to wonder why there are blackberries going bad whilst people complain that they don't have enough money to feed their family healthy food.

[froken]

We went blackberry picking today, I was expecting a couple of manky blackberries to be left because I hear so often in the media and on mumsnet people saying how they struggle to feed their dc healthy food and sometimes people saying they have a hard time finding enough money to feed their dc at all.

There was a huge amount of blackberries, we were a 20 min walk outside a major city so an easily accessible place for 1000s of families.

We picked 9 pounds of blackberries.

Aibu to think that it would be a good idea for those struggling to feed their family a healthy diet (and those struggling to feed their family at all) should be out picking the free fruit that grows all over England's public spaces?

and it's not pc-ness or getting 'the words right' it's the actual cognitive process behind it - re: recognising humanity over conditions.

I can just imagine OP walking around with that thought going through her head feeling all self righteous as she's picking her blackberries.....

It's not nice.

recognising humanity over conditions

YES.

Is it rubbish, though, Bean?

Any time there is a thread about low incomes, you can split the posts into the hand-wringers, and people who shake their heads despondently because they know one family "with a big telly and an X-Box, therefore the Daily Mail must be onto something, nobody wants to think it's true but it needs saying...."

I think this group love the validation that the hand-wringers bring.

AND recognising subgroups within wider groups re: if you're talking about "the poor" you are mainly talking about single mothers, old age pensioners (often single women too due to living longer), people living with disabilities who can't access employment. if you could even break down the mythical category of, "the poor", this far you'd see how futile suggestions of things like 'get an allotment' are.

(Third group: people who are living through it, post about the good ideas they have found. Totally ignored. They don't fit the paradigm.)

The hand wringers? Oh do you mean the posters who are either part of the group being talked about or who have sympathy/empathy with them?

Let them eat cake!
Seriously you need to see the real world, many people do not know what a blackberry is let alone have access to swathes of country side to go blackberrying in.
You have obviously never been to an estate in south east London.
You are lucky you live in la la land

swallowedAfly Water is provided at our allotment, and the cost is included in the yearly fee (£21), as is the case with every other allotment I know of.

you would be suprised how many kids dont know you can eat berries,we have a big bush in our garden and there are loads on the way to school which my kids stop and pick all the time,the amount of times their friends/cousins have screamed nooooo thats poisonous is ridiculous.

Well, to be honest, most people on allotments have plenty of water butts for watering, and most vegetables are not that thirsty for water if you leave them to it. This has been a pretty good summer, weather-wise, and I've only had to transport water up to the plot once.

However, I would agree with the majority of views expressed in this debate - ie, allotments are really a pastime rather than a viable way of saving food money. In a good year I reckon I manage to get an average of £5 worth of fruit and veg a week out of the plot, but reckon I spend about £250/ year on plot rent, seeds, etc.etc. Last year was appalling, and for months I got nothing at all from the plot. That's not even factoring in diesel to get up there. And in order to keep on top of the plot, we have to spend an afternoon a week there- every week. (I'm a single mum with a full size allotment, although a friend has allegedly taken over a third eyes said friend's weeds).

We do manage to have nice things we wouldn't normally be able to afford (have youseen the price of rhubarb, rocket and French beans in the shops?), but if your major concern was getting some nutrition into your family, you'd be buying value apples and carrots from the supermarket, and finding another way to raise some cash that afternoon every week.

In order to properly feed yourself from a bit of land, I think you'd need to do what peasants have done for centuries- use some of that land to keep a pig, possibly also chickens. I reckon rabbits would be pretty cost-effective too. But how many people nowadays would be up for butchering a pig?

You're right there, Peaches, about the third group. There's always a reason that someone's valid suggestion won't work. Or won't work for a particular subset, when in fact it MIGHT work for 50% of one section of "the poor", this helping that group A BIT! No-one's saying that foraging will lift us out of the recession and we'll all march forward into a bright future....I'm seeing Soviet-era banners here, held aloft by big-bicepped (from all the fruit picking, dontcha know) women....a broad bean and a blackberry replacing the hammer and sickle.....

Guys....cheap day out, fun for the kids, bit of vit c..... Not everyone can get to these fruit, but some can, and IF you can, and you fancy it, do it!

i think within reason it doesnt matter if people eat healthy food or not,i mean its important but its more important to eat.if you have 2 pound to feed a family of 6 then a cheapready meal and some frozen veg is going to seem more appealing than soaking some dried beans,chopping and cooking for ages.

i don't know how many you know of or if you know of one's beyond your area softsheen - and likewise for me my knowledge will be limited. certainly here where i am now and the other end of the country place i lived before did not provide any water. if yours is doing so included in £21 a year i doubt they'll be able to sustain that much longer given how much water you must all be using subsidised out of our taxes and in a climate where local authorities are cutting back on essential services let alone nice freebies.

