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?

cheaper rents, warmer climate, more fruit and veg growing possible, cheaper supermarkets, low heating bills....
makes you wonder why so many leave for the UK!
could it be that the family is oppressive?

Wishihabads, no heating costs in Spain? I guess you have only been here on holiday in the summer. I live in the North, we have our heating on 8 months each year and it costs 200 euros per month. Most of Spain has cold winters, only those bits on the Med Coast and the islands that dont

why is it so hard to understand why working people can really struggle?

My DH hasn't had a pay rise in 4 years and has been told that there won't be another one until 2019 at the very earliest. He works for a government agency.

During the last 4 years our rent has increased by 30%, his travel to work has increased by about 20%, food prices have soared, I've had to give up my landshare due to illness, gas and electricity prices have gone through the roof, CTC has been slashed and I have 2 kids at uni who need support. Add on to that the fact that I no longer get child maintenance for the older 2, while still having financial responsibility for them and you begin to get some idea of why things can be very tight for working families.

I can't work because I have ME and fibromyalgia and look after multiple Dc with autism, none of us, though, appears to qualify for DLA. So I have no way of bringing in any income. DH already works 6 days a week. We can't do anything more.

it's outrageous that in a country like this, situations like ours and worse are becoming more and more common. I can't understand why there aren't more protests and civil unrest. When I was a teenager in the late 70's and 80's, I was out on the street almost every weekend protesting about one thing or another. That doesn't seem to happen much anymore.

burberryqueen

There are 1 million Brits in Spain and 100,000 Spaniards in the UK. So it is somewhat onesided. Spain has taken way more immigrants in than Britain over the past 10 years, 5 million in fact, over 10% of the population are recent immigrants

Young people are leaving in high numbers now because there are no jobs.

Families are incredibly close in Spain. Everyone thinks their mum is the best cook in the world etc, that isnt the problem, the corrupt politicians and tanking economy is

Yes I have family in Anadalucia 18c on a cold winters day :)

I have IL family in Andalucía.

its pretty offensive to say their poverty is easier than UK poverty.

their graduates are willing to leave spain and travel to the UK, sleep on a sofa in London, work as a cleaner, improve their English etc.

Wishihadabs, on a small part of the Med coast yes, although it still can be 5c at night. I lived near Malaga, the temp was 12c in our house at night, so very cold if you have no heating

If you drive 20 mins in land then it will be 5-10c most days in the winter. Try living in Seville where it is 5c in winter and 45c in summer and see how much your energy costs!

Of course people on low incomes dont have air con or heating though, they sweat it out in summer and huddle around a stove in winter

They have a hard life, but they dont go hungry! ;)

FasterStronger

I didnt say that poverty is easier in Spain than in the UK. You guys are making all this cr*p up. I said that people don't go hungry because they sacrifice in other areas

Just to put an end to this, the poorest 20% of the population in Spain have a much harder life than the poorest 20% in the UK, there is no doubt about it. Which is kind of my point, they have such a hard life but still manage to feed themselves

mijas - I was commenting to other posters - I agree with you.

especially with your last post.

It is a lot colder in Britain in winter than 5dc.

This is a very odd conversation though. I can't make any better/worse comparisons about Spain and Britain because I don't know much about Spain. However mijas clearly feel they can despite not knowing much about the uk!

They are, I imagine, both buggered atm. That doesn't mean their issues are in the same places and need to be tackled the same way. There are options to deal with poverty in the UK that probably wouldn't work as well in Spain and vice versa.

Which makes sense because they are different countries.

FWIW, I don't want to name my home country for the same reasons I don't want to be chatting about Spain. This is a thread about food poverty in the UK. Other countries and their situations are not really relevant.

Mijas, what is there to sacrifice if you don't do anything other than work and come home. In our house, we don't drink, don't smoke, don't socialise, don't go on holiday, don't by new clothes except if the children grow or things actually fall apart, don't have sky tv or anything like that, don't go on trips out. The only haircut I have had in the last 2 years was paid for by my friend as a gift, ditto DD, she was given a voucher for a haircut by a friend as a birthday present. There is no way we could live with my parents, my sister lives abroad and my brother lives hundreds of miles away and they each have their own families.

What would you suggest people like us do?

stressed - have you posted a SOA (statement of affairs) on money saving expert forum?

they give very good practical financial advice.

Faster, thank you. I've had a thing done by the CAB working out all my income and outgoings etc. Even they reckoned that we had nowhere near enough coming in to meet everything! In fact, we would be far better off if DH wasn't working. it's really the work related costs that are the problem, if we weren't paying a third of Dh's take home in travel to work costs things would be a bit better, but you've got to go where the work is and it's a very rare commodity round here.

I'm appealling the DLA for myself again, even my doctor says that I am significantly disabled but according the the DLA people I have no problems. That would make a difference. Also when DS1 starts work in October (he recently graduated), he will move away and be independent. Part of the problem is having the big ones at home but them not having any income and us not getting any money for them from anywhere.

Exactly how can one compare this is about food poverty in the UK

People don't prioritise food? You mean they starve themselves to death?

As an aside, do food banks take donations of sanitary towels/tampons? It's something I've never thougt about, but dear god those things are expensive.

I don't have children so can't imagine how much worse it must be if you do - but I have been living on a tiny food budget for the 2 years I have lived alone and have no problem with it.

