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?

Luis, I would probably put the £2.20 towards a sack of rice/pasta that would last me for weeks/months. I also wouldn't be too concerned about whether or not my sauces were authentic if I was just trying to get some kind of nutritious, filling food on the table. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, you can by a jar of sauce for much less than the cost of making it. Wallison, feel free to judge away on the absence of pancetta, celery and chicken livers in their sauces. :)

IfNotNowThenWhen, entirely agree with you. All of this poverty tourism and wanking on about how many carrots you can get for £14 just normalises what we should be up in arms about - that people, including working people, in this fucking country can't afford to feed their kids.

bumbleymummy, I'm not judging. What I'm doing is criticising the notion that one can cook well and live well on £14 a week and all that those poor slatterns with their microwave burgers need to do is to take inspiration from a celebrity chef and all of their problems will be solved, because it's just not true.

I font think anyone has said you could cook and live well just that you could do better than microwave burgers and nuggets and chips.

I agree Wallison, there was a thread on here once and the poor O.P had tried to just cook up mince and tinned tomatoes as was constantly told that's all you need for a from-scratch pasta sauce. If that was your meal, and your DC's meal for the day - can you imagine? Lots of tips on there as I recall, but nearly all involving extras and slow, long cooking.

Love the idea of a store-cupboard package. I wonder MNHQ might get behind that? Then again, it shouldn't be bloody necessary

Too right, Ifnot!

At the risk of going round in circles, I agree that one could do better, but pointed out that you would need a properly stocked store cupboard in order to jazz up cheaper meal ingredients and thus do better. Spag bol being an example of that.

Talking of celebrity chefs who dont live in the real world this just appeared in my Twitter TL.

www.psychologies.co.uk/work/are-the-youth-of-today-too-lazy-to-work.html

Or (repeating myself again) you could buy a jar. Cheaper - Even wrt not requiring slow cooking.

absolutely ifnot

Here is the thread I mentioned

But that isn't a Bolognese sauce! Which is what you're supposed to be making because it's so cheap and peasanty and easy to be authentic with and gosh aren't you thick because you're poor.

[bangs head on desk until it is a bloody stump]

Who cares if it isn't authentic bolognese sauce Wallison - it's a jar of sauce to liven up plain pasta! Why do you have such an issue with this? If you're struggling to feed your family, don't have a store cupboard of ingredients (and a fridge filled with pancetta and chicken liver) then a cheap jar of sauce is your best option (and a better option than a microwave burger)

I'm with IfNot tbh. I did not imagine that at our point in our life where we earn too much to claim tax credits we'd still be eating basics pretty much everything because we can't afford much else. we can afford enough food - so serious up on other points, but fucking hell, my DH earns a really good wage out here in the real world!

My spag bol is mince, tinned tomatoes, onion, peppers, tomato puree and basil btw. It tastes fine.

Ideas for meals with left overs;

Chicken ;stock last of the chicken, onions, mushrooms or chard/spinach, rice =risotto if you roasted the bird you can fry the veg in the fat left over in the pan instead of oil gives it a really chickeny flavour it'snnicer with lemon zest/juice and cheese.

Carrots, onions, cerely again fried in the fat from the bird, soy sauce, garlic and ginger+ the left over chicken = stir fry. Add to noodles/rice.

Leftover beef/lamb; grated onions and carrots fried in the dripping from the joint then coated with flour (anykind)add lentils and stock/water and Worcester sauce makes cottage/Shepard pie filling.I add any leftover gravey too.

Leftover meat and cooked veg; use lard (much cheaper than butter) and flour to makes pastry then do pasties again you need some gravey to moisten the mixture. Can do the same with potatoes, fried onions and cheese for veggie version.

Will think of so.e more in minute.

But yes you need an oven or at least a hob , some store cupboard bits and a lot of time.

Well my bolognese is mince from the market (£10 for 2 kilos - I use a quarter at a time to serve 5), smart price pasta sauce (27p), smart price spaghetti (17p).

