used to, what my Mum bought.

If we are now going to argue that buying cheap peanut butter rather than a jar at £5 a pop means you’re in food poverty then this really has gone into joke territory.

Doesn’t change the fact it’s expensive though.

@Naptrappedmummy your reaction to someone not liking peanut butter is so very typical. So if you're poor, you aren't allowed to have food that is nutritious and that you enjoy. The attitude of blaming poor people for being poor is ingrained, and you don't even know it.

In a country like the UK, everyone should have a safe, warm house. Everyone should have nutritious enjoyable food to eat. Everyone should be able to afford the essentials of clothes, shoes, toiletries, cleaning products. Everyone should be able to have light, heat, warm water for washing. Why are people on this thread not furious that this isn't the case? Why are people so eager to lay blame instead of looking at the overall picture?

I enjoy smoked salmon. Doesn’t mean I feel entitled to buy it 3 times a week otherwise I’m oppressed.

’Everyone should..’ all very nice but I wouldn’t say not buying £5 peanut butter means you can’t eat nutritiously. You seem to think luxuries (because £5 PB is a bit of a luxury to me!) are entitlements and they’re not.

Nobody is owed a lifestyle, only a life.

Er, where did I argue that buying cheap peanut butter rather than a jar at £5 a pop means you’re in food poverty. Could you point me to where I said that, please?

I simply pointed out that cheap PB is full of palm oil. Which is true. I also pointed out some cheaper PBs are 100% peanut, such as Aldi own brand and Asda. Which is also true.

You do have a very bad habit of putting words into other poster's mouths. I have seen you do it before. It makes it hard to have a reasonable discussion with you.

I think one of my biggest annoyances is that people want to stick the boot in and make poor people even more fucking miserable.
Poor people are not allowed to have anything nice, no comforts, and the answer always seems to be folks should live on a fucking bean and vegetable stew all week.

I'm not personally experiencing food poverty but I am incensed that in one of the richest countries on the world it exists!

I was listening to a radio 4 programme yesterday about this teacher in the U.S who is campaigning to raise awareness of the impact of poor quality food has on the learning outcomes of children in deprived areas and how this obviously further broadens wealth inequality. My parents grew up in working class homes (although probably considered lower middle class now)but all the food was cooked from scratch, lots of vegetables home grown in my Mum's case, no fibre problems and no disadvantage.

Who wants to live like this, more broadly, public services are dire so widening of wealth gap, councils going bankrupt, parks, libraries are they going to be no more, what the hell is going on with the governance of this country!

It has a longer shelf life though so it swings in roundabouts.

@Goldenbear if we gave every family claiming food poverty a £100 voucher to spend on food a week, do you HONESTLY think they would spend it on low palm oil peanut butter, rye bread and salmon fillets? I know you can’t look me in the eye but try to do it virtually! You know the answer, I know the answer, we all know the answer.

This is every bit as much about people buying quick expensive junk and not wanting to eat healthier cheaper food they see as ‘slop’, as it is about a lack of money.

Let’s start with universal free school meals that are REAL meals - a salad bar and a properly healthy main course, with fruit and yoghurt for pudding only. That way all children will have at least 1 healthy meal a day. We could even open breakfast bars in school, just with wholewheat toast, butter and a few spreads with a banana.

I honestly don’t think handing over more and more cash is the way to go. And even if benefits and the NMW rose dramatically tomorrow there would STILL be children in food poverty because as PP said some would still buy cheap junk and spend the money on other things.

The governance is crap and the public don’t work, it’s a twofold problem.