When I was only working part-time and claiming JSA to top up my wages my average weekly food shop was between £5-7 a week. For that I would buy:

Longlife milk 47p
Porridge Oats 37p
Blackcurrent cordial 19p
Going off-date bread to put in the freezer 9p
A pack of 12 eggs reduced due to 3/4 being smashed - 36p
Frozen bag of sweetcorn - 74p
Frozen bag of mixed veg - 80p
Admittedly dodgy mayonnaise - 34p
Spam like lunch meat chicken - 36p
2x Tuna Tins - £1.05
Toilet roll / Shampoo / ETC - £1 depending which was needed that week.
50p worth of reduced price micro meals at 09 - 19p a go.

I made sure I got breakfast with the porridge, lunch with the bread and meat and then for tea I would do a tuna omelette or when the tuna ran out (1/2 tin per day) I would have a micro meal. Occasionally i'd even splash out and get some own brand crisps.

(Prices may have changed in the year or so I've been full time now. I only still now because I am anal about keeping receipts and therefor still had this one)

**

Now I work full time on an above minimum wage and so does my partner. We have a weekly food budget of £23 for both of us for all our meals. This works out as £1.64ish per person per day and we find this does us fine.

Fresh Mince - 350g - own brand - £1.99
Fresh Sausages - pack of 12 - own brand - 36p
Frozen chicken breasts - 1kg - £2.99
Bag of Pasta - 500g - 36p
Bag of Rice - 1kg - 42p
Spaghetti sauce sachet - 36p
Tinned tomatoes - 19p
cuppa soup - 4 for 19p
Pack of fresh onions - you get around 12 - 46p
Fresh Peppers pack of four - £1.13
Fresh stir fry veg - 50p
Fresh mushrooms - 500g - 79p
Pack of 6 eggs - £1.19
Reduced price bread to freeze - 9p (x2 loaves so 18p)
Frozen Sweetcorn - £1
Frozen Carrots - 50p
Packet Mash - 3 for 60p
Gravy Granuals - 20p
2X tuna tins - £1.10
Mayonnaise - 50p
Yorkshire puddings frozen pack of 12 - 36p
Grapefruit - 3 for £1
Butter - £1
Lunch meats - from the reduced section - 9p per pack (x3 packs so 27p)
Micromeals reduced to 19p each x4 - 76p total
Toilet roll - £1
Other toiletries - £1
Crisps - 70p
Mousses - 50p
Kiwi fruit - 50p for a pack
Bag of oranges - £1

Total of £23.10 ... we have toast or half grapefruits for breakfast. We do a packed lunch for work of 1 sandwich each, a pack of crisps and an item of fruit. Then for teas we either do spaghetti using a packet sauce, cup-a-soup and tin of tomatoes with onions, mushrooms and peppers with the mince or we do a shepherds pie using instant mash, frozen carrots and mince. Or we do a sunday dinner of chicken breast, mash, Yorkshire puddings, sweetcorn and carrots with gravy. Sometimes we do chicken breast with rice and stir fry veg with gravy sauce. Tuna pasta salad, Tuna omelettes .... Plenty of delicious fresh(ish) meals that don't break the bank. Toward the end of the week we tend to run out of sandwiches and snacks so we take a micromeal instead. On sundays we even have egg and sausage for breakfast.

Fair enough it isn't luxurious and sometimes you do crave a bar of chocolate or a different meal - but we eat this way so that we have more money available for other things we need and for savings etc. Also, it helps us keep things relatively healthy - we don't splurge or gorge on sweet things in the house.

My point is: I think a lack of cooking knowledge is more harmful than a low budget. Our shopping has improved loads since my partner moved in as he is a great cook. My cooking skills have improved over time (when I lived at home prior to all this if my mum was out I'd just eat packet noodles) ... Our budget is quite low for food but we eat proper meals and what we get goes quite far.

Yeah fucking right nobody goes hungry in Spain.

What a load of uninformed wank.

www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/world/europe/hunger-on-the-rise-in-spain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I could find identical articles on Greece and Ireland, off the top of my head. The US too.

It is a fucking SCANDAL that this crisis has spread throughout the developed world. People skipping meals to feed their children. Food banks doubling, tripling, quadrupling their aid. Foraging in fucking bins!!

And morons play at Marie Antoinette "oh if I had to live off £14 a week this is what I'd do, stop looking for excuses not to improve your situation!" "Oh people need to rely on family more, that's what they do in Spain when they're not foraging in rubbish bins ".

bloody nuisance please do not tell me to feed my kids SPAM and packet
mash.

HoldMeCloser

That is not a good article. You could write the same article about New York city and find lots of people going through the dustbins

The people who do have problems sourcing food in Spain are those who do not have extended family, so many Latin American and Easter European immigrants or single elderly people with no siblings and no children

I used to live in Barcelona, people were always going through dustbins there, but these people were Romanian gypsies looking for rubbish to sell, they were doing this in the boom times to, its what they do. The people who went through our bins in Malaga were Moroccan, and up here in the North, the bins are left untouched.

So there are people going hungry then - the elderly with no family, immigrant families?

You are embarrassing yourself. I could find dozens of identical articles. People in Spain do go hungry, they are going hungry, and not just "immigrants and gypsies".

But please, tell us more about how you totally lived in Malaga and know more about the situation of tens of millions of Spaniards than Caritas and the New York Times (and almost any other broadsheet you'd care to name).

If you want to make silly claims, you need to back them up. With more than anecdotes about your wife's family.

bloodynuisance - where are you shopping where you can get lunch meats for 9p? Even in the reduced section I've never seen it that cheap!

Stressed - your local authority will have a welfare rights advisor - at least for the kids. Not sure whe you are butifby any chance you are in West Sussex I'll gladly let you have his details if you PM me. Much better than CAB as its a specialist service. Honestly, try it. It's really helped me