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.

Thank you for reiterating!

Or maybe she knows how to manage her finances, cook and not get her nails done.

Sure because its all those feckless women getting their nails done that are to blame for being in poverty

Because whatever else happens, we can always rely on some people to find a way to blame women for things going wrong

Perfectly summed up, thank you!

Because 2 of pasta and sauce has 500 calories and feeds your entire family and the same caloric amount of even cheap vegetables costs $15. And yes, rice and beans exist. But no one eats bland beans, do they? So, a bunch of salt or sugar. don't even need a high school education to figure that one out.

In this age where we literally hold a device in our hands that has all of the information in the world, where we can find an answer to a question in seconds, are people still so thick?

And MN - which regards itself at the cutting edge of feminism- can always be counted upon to miss the feminist issues inherent in the rise of poverty.

That's a really bitchy comment.

This needs making into a poster and sticking on Sunak's wall.

It's getting very heated over the food shop here. Whilst the cost of food has gone up it's the other stuff that is impacting us, and I'm sure other families, more e.g. increase in car insurance, increase in utilities, increase in interest rates, increase in rail travel - I now pay £50 for my peak time 50 minute journey to work - etc. So I don't think for many people it's just a case of doing something smart with lentils to balance the books... people are cutting back on food and reducing intake because it's all they can do when they have little control over the other stuff.

Truth hurts. I see it all the time. Sitting in a cafe (mine) with 3 kids moaning to each other that they can’t live on the amounts benefits pay but with big long talons and full fat lips. Nothing bitchy just the truth. Then they leave and go Nextdoor to the sunbed shop. You really couldn’t make it up. They come in to me for a job but can only work 16 hours or it will affect their benefits 🙄

@threatmatrix , I hope you give them the job. If they are managing all that on benefits, they must be shrewd geniuses.

Go to your local car boot sale and see the tables full of food being sold that they got free from the foodbanks. I see it all the time. You live in a different world. £40 every three weeks for nails then £120 for lips. They come in my care and talk about it so I’m very up to date with what’s going on. My little road with its beauty salon and aesthetics and sunbed shop have never been so busy. But you of course no more than me.

.

That's kind of the point of trying to find something better and cheaper. Three days of 99p pizza only feeding two kids, or buy cheap mince, a couple of onions, a few carrots, potatoes and a swede and make a big pot of mince and veg enough to feed all three for three days, far better.

You must live in a very special part of the country @threatmatrix. I live in a small town in affluent Cambridgeshire and the high street is 50% boarded up shops. The beauty businesses were the first to go. It’s all (empty) estate agents and charity shops now.

Is that pot of mince like the MN chicken?

Maybe the next time there's a thread saying that £100k doesn't go far, they can be offered advice about root veg stew and lentils... and buying some garam masala? Because they seem to get more sympathy.

I'd love to know where you could get enough mince for nine portions, plus vegetables and stock, for less than £3.

Total opposite of me then. So I see it all. When you work and times get hard you cut back and stop the luxuries. When you are guaranteed the same benefits, cheap or free housing etc you still go about your failing life like you always do. They buy most of their food from the shop lifters. You have to see it to believe it. They honestly have no idea what’s going on in the world. I think you all know the type I’ve been talking about. It’s just a shame there is so many of them.

Whereas pizzas are notoriously everlasting.

You are happy to take their ill-gotten money, though? You are robbing us tax payers.

They honestly don’t know how. My sons asks his girlfriend to finish the sausages as he needed the toilet. He came back and they were black. She’s got a child, a council flat, beautiful nails and great big lips but no money to feed her child. I’m hoping it won’t last long.

I pay 40% tax , private health, dentistry schools. How did you work that out 😂😂😂😂. Does Marks & Spencer decide who goes in their shops? Now I know what I’m dealing with please refrain from further communication. This is entertainment on another level.

I hope so too for her sake. She deserves a better mil.