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 can well believe that people are skipping meals, I am pretty poor myself and am thankful that it hasn’t got to that stage for me. Everything is going up, I am a single mother with 3 children, all it takes is one of them needing new shoes, a haircut or anything and I struggle. I work, get UC and we have a very modest lifestyle. I know that there are people in a worse position than me.

But some people have no idea. Boiling some root veg and lentils 7 days a week - manageable for a middle aged woman sitting in an office all day (like myself) to live on. But I have two teenage boys studying for GCSEs, this sort of diet is just not fair for growing kids, trying to concentrate and learn, participating in sport, walking to and from school. It’s 2024, we are in one of the world’s richest countries but many would have no problem seeing their neighbours malnourished, living like paupers.

I don't think the black-and-white thinking about poverty is helpful. Yes there are common themes but there are so many different factors at play.

Some people end up in poverty through a change in circumstance. If this is permanent disability or long-term ill health it can be permanently life changing but otherwise this is the group most likely to be able to pull themselves out of poverty given time. They'll be the ones with the well-adapted strategies to coping that can help them manage the situation. However, they can get trapped as well. If, for example you have pets and a car your benefit money will disappear in no time as it was never designed to include these sorts of costs. But getting rid of the pets can be heartbreaking (particularly when they are an emotional anchor, especially for children) and getting rid of the car might mean isolating yourself from job opportunities. So you carry on paying for them. The money gets tighter. Then the washing machine breaks. It gets put on a credit card because at this stage you still have access to credit. But now you have a debt to service too, so your money goes less far again. Then the kids need new shoes, so the credit card balance creeps up more than you've been able to pay it down. The debt needs more servicing and the benefits don't cover everything. You give up the car to save insurance costs, petrol etc but now you have to spend money on buses, shop more locally and more expensively and there are fewer job opportunities. The small amount of money you got back for the car quickly runs out topping up these extra costs, clearing the credit card, replacing a few household items long overdue, buying the kids their (secondhand) winter coats and new clothes because they've outgrown everything. And now they need new shoes again and it's Christmas/one of their birthdays. You have £10 to feed the 3 of you for a week. Iceland is the only shop you don't have to spend money to get to. They are offering BOGOF on pizza, nuggets and chips. You can get 4 or 5 meals for £5. Buy the cheapest loaf of bread for £1, cheap marge and some cheap ham and yoghurts for packed lunches. Over £8 now. Need some milk too. Pennies left. You have no flour, tinned tomatoes, herbs or oil in the cupboard to consider buying veg/pasta and cooking from scratch. £3 on spices, £1 flour, £1 oil before you add any actual ingredients, think about packed lunches or milk...

Benefits are set at a rate you can live on reasonably well in the short term only and only if you live in a well-appointed urban area with good public transport. The minute an unexpected cost crops up things can spiral very quickly indeed. And that's assuming no one has any additional needs which further push up costs.

Then we have people who may never have been taught or experienced some of the skills some people seem to think are innate. Or who may be so used to spending all their mental energy trying to feel safe, managing the behaviour of those around them, managing their own issues etc that there's nothing left over for planning food prep or a long term strategy for getting out of poverty.

Everyone's story is unique and in my professional and personal capacity I've seen a lot of them. What I do know is that very few people 'feed their kids crap' because they're lazy. There is usually an explanation if you care to look for it rather than write people off.

AfterTheWatershed - Where on here has anyone said that if you're struggling you should boil root veg and lentils for 7 days a week. They haven't.

But some of us are saying that you can cook a variety of cheap nutritious meals if you're on a tight budget.

Resilience - In that scenario if someone's on benefits don't the kids get free school meals?

And you've been asked multiple times to prove this by providing a meal plan for an average family including lunches and breakfasts for 7 days but you've not done so.

Is this because it's not actually possible without resorting to cheap freezer fillers or highly processed foods for at least some of the meals?

Whats the budget?

If the parent is earning over £7K, and in receipt of UC, the kids don’t get FSM. So pretty much most working UC claimants.

@2dogsandabudgie - not for 52 weeks of the year. And not if they're on top-up benefits for a low income job.

I told you earlier £50 a week. The family is two teens, 1 allergic to eggs and shellfish and 1 with sensory issues that exclude foods with a "velvety texture" eg baked beans, hummus, guacamole, and one adult with no food allergies/preferences who is willing to eat one meal a day to lower the cost.