But once again it all boils back down to having the time and resources to do this.

The time to go and find the bushes (as I posted before, I've not seen any round my parts. I wouldn't know where to begin), to pick the quantity you'd need to make it even vaguely worthwhile economically, to prep them, to make jam and cordial with them.

Then for into that I don't have a freezer. So I can't just keep any as raw fruit. Neither do I have masses of cooking equipment. Just a few standard pans, a couple of Pyrex dishes and a wooden spoon. That's on a fairly reasonable income, but at the moment I can't afford to move anywhere that has a freezer/space for one.

Added into that, I don't even buy sodding jam, or cordial or even blackberries themselves. So I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to have gained out of all that time, effort and potential expense.

A lovely free link to our guidelines
Thanks everso.

"IF lots of people on benefits suddenly got access to allotments do you know what would happen?

There would be thread upon thread complaining that they were getting something that hard working, decent families who pay taxes couldn't afford/access."

Given how sought after allotments are and how long the waiting lists are to get them, it wouldn't really be surprising if it was felt to be unfair if they were given only to people on benefits.

You would essentially be taking a universal benefit and making it a means tested one.

I don't think it would be at all desirable for plots of land to grow your own food/flowers became something "the poor" were given so they could become subsistence farmers.

I do still really like the idea that everyone in the country should be given ownership of their own plot of land.

Very, very true MrsD. That'd really get some goats which we could get milk and cheese from

hand-wringers

Are you referring to people who understand the structural implications on individual people?

I wonder what the structural implications on your life are?

I wonder whether you have access to affordable credit? Think of the power that brings.

live in an area that is effectively policed? Think of the power that brings.

able to travel without restriction to the places you need to get to, or indeed, want to get to? Think of the power that brings.

have had some choice about where you live? Think of the power that brings.

Whether your community has facilities and what sort of facilities they are? Whether they are accessible to YOU or to only some people?

I wonder how you feel about that?

I wonder, if you apply for a job say, whether the employer might look at your address and on that basis alone reject your application?

I wonder whether you are able to access decent quality healthcare? Dentistry?

Whether the local schools your children attend are able to give children a decent standard of education that will enable them to progress?

If you go to say, a local community facility, like a library or say bank, how do the people behind the counter look at you or speak to you?

I wonder whether all the things I have just mentioned would put you in a position where other people would make judgements and speculate on your choices, lifestyle and feel perfectly entitled to do that?

Discrimination is always about power and lack of power. If there wasn't a difference in power between groups of people then discrimination wouldn't exist. Power is largely determined by structure not by individuals.

Riots wouldn't happen if there wasn't swathes of people feeling oppressed.

This kind of thread just reinforces discrimination and the one thing I think you are right on is

I think this group love the validation that the hand-wringers bring (apart from your use of the term hand wringers!)

No - hand wringers are the people who respond like this:

OP: Slow coking cheap cuts of meat is great.
HW: Not everyone has the right pot to do that in.

Of course not everyone has, but that statement ignores the fact that the vast majority of us does. The OP didn't start off making a statement about lifting the poorest and most disenfranchised out of abject and enduring poverty: surely that would be reserved for a thread on reversing ridiculous policies and challenging the ideological shit-fest we are living through?

That is precisely how this thread has gone and I find it plays right into the hands of those who are desperate to see our society as having a massive, feckless, shiftless, borderline criminal underclass who need to be dealt with. Every time someone posts in anger, faces everywhere, with a list of reasons why the very poorest could not possibly collect blackberries, they reinforce that notion and go precisely NO distance in actually helping the very poorest because they've chosen the wrong forum for their righteous anger. (And it is right to be angry, just not necessarily on a thread about picking soft fruits.)

The idea that I am middle class and patronising to poor people is just ridiculous. I don't know where I would be placed in terms of class as the Swedes don't seem to be so preoccupied obsessed with class. I doubt we would be middle class if we lived in the UK.

I don't feel bad for referring to poor people as tge poor, Iwould also refer to rich people as the rich.

We did grow vegetables in our front garden when I was a child. I was very embarrassed and the only thing that grew properly were huge marrows. They tasted vile. I wouldn't recommend that as a money saving tip.

To be fair BeanAndGone, there is the opposite to all that. But this isnt the thread for that.

Unfortunately the op worded the whole thing very badly, including the subject title.

and I am not entirely sure her sentiment was altogether right either

People need to basically mind their own business, treat others with respect and dignity and make that a starting point.

I'm sick of seeing people feeling like shit day after day because they can't do xyz, They fell judged, they feel like shit, they have to justify themselves, they expect no respect. They are shocked when someone speaks to them like a decent human being. For fucks sake, can people here even imagine what it's like to walk around your own town feeling like you are unwanted, judged, disrespected?

BECAUSE THAT'S HOW IT IS - for lots and lots and lots of people.

Really angry and hormonal.