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?

Feed the kids, parents eat the scraps.

Exactly, and if there are no scraps then you eat your pride.

I can't articulate my disgust at a parent who would think differently, it is just appalling.

remembering a poor childhood with fondness is NOT the same as being the parent in that position

Hear hear.

Bumbley, they were "made of sterner stuff". Because the ones whose stuff wasn't stern DIED, and those who were not quite stern enough of stuff were sent to be abused in institutions.

Think about it. Imagine you reached your old age knowing you'd failed your family. Imagine that, despite your very best, foot-bleeding, hand-calloused efforts, 20% of your children had died of preventable diseases, your wife been crippled by childbearing & floorscrubbing; the whole lot of you held back in life by physical and psychological injuries which never healed. You couldn't live like that, could you? It's not human nature - our nature is to remember the good moments, the love and the laughter. And that's what you heard from your grandfather.

Did you know the middle and upper classes literally looked down on the working class? Because the working class was persistently malnourished, and didn't grow. Until after WW2, the working class average height was 6" shorter than the higher classes'.

I dont think the answer is to walk miles to try and catch your own food and not complain, not when yhe rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, meanwhile bankers draw some phenomenal pensions and mansion tax plans are scrapped. Dont want to go on an all out leftie diatribe but just because some people are lazy / ill informed / selfish when it comes to making good budget decisions for their family definitely doesnt mean that its true for everyone and the bottom line us in a wealthy, developed country families are genuinely going without food or having to make choices between food and heating etc.

Feed the kids the parents eat the scraps.

I don't know anyone who doesn't think that way.

Apples dad does :(

That is so sad and the reason that cb was paid directly to the mother. Sadly some men will see their dcs do without very very few mothers would.

Bumbley again - sorry. Thinking about what you've said is making me so angry, I'm going to have to close the browser and sit in the garden!

My grandmother - probably older than yours - was one of 13, three of whom died in childhood. At 13yo, she went into service as an under-kitchen-maid. She slept in the kitchen fireplace at the house where she worked.

The better world they fought for, and charged their children to work for, is a world that is safe and healthy for its people; one where both survival and comfort are givens, so that people may become all that they can be.

In romanticising their sacrifices, you belittle their aims.

the reason that cb was paid directly to the mother

YYY :( Apples, I'm very sorry. This must be shocking for you to read. It also stinks that you're being called out at school for not having the right kit. How would you feel about suggesting to your mum that she gets some advice?

To be fair Mrs, expectations were different then and I think that is the key issue.

When my dad was a kid no one expected to be able to have the latest consumer goods because consumers as a group to be sold to didnt exist! Adverts were for washing powder, soap, toothpaste, not luxury items that were out of reach of most people. Walking 4 miles to school wasnt a big deal because all of the kids from your street/village did it and they did it together, Little Johnny wasnt the only kid trudging the lanes every day. Girls missing a day of school a week to help on washing day was normal, every girl was off that day. My grandma cutting down her old coat to make one each for my mum and aunt was perfectly normal. Chucking stuff out because you didnt like it anymore just didnt happen. Retail therapy or impulse buying didnt exist.

The credit era changed that. Oh yes there was the tally man but that wasnt for big ticket stuff like kitchens or cars. Credit changed the attitudes of many from "Ah well, thats not for the likes of us, we dont have that kind of money" to "Fuck it! Its only £X a month, lets get that car/holiday/new kitchen". Once we had lived with the expectation of getting what we want now and paying later it became the norm to have all the latest gadgets and gizmos.

The problem now is that we have to readjust our thinking and get used to going without things we have been taught are essential. We have to relearn the difference between essential to life and luxury. It isnt how we (I am 40) were brought up, society, TV and the media taught us that we could have whatever we wanted and just bung it on credit. Its going to take a while for us to unlearn those lessons.

garlic I too was thinking that perhaps Apples mum could do with being on MN.

Thats not to say Mrs that I disagree with you, I agree that romanticising the past ("Oh what this country needs is a war!".....yeah, that was really good wasnt it?) is at best misguided and at worst insulting.

This thread is very scary. The poverty that exists in this country is shocking :(

I have fed myself on a budget of 5? a week for months on end. It was monotonous but vaguely nutritious (jar of passata, bag of frozen mixed veg and pulses, bag of pasta, tub of natural yoghurt, bunch of bananas and a bag of porridge oats and jar of honey that lasted a few weeks). I've just checked and the equivalent from Tesco today would be £4.39 from the Value range. The thing is that that was when I was a student in a flat share so I didn't have to worry about sourcing or running a freezer, fridge and gas hob. I had Sunday lunch with a family at church so there was some variety. I didn't have children or a husband who would moan about eating the same thing every day. I didn't have a physically-demanding job. The supermarket was within walking distance. And it was only while I was a student.

