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?

Depends on how you define 'poverty' really though doesn't it?

Yes, how dare people in the 6th richest country in the world expect affordable access to healthcare! Those were our grandparents who voted for leaders who created the NHS, them and their 'expectations'.

Why merry?

Expat, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. We're lucky to have the NHS, our grandparents/great grandparents did not have access to free healthcare. Many countries still don't! People seem to take things for granted that actually make us very fortunate indeed. Even the fact that we have any form of benefits to fall back on makes us very lucky!

Littlemiss, I am a raging leftie, have always been. I can't understand how people have become so disengaged and apathetic about all this. When I was younger, we were out on the streets every weekend almost, protesting about everything from school milk cuts to trident. Nowadays folk are more concerned with TV talent shows and royal girlfriends than what is happening to the society we live in.

I find it very sad, actually. As I do, all this talk about how we define poverty and how there is no real poverty in this country because we have the NHS and running water or whatever.

I run our church's food bank and I see real poverty every week. Women who can't feed their kids, young blokes with nothing, nowhere to go and no hope, old folk looking after their disabled adult children. People who are desperate and at the end of their rope. At least I have the ability to make a meal from a packet of pasta and some onions. Many people aren't so lucky.

I am that this thread has taken off in the way it has!

Would anyone be interested in thread II if this one fills up? this is my first thread ever that might hit the magic 1000, which just shows how strongly so many people feel.

stressed

There are various protests planned for later in the year but I wont be taking part in them because of the fear of violence. Sadly there are always those that will use these events simply to create a riot, and I think that is what stops more protests happening.

I'd welcome another thread OP, it has been very interesting.

Yay- for once in my life I am not a thread killer! thanks to all who waded through that. I will try not to write another essay

bumbley - yes, previous generations had to get on with it on a day to day basis perhaps they didnt moan, perhaps they just carried on and made the best of it because thats all they could do. And theres plenty people in this country and world that are just getting on with it and have to thole it as the 20s 30s and war generations did - and you dont hear much from them day to day in the media.

the poor, the working classes also died and suffered preventable illness and poverty, worked hard manual labour without care for their health or safe conditions, with little to show for it. Some turned to drink and drugs, some to crime and black markets, some managed to get themselves and their children out of poverty, some got stuck deeper in the mire for whatever reason, some got religion, some got political, some protested against their lot, complained, unionised, tried to gain social power and leverage and improve their lives - It wasnt all keep calm and carry on stuff - just like today

all of which is a bit besides the point though - the point is we are in a different world now, where progress in health and technology has freed us from many of our grandparents problems. Just because they suffered stoically in hardship with no alternative does not mean we should aspire to it. If anything we should aspire to the huge movements for social change that came out of such suffering and the war years

I can't better the posts above, bumbley, but I want to tell you another little story. 20 years ago I lived in a country that is notorious for its rich/poor divide. There is a massive amount of street crime - crimes of desperation - and of organised crime, the crimes of the rich. The underfunded public services cannot maintain order; bribes have to be paid for everything; petty criminals are shot by underpaid police or die in custody. (It's getting better now, but still has these problems and more.)

The story: Poor people in the country's interior often starve. While there, I saw "scratching a living" for real and it was indescribably depressing. They don't have access to contraception out there, they have children and many infants die. In bad years, there is no food. Parents can't feed their kids. Rather than watch their children starve to death, they put them on buses or lorries to the big cities. They know what lies in store for their primary-age children: they will live on rubbish heaps, in sewers, and they will be taken up by gangs for prostitution and drug-running. They'll be abused 24 hours a day and their chances of being murdered are astronomical. But they will eat.

This is an example of "just getting on with it". Can you imagine how those skinny, rag-dressed parents feel about what they've done? But they never moan. They just pick up their hoes, get out in the sun, and scratch the dry earth.

Why would anyone aspire to have its people "just get on with" suffering like that?

