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.

And what are you going to serve with your baked potato? What are you adding to the bag of prepared veg to make a casserole?

Food inflation is still up by 5% compared to last year.

Even scrambled egg, beans and mashed potato would be better than pizza or chicken nuggets.

But more expensive and time consuming.

Well exactly

But in that case it might not be too hard to understand that someone on a minimum wage zero hours contact is already that one bill beyond being broke

People are poor because their wages are not enough to have a decent standard of living
Raise wages and more jobs will be shifted to cheaper countries, goods made in cheaper countries, fewer civil servants, nurses will be employd. It's easy to say raise wages but it has consequences.

And the people on benefits are strangely in a better position because they can access help.

Loving the sympathy on this thread. So easy for a parent to skip 2 slices of toast for breakfast every day as that’s a loaf a week that hungry kids will devour instead. Those 3 fish fingers you would have had mean your hungry and cold kids get 1 more each and you just have some beans.

Of course when money is tight you know full well the price of smart price value frozen veg but you can’t have it every meal. This has reminded me add few extra bits to food bank box this week.

We need to address the fact that a wage shouldn’t even have to be backed up by tax credits if shareholders are still making a profit.

Indeed. I made exactly the same point not long ago. You could hear the shrieks of protest from £100k earners from outer space. The division in society is greater than it’s ever been in my lifetime. It’s dog eat dog and look down your nose at the losers.

One egg 13p, half tin of beans 14p, baking potato 18p. 45p per portion. Cheaper than the 99p pizza between 2.

Some of the posters on here probably agreed with that Tory MP who said poor people could forage for blackberries so shouldn't complain about their children going hungry. People doggedly going on about casseroles and intermittent fasting do not have the tiniest shred of a clue about what the reality of life is like for people living in cold, damp, mouldy homes without enough money for food, their children getting Victorian illnesses like rickets thanks to years of Tory austerity which has widened the gap between rich and poor, led to a proliferation of food and warm banks, destroyed public services, created a horrific cost of living crisis while making millionaires exponentially wealthier.

I can use my empathy and my understanding to imagine the crippling effects of poverty. I'm glad I'm not so destitute in morals and humanity as the posters here blaming tv, iphones and the feckless poor for their own suffering. What is wrong with those people?

Absolutely this. The utter lack of either compassion or simple understanding from some posters on this thread is staggering.

People living in poverty already have a deficit of time, energy and cope. It's not realistic to expect them to justify their responses to the questions, at least without recompensing their emotional and pysical labour.

This thread's in danger of punching down, we should be looking up at the vast fraud and taxpayers money that's being wasted on mates contracts. I'm ashamed to live in a country that doesn't prioritise feeding the kids properly

I was brought up abroad and I was told that I had won the lottery of life because I held a british passport - no more it seems, we're just a cash cow (taxpayers) for the top political classes and corporations to milk. This is why we can't feed our people. It's enraging, sad and a disgrace.

One egg 13p, half tin of beans 14p, baking potato 18p. 45p per portion. Cheaper than the 99p pizza between 2.

But you can't just go out and buy one egg 🙄 and many small shops don't sell single potatoes either, or own brand beans.

Ah sigh, those rich people on benefits who cant possibly be living in poverty

@Katypp

''We are not arguing that people are buying the wrong food, we are apparently claiming that 15% of people occasionally had no money to buy any food. Which I frankly find hard to believe.''

What you find 'hard to believe' is irrelevant.

All that matters is evidence.

Food banks and charities all over the country have been saying the same thing for a while now: more and more people, including those in work, are turning to them because they can't afford to buy food.

Utility bills have massively increased, food prices have increased and so have rents so of course this is going to have a huge impact on family's finances.

I work for a homelessness charity and demands for our support has doubled in the past two years.

It is baffling that so many people still think 'I am all right so everyone should also be able to cope'...

I wonder how many people we could feed and house correctly with the money the government has squandered on dodgy contracts for mates, MPs' expenses, Rwanda pie in the sky scheme and all the other nonsense...quite a few I would think. This is what you should be angry about.

I'm not advocating for slow cookers - I was replying to a specific question

We've not had any fruit apart from tangerines and apples in months.

Can't afford strawberries, raspberries, melon etc...

I'm hoping when summer comes round prices will fall and pack sizes increase.

I think this comes down to people not knowing how to make wholesome cheap food. Not knowing you can make porridge with water at a fraction of the price of breakfast cereals. Not knowing how to make a decent veggie soup or sardine & broccoli pasta or how to cook low-cost meats
At a push, I can still feed two adults a healthy evening meal for £1, but it takes knowledge & effort.

Too many simply don't know how.

I watched a documentary on YouTube about the working poor being unable to afford food, and every single person they featured was overweight. It’s always the case because the producers/government want the viewer to disbelief them and of course the comment section is full of vile comments about getting off their fat arses etc

There are lots of underweight working class people/families, myself included (at least I’m a size 6 yay), who can’t afford to eat that much or well. They never feature these people because they want to victim blame and turn everyone against each other. If they featured slim/skinny people there would be more sympathy.

Also just got a letter saying rent is going up £60 a month. This is HA so it's a big leap really. Gas and electricity is extortionate. Sat here now in 2 hoodies be causnei can't put heating on unless kids are home.

Not knowing you can make porridge with water at a fraction of the price of breakfast cereals. Not knowing how to make a decent veggie soup or sardine & broccoli pasta or how to cook low-cost meats

I don't know any child who would sit down to a meal of sardine and broccoli pasta 🙈

Yes, but nobody is paid a day, or a meal, at a time. You could go and buy the whole lot for £2.31 and have loads of eggs and 2 potatos lefover.

No trust me people know how to make cheap meals. That's why you're judging them for not eating the foods you feel they should eat.

I'm 40 and the sound of that made me feel sick 😂

I would guees you add all kind of things to make porridge with water and sardine/broccoli pasta taste nice.

My daughter has ARFID and will only eat about 4 things. All branded items.

I love it when Iceland have 10 for £10 on as they always have her safe foods.

I have 3 other kids who eat almost anything before anyone says she just fussy. She has a diagnosed eating disorder.