John Cleese and Robert Skinner have a book called life and how to survive it. In which they talk about the national psyche in relation to the economic cycle. I am paraphrasing but basically they suggest that when nations become to wealthy and successful they become lazy and complacent. There is an expectation that things will continue to go well and the nation will prosper but this is crucial without effort. (Think the end of the Roman empire or British empire circa 1914). Following this there is some sort of crisis whereby expectations must be adjusted downwards. But following this there is greater insight and resourcefulness. This in turn brings wealth and the cycle begins again. They say the cycle is roughly 60-70 years long (about a human's living memory).

So at its peak the young cannot remember the hardwork and sacrifice of there parents or grandparents and have an expectation that things will continue to go along with out much effort on there part. I think we can be in no doubt we are now on the downstroke.

Bogeyface

Nail > head.

The financial ruin we are all experiencing is down to the 'credit' era and most of us are guilty of indulging in it. Some more than others but it was the horrific borrowing that contributed to and fuelled the mess we're in now.

I don't romanticise about the past and I genuinely don't think Bumbleyummy is either. The past was bloody hard but one thing is for sure, people are going to have to get on with it again as we don't have much of a choice.

FYI I don't have to learn what is essential. I have never had a credit card or a loan in my life.

Society as a whole who has learned that if we want it, we can have it now and worry about the payments later. This is fact. This is precisely why the sub prime loans caused such problems. Lending and borrowing became such a way of life that no one really thought about the consequences until those who couldnt or would repay started to default.

I am the person you refer to who cant get credit yet at times needs it the most, I do get it, I really do!

I am saying that the reason that, as a generation, our grandparents managed better on less is not just because they were stoic and accepting and harder working (which undoubtedly they were) but because they didnt have the expectations that we have as first worlders today.

Weddings. When my parents got married they were offered a choice of gift from my grandad. He offered them a fancy wedding with all the frills or a gift for their new home. They had a small wedding and he bought them their first bed. Can you imagine the bridezilla reaction to that now? Change in expectations see?

Wouldnt not would!

DH and I were married in 2007 and I resented every penny of the £700 it ended up costing

My babyboomer father told me when I left home and got a mortgage (local university) that everyone lives on credit and refused to give me ballpark figures for household expenses because it was none of my business and I would be okay because I was a graduate.

No internet / moneysavingexpert in those days. I quickly got into and back out of trouble but he still sneers at my "irresponsibility" for living in social housing with no debt, foreign holidays or flash cars. He even took out a massive equity loan when he retired but still has credit card debts from decades ago outstanding. Good for him that his state and two private pensions can service them but he doesn't realise that times have changed and he didn't have two disabled DC either.

I am always calling him out on his, "I blagged worked x decades with nary a day off" by pointing out that he was extremely privileged to have lived in the S.E and not been made redundant. And that many of his fellow working-class brothers elsewhere would been been put on the scrapheap thanks to his Thatcher-voting proclivities.

I have never had a credit card or a loan either Not even while we were on Jobseekers. There was a time in the late 90s when we didnt eat for 3 days at the end of the fortnight Until giro came Going without for 3 days and then eating the rest of the time plus only being able to afford carbs helped my weight shoot up to 19 stone by 1998.
Not everyone on benefits gets out a loan (and i am NOT judging or blaming ppl who do especially these days when things cost 3 times as much)

No one is saying that people on benefits take out loans, the Wonga market is connected but a different argument. In fact my argument is that it is the people who are working and earning well who take the loans and credit cards and then, when they hit their limit, add to their mortgage which they then cant pay so they remortgage with another lender at a higher APR....... THEY are the sub prime market! They are the ones that bought when times were good and then didnt pay it back when times got bad.

Am I talking another language? When did I say that people on benefits have loans? I said that one of the reasons that those on low incomes spend money that others dont see as essential is because of a change in expectations and that that has come about through the ease of getting credit in the last 30 years.

The reason many people have Sky, dishwashers, blurays, cars, etc that they dont need (need, not want) is because we have been conditioned to believe that we can have them now and pay later.

In the last few years credit has changed and now you cant just walk into a car dealership, DIY store or furniture shop and walk out with the latest "must have" and a finance agreement in your pocket. THAT is what we need to relearn as a society. Saying "I have never had a loan" is the same as saying "I have never had an epidural", great for you but not representative of the bigger picture.

My point is that people would not go hungry whatever their situation, and they would not let their children go hungry. Food is the priority above everything else, but not so in Britain it seems.

And how much does it cost to heat a house in Spain? Do Spaniards have to make a choice between eating and being warm?

"pobreza alimentaria en españa"

In case you don't read the news, mijas