Garlic Is that SA? Sound familiar to something my friend told me :(

Seriously, some of you are clearly lacking in basic reading and comprehension skills. Where have I said that we should aspire to live in poverty/ suffering/without basic essentials? Go on, have a look back at my posts and find somewhere where I have suggested that it is a great/romantic/cozy way to live. I have said nothing of the sort.

I have expressed admiration for people who actually lived with NOTHING, came through times of genuine hardship in situations that we couldn't even imagine these days and still found something to appreciate and be thankful for. For some reason people seem reluctant to admit that despite all the crap going on at the minute we still have it pretty bloody good compared to what people used to have to get on with - even what people are currently getting on with in other countries - and I'm not even talking about developing countries! What do you think happens to you if you lose your job and get sick in the US? Soup kitchens and homeless shelters with your entire family - that's what!

I am not saying what people are going through here is good for them or that it isn't hard but trying to find the good in a bad situation and being thankful for what you do have, even if it is very little, is better than getting down and depressed about all the things you don't have. What food is that going to do?

What good* is that going to do?

Garlic, you are giving an excellent example of why we should be thankful for what we have in the UK. Thank goodness no one here has to send their children to live in inner city slums and sewers scraping a living as a child prostitute in order to eat.

Actually I'm giving a good example of what happens when a nation doesn't worry about its wealth gap and leaves the poor to fend for themselves. Britain was this bad when my grandmother was born (1900). We should never be complacent about poverty, nor should we blame the poor for the greed of the rich.

It's a good job we don't do that then isn't it?

I dont think Im lacking in reading comprehension, and suspect Im a reasonably good example of what general optimism and a can do attitude can do but Im not going to waste time exhorting people who are actually living a life in the low income struggles that so many posters have described to be Pollyanna-ish, its like telling a depressed person to snap out of it.

I totally agree many countries have similar and worse problems needing tackled but that doesnt change the fact that we as a society are allowing current changes to significantly worsen the conditions for the average person in this country, and its complacent to look abroad and say - well they have it much worse in country x. We should rather be looking at examples like the US and saying - workfare and soup kitchens? No social security? Private medicine? private prisons? is this really what we want to have

(Im pretty angry about injustice and the horrendous conditions that many people across the globe live in, as well as the UK. Am just a surprisingly optimistic ball of suppressed rage most of the time)

No Did, it's not like telling a depressed person to snap out of it. It's like giving a depressed person CBT.

I don't agree.

The reason people disagree with you is because they are concerned about how bad things have got despite how relatively lucky we are, that things are getting worse and that nothing is being done to address the causes of the issues.

We think it's important, like our grandparents did (well not mine, because immigrant but ykwim) to kick up a big fucking stink and demand action, on behalf of ourselves but also those who are just quietly getting on with it because they haven't the energy to do anything else.

So do that then TeWi. You can still campaign for change while making the best of what you have.

I do? I have been for several years!

Part of that is actually raising awareness that the issue is NOT all about poor budgeting skills, lack of initiative etc. That's why you will find so many people on threads like these, newspaper comments sections etc explaining why it isn't.

If more of the general public understood that people aren't hungry because they are reckless but because there is a real issue, there is more pressure for change from the government.

bumbley You seem ignorant of what poverty actually means. There is absolute poverty and relative poverty.

That's great TeWi. I think people (including me) have already said further up the thread that they are not trying to say that there is any one solution to the problem. Just because we are talking about how a food budget can be stretched to make better meals than microwave burgers/nuggets does not mean that we think this is all that needs to be done.

If all you do is concentrate on food tips then that is the impression you give.

This is the reason why many people were reluctant to support food banks until there was no other option. Because they knew what would (and has) happened - that the government would consider that job done, big society, blah blah, and ignore anything they could do to relieve food poverty.

Making off comparisons to a hundred years ago doesn't actually help anyone either.

I cooked meals from recipes from WW2 (Marguerite Patten) using a lot of sardines, sausage meat and so on. It was dull. Weekly shop on this was £25 and 10 years ago.