I then bulk it out with onion, mushroom and tomato again from the market.

I'm fortunate that I have equipment bought before we were on benefits (fridge freezer, microwave) and a very good friend gave me a cooker when our old one broke. I'm fortunate that I can drive to the market to benefit from the low prices and have storage space for potatoes, pasta etc. I'm fortunate that I have garden space for my lettuce, tomatoes and beans.

It can still get tricky though. On my 'meat market' weeks I'm buying 6 weeks' worth so have freezer surprise as I can't get a grocery shop as well.

I don't have an issue with it as such - I am just answering points directed at me and from them it seems that you and others are repeatedly jumping on me for saying that you can't even make a Bolognese sauce if you're on a budget, and are determined to prove that it's possible, even though it's not. It's just one example of people on here and on the telly programme saying that you can cook proper food on a limited budget. I say it isn't possible and indeed the programme showed that it wasn't possible because they went way over budget. I am annoyed by that because the more people who say that it's possible to whip up nutritious, authentic and healthy meals on £1 pppd, the fewer people are righteously angry about this situation arising at all, and consequently the fewer people who will stand up and do anything about what I consider to be a disgraceful state of affairs.

The answer to this isn't to tell people to eat lentils but to take to the frigging streets and demand that people in the sixth richest country in the world don't have to choose between heating and eating

and

Never mind about what we should or shouldn't donate to food banks. What about doing something about rent control, so that half my income is not eaten up by housing costs?

Well said, Wallinson and IfNot.

Points duly made - if still needing to be made on every page - I've linked to mass distribution schemes like Fareshare and Sainsbury's Million Meals week, both of which prioritise store cupboard ingredients. It is clear, though, that insufficient cooking ingredients are making it into food parcels. The items given out are often ridiculous, seemingly allocated on calorie value alone. It's undignified enough to ask for a food voucher, let alone then having to last the week on sugar, tea, cornflakes and a bag of dried pasta. Human dignity really does require the ability to create tasty & satisfying meals for oneself & family.

With this in mind - and while still, one hopes & prays, fomenting some proper democratic dissent on the growing poverty gap - I agree it would be a bloody good idea to urge local foodbank schemes to think about 'extras' and to donate plenty of same.

I happen to agree about Worcester Sauce! If you can't avoid beige slop day after day, you can at least make it taste properly savoury. I use a lot of mustard powder and paprika for the same reason (my local wholefood shop does surprisingly cheap smoked paprika.) As others have said, sanpro and incontinence pads eat up a lot of money. Some nice-smelling shampoo, conditioner and shower gel are going to be welcome.

Here's a blog by a foodbank volunteer. It includes a list of what a single person might get for a week. At least this one lets people choose, to an extent. Many just dish out parcels.

Currently I'm dieting (1500 cal a day) and trying to loose 2 stone.

It's very difficult to eat a healthy diet cheaply - ie to buy lots of fruit and veg and healthy protein and good wholemeal bread etc etc while avoiding high fat food and poor quality carbs.

Obviously if you are very skint then you can loose weight because you can't afford food but that is definitely not a healthy nutritious way of losing weight!

I think people should be very angry about the fact that so many people can't afford decent food for themselves or their children.. I feel angry just thinking about it!

Wallison, you're the one who keeps adding in the 'authentic'. Most people would be happy with healthy and nutritious (and filling probably) and aren't overly concerned about whether their jar of pasta sauce or the sauce that they whip up themselves would actually fall into the 'authentic' category. Most of the jars in the supermarket labelled as 'bolognese' are not authentic bolognese recipes but plenty of people are happy to use them and think they taste fine.

I think what Wallison is trying to get across is that we shouldn't be thinking of ways to make cheap Bolognese for the limited budgets... because no-one in 21st century UK should have such a limited budget.

We should be angry!

Exactly so, Latara - thank you. Also, it grinds my gears when people seem to be saying "Well, you can get a jar of sauce for 25p therefore you can afford to make Bolognese which is proper food so I don't know what these poor people are moaning about".