The great british menu - food poverty... AIBU?

[Bogeyface]

I hate myself for thinking this but, AIBU to think that Lady Whatsername who said in the 90's that the reason poor people couldnt manage on benefits was because they lacked the ability to cook good simple nutritious meals, may have had a point? The way she said it was totally U and she was very sneery, but I cant help thinking that there might be a grain of truth in it.

Of the three families I have just seen in this program I saw what 2 of them ate in a day. one was a mother and daughter who's only meal of the day was a microwave burger each costing £1 each, and the other was a family where the children had fish fingers or nuggets and oven chips, while the parents had tinned veg.

£14 per week that the first family spent is enough for a bag of baking potatoes, some basics pasta, baked beans, passatta, a pack of frozen sausages, a bag of porridge oats, some cheese, some sandwich meat such as Haslet from the deli counter (35p per 100g in my tesco) and milk. The DD would be getting free school meals if I heard correctly about her age and their income. Far healthier, more filling and more than one meal a day!

The second family, again, for the price of nuggets, fish fingers and oven chips they could make a spag bol using basics ingredients that would feed them all well.

RAther than focussing on the cost of food, which is only going to rise, surely it would be better to focus on educating people who eat badly because the food they choose is more expensive than cheaper, healthier alternatives that require a bit of cooking knowledge?

Sorry typos on phone

its 26 k maximum for any family, no matter how many kids.
That includes any housing payment. its much less for one person one child.

For me it is the energy prices hiking up at the same time as the food. Luckily my council tax is £200pm and has been kept the same for 3 years, but next year it will rise again. I have to spend £380 of my £800 budget on these two alone (gas.elect and council tax) per month.

Am i?
I thought that tax credits couldn't be used to push anyone's income over 26 k .As in, no-one could get more income using benefits than the average wage?
Confused now!

OK thanks Chunderella!

This would feed a family of 2 adults & 2 children for a month.
There are no special deals included, all are regularly priced items.
Tesco is on every corner, well, so it seems, so there are no special trips needed to shop.

Anyone who can cook could make decent and nutritious meals out of the items below.

Milk and fruit (apples/bananas) to be bought fresh weekly, for about £5.

To use the £15.60 per week and add £5 for milk/fruit, the monthly budget would be around £80.

Awfully low but could be done without any ready meals.

Vegetables approx 13 kg
Pulses/grains approx 7.6kg
Protein (meat/poultry/fish/eggs) approx 6.4kg plus 30 eggs
Pasta/rice 3.25kg
Flour 6kg
Tomato puree/passata/chopped 4kg

Total : £62.66

Tesco Everyday Value Carrots 1.5Kg £0.92
Tesco Everyday Value Small Potatoes 3Kg £2.07
Tesco Cauliflower Florets 1Kg £1.10
Tesco Leaf Spinach 1Kg £1.00
Country Store Garden Peas 1Kg £0.99
Tesco Everyday Value Broccoli Florets 907G £0.98
Tesco Everyday Value Onions 3Kg £1.89
Tesco Everyday Value Mixed Vegetables 2Kg £1.50

Miscellaneous Granulated Sugar Packet 1Kg £0.99
Tesco Everyday Value Table Salt 1Kg £0.34

Tesco Hot Curry Powder 80G £1.00
Tesco Hot Chilli Powder 50G £1.15
Tesco Everyday Value Mixed Herbs 30G £1.00
Tesco Everyday Value Ground Mixed Spice 80G £1.00
Tesco Everyday Value Chicken Stock Cubes 100G 10Pk £0.15
Tesco Everyday Value Beef Stock Cubes 95G 10Pk £0.15
Tesco Everyday Value Vegetable Stock Cubes 100G 10Pk £0.15
Prymat Ground Black Pepper 20G £0.35
Prymat Sweet Paprika 20G £0.35

Tesco Distilled White Vinegar 568Ml £0.49
Tesco Pure Sunflower Oil 1L £1.50
Tesco Ingredients Lemon Juice 200ml £0.50

Tesco Everyday Value Lasagne Sheets 250G £0.32
Tesco Everyday Value Spaghetti 2Kg £0.76
Tesco Everyday Value Long Grain Rice 3Kg £1.20

Tesco Everyday Value Oats 2Kg £1.50
Tesco Wholefoods Green Split Peas 500G £0.68
Tesco Cous Cous 500G £0.69
Tesco Yellow Split Peas 500G £0.49
Tesco Pearl Barley 500G £0.59
Tesco Everyday Value Dark Red Kidney Beans 400G x 6 £1.26

Tesco Everyday Pork Shoulder Joint 1.9kg £5.92
Tesco Everyday Value Mince 950G £3.00
Tesco Everyday Value Turkey Drumstick 900G £2.92
Tesco Everyday Value Smoked Back Bacon 300G £1.64
Tesco Everyday Value Chicken Breast Fillets 1Kg £3.99

Glenryck Pilchards In Tomato Sauce 425G x 2 £1.96
Glenryck Pilchards In Brine 425G x 2 £1.96

Tesco Everyday Value Eggs Minimum Weight Box Of 15 x 2 £2.68

Allinson Dried Active Baking Yeast 125G £0.64
Tesco Everyday Value Self Raising Flour 1.5Kg x 2 £1.30
Tesco Everyday Value Plain Flour 1.5Kg x 2 £1.30

Tesco Everyday Value Chopped Tomatoes 400Gx4 £1.24
Tesco Everyday Value Passata 500Gx4 £1.16
Tesco Everyday Value Tomato Puree 200Gx2 £0.70

Tesco Sunflower Spread 500G £0.75
Tesco Everyday Value Butter 250G £0.98
Tesco Everyday Value Clear Honey 340G £0.99
Tesco Everyday Value 80 Teabags 250G £0.27
Tesco Everyday Value Mixed Fruit Jam 454G £0.29
Tesco Everyday Value Orange Marmalade 454G £0.27
Tesco Everyday Value Lemon Curd 411G £0.22
Tesco Everyday Value Strawberry Jam 454G £0.29

Tesco Everyday Value Milk Chocolate 100G £0.30
Tesco Everyday Value Plain Chocolate 100G £0.30
Tesco Everyday Value Rich Tea 300Gx2 £0.46

Of course got some quantities wrong, pasta/rice should read 5.25kg

I don't think that s enough food at all. Half a dozen eggs a week, we are 5heads and eat about 3 dozen a week.