1 25kg dog who is allergic to grains. He can eat them but he'll shart all over the kitchen. It's up to you if you decide he needs to shart or starve.

You also need shampoo, conditioner, floor cleaner, san pro for 1, and bleach in this week's shop.

That's my family and it is the toiletries and cleaning products we need this week.

We've been told by multiple posters, multiple times on this thread that £50/60 a week is enough for the average family's grocery costs.

No one is disputing that it is the condescending tone that is unnecessary especially if it is not backed up by experience i.e family of four but they are tiny children as opposed to tall teenagers that have the metabolic rate of gerbils not tiny little dumpling toddlers whose eating habits are your primary focus and paranoia (obesity crisis anyone) and most importantly you put the food in front of them. Also, my DC don't get fed lunch by the school like "most people's children". Packed lunch for DD is quite simple but healthy so not really cheap. DS due to 6th form is eating lunch at home loads and that is proper dinner food.

Oh come on hardly fair to then add an array of conditions that don’t apply to 99% of the population is it?!

Whats the budget?

Why not go with the £60 you claim can feed a family of four for a week. Two adults, two teenagers.

How about £55 per week for a family of mum, dad, boy (13), girl (5)?
We could start a new thread and see if anyone can manage something edible.
21 breakfasts
11 lunches
21 dinners
Then there's a fiver a week left for toiletries and cleaning stuff.

I consider my family to be pretty average. Shellfish and eggs are common allergens, I don't find it hard to find things she can eat. Most dogs don't react well to grains.

Complex sensory issues and a dog that’s allergic to grains..?

Allergies aren’t uncommon. Between 3 of us in our household we have allergies to peanuts, nuts, tomato, strawberries, kiwi, anchovies and chillis. Oh, and I’m coeliac and my DD is lactose intolerant. Try buying gluten free products on the cheap. (Disclaimer - I only eat gf pasta. The rest is too expensive and tastes like shit).

Pretty much all dogs are allergic to grains. And I'm fairly certain that all families will have food preferences/likes and dislikes.

The one with sensory issues also cannot eat food that touches other food but I left that bit out because I figured it's less common than not liking baked beans and guacamole.

Who is feeding their dog grains anyway?

A large number of dog foods contain grains, especially the dry variety.

@Frequency grain free or wheat free?
You should find something here, we do one tin butchers and kibble.
https://www.moleonline.com/pet-poultry/dog/food/adult?brand=19486

Cheap dog foods tend to be packed out with them, especially dry foods. My mum found this out to her horror when she looked after my dog and decided feeding him Wagg with her dog would be easier than feeding him the raw food I sent him with.

Even the expensive ones are. Our dogs are fine with them but a lot aren’t.

Wealth redistribution from landowners to the rest of us in the form of land value tax would make a huge difference because it would discourage empty properties and urban sprawl. More compact settlements means less distance to walk to the shops and cheaper public transport. It would encourage landowners to monetise their land to pay the LVT, so they'd have an incentive to grow crops on it instead of buying it speculatively and hanging onto it for years in the hope of eventually getting planning permission for houses and then "flipping" it to a developer.

Believe me when I tell you from personal experience that a relatively small uplift in income makes a huge difference to the food you can afford.

They tie themselves into expensive contracts for non essential items without a thought for how they will continue to pay for it if they become ill or lose their job.

Like what non-essentials? Smartphones are essential now. I've seen care workers expected to install monitoring apps on their personal smartphones. I'm expected to install a multifactor authentication app on my personal smartphone for work. I'm lucky enough that my skill set is rare enough that I could push back and insist on a fob. A NMW care worker on zero hours can't use a fob to be tracked and if she insists that her employer buy her a phone, she'll mysteriously get zero hours forever from that point, because that's how zero hours employers fire people.

I really don’t want housing estates built over our remaining greenfield land.

Yeah, I started him on Autarky Puppy because it claimed to be hypoallergenic. The results were best described as explosive.

I've since switched him to raw and use Butcher's grain-free tins if we run out but I'm looking to reduce the cost of feeding him so I'm trying him on Millie's Wolfheart Hunters mix this month.

@NerdWhoEatsMedlar thanks. I've ordered a bag of Millie's for this month but if it doesn't work out I've bookmarked that link.