I didn't notice bread, and milk fr us would cost £7 a week with fruit on top

But saying that, even if you topped the order up with bread, eggs and milk, it would still be a very modest spend, certainly no more than £1 per person per day. The problem with the program is they were trying to shop for a single day without any cookable store cupboard ingredients.

£14/week for 1 adult and 1 child would be very tough indeed. That said, I don't think that lady was making the best choices. I don't mean that as a criticism but she did have other choices than eating a microwave burger every day. My 1st choice is usually beans on toast when I have very little money.
Can't really comment on the other families because I didn't catch the figures.

lovely list threemuskateers now could you list the full months recipes that would use all these ingredients and nothing else?

I think the problems for a lot of people is that they don't have the access to cheap healthy food or the means to cook it, never mind knowing anything about nutrition.
For example, they movve into council housing with no utensils and no money to buy them.
They live in area where they only have corner shops etc and the supermarkets are a bus ride away so they can't carry stuff back and buy in bulk or they can't afford the bus fare to get there.
They don't have any spare money so can't spend a bit more to buy in bulk and therefore save IYSWIM. They don't have much freezer space for example so can't buy loads of cheap stuff near to sell by and then use it later.
There are no kitchens in schools any more and no subjects like home economics/nutrition etc so people don't know anything about nutrition.

And maybe they don't have any store cupboard ingredients (they need the money to buy them and the nutritional knowledge to know what things to always have in).

Exactly goodtobetter When I first divorced and moved into my house with my 2 kids I had a bed and sofa and a small fridge with just an ice cube tray section. I knew how to cook, meal plan, budget, but I didnt have the upfront cash to buy in bulk. I had no containers to batch cook and store in the none existent freezer that I would need to do this. I had no basic utensils apart from a basic cutlery set. I didnt have the spices, herbs etc to make a chili con carne, spag bol,cottage pie etc.
Until I gradually built up my store cupboard and managed to buy a second hand freezer I couldnt take advantage of reduced items, or Bogofs etc so my weekly shop was more expensive.

Its easy to save money on food when you have the facilities for it.

I just don't know how people on low incomes manage. Dh earns a reasonable salary, i earn a bit, & after bills, mortgage, petrol (for work) etc we usually have around £400 pcm for a family of 4 for food & household bits. I plan meals, & cook from scratch. we hardly ever eat meat but somehow we never seem to have enough food in the house that we don't have to worry about eating frugally. We still seem to run out of the basics daily. Dd moans that teachers tell her she 'doesn't have enough in her lunch box.' & that all her friends have 'nice things' but we literally can't afford for her to have more than a sandwich, drink & a couple of pieces of fruit. And on paper we're not badly off at all.

There is 6kg flour included, surely that's for baking bread, making pancakes, cakes whatever.

There are so many problems that poverty brings, the list above is just an illustration what one could buy for £15 a week. Plus £5 for milk and some fruit, not much, admittedly.

For the meat, if one could cut up the 1,9kg pork joint and use about 300g sliced/diced per meal, it would give the appearance of 'meat' and topped up with pulses, vegetables etc, could make a better meal than processed crap, such as microwave burgers.
Quite frankly, I'd never heard of such beastie before and would rather eat a plain potato than touch something like that.

I didn't make that list to expect people to make gourmet dinners out of it but to see what one could buy for such a measly amount and yet try to make half-decent and somewhat nutritious meals for a family of 2 adults and 2 children.

ThreeMusketeers that's a good list you've given.

Could you give some recipes please?

I'm stuck in a cooking rut & could try some out!

Home-baked bread is better for you, but no way is it cheaper than value sliced or end-of-day shop bread. Maybe if you have a 25kg bag of flour in your pantry, a yeast plant on the go and a breadmaking machine ... but not if you're using supermarket bread flour, a sachet of dried yeast and an oven.

Don't forget there will be more & more people without ovens and other appliances, now Social Fund grants have been abolished.

i am sure it is cheaper and bargain/value shop bread is really nasty

I cant get too worked up about it really. Im not sure its so hard to survive on benefits.

I don't donate to food banks because Im just not sure they are needed. I know people on benefits who manage to afford to smoke and have obese children.

Plus, what is the criteria for using a food bank? You presumably have to be in receipt of benefits, but do they screen out smokers? Or people who have come in a car?

Ive only read to page 7

Anyone can look up a recipe on the internet!

Your list is admirable three musketeers but it denotes a bloody miserable existence. I would struGgle to feed two teenagers and two adults on 80pw and I cook from scratch and we don't have choice cuts every day. DH said he fancied fish pie tomorrow (yep I know bonkers in this heat) but two fillets of cod, one of smoked cod, pckt of basics prawns, a lempn, some parsley, some butter, some milk. The fish was on special offer - that will do four dinners and a couple of lunches here. For 20 quid. Not a luxury dinner but throw in the spuds and the green beans and it's more.