To be sad and appalled that a healthy diet is now beyond the reach of many.

[Darkesteyes]

Absolutely appalling. And it will have an effect on the NHS. Poorer people are bashed for being poor.. and bashed for being overweight. Why do I have a feeling its only going to get worse.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27225323

tequila it depends on what you do. I am currently addicted to pineapple which is amazing in the dehydrator. It intensifies the flavour and makes the whole house smell delicious as it dehydrates. I also eat a lot of strawberries and raspberries with cereal or porridge and again the flavour is intensified. Tomatoes are the same. Its not quite the same as dried fruit, less moisture in it.

Aside from snacks, the best thing about it though is for use in cooking. I don't always want to have to buy an aubergine and use it all at one. Now I dehydrate it and its always there in a jar to use a few slices. You just add water and leave it for a bit and it plumps back up to normal. Same for potatoes, carrots etc. Apples are good for apple pies, again just add a bit of water and it plumps back up. Really helps to add a lot of variety for things like stews, curries, soups etc and it all shrivels down to next to nothing so far easier than freezing it and using up all that freezer space.

And that really helps I think. nobody really wants to eat a whole meal made from chickpeas. But a handful thrown in with lots of other stuff can be really nice.

I don't have DC but if I were I would bring my children up to be empathetic Something you are clearly lacking

You know crap all about me

I bought mine on amazon for about £30. There are quite a few different ones available. Mine is an Andrew James one (?). DH laughed at me but I've used it loads and it really has stopped me eating chocolate all day. The kids love the pineapple and the mango because it tastes just like haribo.

I know it's embarrassing not being able to cook, but she has no DCs a partner, a biggish kitchen and actually would rather buy a cardboard cup of tea than plan ahead and bring in some tea bags. And surely she can make a sandwitch at home.

Look, I'm not at the bottom of the pile ... at the moment; the threadbare rug can be pulled from under your feet without warning. Perhaps unwisely, I thought I might share some of my massive fails with you. Just in case (unlikely as it is) it might help anyone get a smidgeon more insight into how things go wrong.

I smoke. I can't afford it, and am giving up. My 'bonus' allowed me to buy a vaporiser kit and the stuff that goes with it - I've got 3 months' worth. Total cost £135. It was the extra money that permitted this provision.

I'm finding it impossible to switch from tobacco to vape at the moment, because I've been given notice on my house and can't afford to move. Anxiety is stratospheric. Unfortunate that I'm an addict, but I am, and it's well enough known that addictions intensify during stressful times.

I have mental health issues. As part of these conditions, I dissociate when I can't cope. I can find I've 'missed' ten days while achieving nothing whatsoever, and also that I've spent money online. Sometimes I can persuade a seller to cancel an order, but often I can't. I end up selling things I was convinced I urgently needed, for less than I paid.

Another aspect of my MH is an inability to deal with paperwork: forms & suchlike, funding applications, etc. Despite my high literacy & numeracy, phrases jump about on the page/screen; I lose basic maths ability and objectivity; I cannot express myself properly.

I have CFS/ME. From my current home, it's a short walk to Aldi - which is a total diet lifesaver - but I can't walk anywhere on about a third of my days, and can only manage to cook about one day in four.

I'm (medically) dairy intolerant, have a couple of severe food allergies, and my health conditions mean I should never eat pulses or soya. I do use them because of the cost savings, but it isn't helping my health. I need a high protein diet - just ate a value scotch egg in Aldi as I was about to pass out.

I have no social life at all. It's all online. Because I miss going out, I drink a couple of cans of own-label beer in the evenings while talking to you lot.

You'll be pleased to hear my 22" flat-screen telly was £50 from ebay

I'm BETTER placed than most down here in the underclass. I'm intelligent & educated, I own fabulous cooking kit from when I was well-off, have extensive knowledge of nutrition, my mum bails me out with food parcels, and I can walk to Aldi. I've received a few large payments that facilitated everything from a new coat to beating down my mobile & broadband subscription costs. My mobile's 5 years old. I got an upgrade with my 'bonus' and immediately sold it.

So what I've just described, above, is what a PRIVILEGED life in the underclass looks like. Take away any one of my privileges, and the fall is far & steep. Yet, privileged as I am (relatively), I'm still facing homelessness. My mother will probably save me, because no-one else will. It's a bloody miracle she's still alive, thank goodness, because at my age I should be bailing my grandchildren out!

That took ages to type. I'll catch up after a break

I didn't think we were talking about extreme examples. People afraid of internet shopping, or living in the middle of nowhere, or living on £1 a day. Most people in Britain don't live like that, do they?

But to see what I'd eat if I had £1 to live on for a day I went to Tesco earlier and this is what I'd have for two meals, deliberately excluding items that were on offer:

Tesco everyday sardines with tomatoe sauce
Tesco value spaghetti
One apple

And still have 16p leftover to use towards next days food.

I haven't thought this through beyond one day but it's a fairly healthy day's food, though not great. If anyone can think of anything better for one adult on £1 a day I'd like to know.

I know it's embarrassing not being able to cook, but she has no DCs a partner, a biggish kitchen and actually would rather buy a cardboard cup of tea than plan ahead and bring in some tea bags. And surely she can make a sandwitch at home

Poor planning I think

I used to get get a pack of 12 onions for £1ish
Pack of frozen peppers £1
12 pack of eggs £1.30

That'd make omelettes for days.

Tins of chopped toms, 23p, tins of mushy peas 23p, other frozen veg £1 a bag, stock cubes £1.. make all sorts of soups and stuff.

Corus and sarinka. No, not easy.

I'd never heard of home food dehydrators, squirrel! Wish you hadn't done that It's only because I'd just written my last post that I stopped myself pressing 'buy now'

I definitely need that break.

and thanks Squirrel I'm going to look into getting one of those!

The 'supermarket' was a Tesco Metro a mile away.

I think it's just fairly obvious from certain posts on this thread that many people take the option of disengaging with the poor and therefore avoiding really taking the time to fully grasp what life is like day in day out and indefinitely for a lot of poor people. That's the hardest part you see, it's unending. So yes on paper, it's sensible to chose a bag of carrots over a pack if biscuits but when your whole life is making that choice, it becomes awful. I don't want to chose carrots for the whole 80+ years of my life. When your whole life is shit, and stressful and a battle those biscuits taste amazing and the sugar makes things look less bleak for a while. It's that simple for me at the moment. I'm a single mum to two under 4 on benefits. Except my benefits aren't all coming through just because the council has decided it can take its time. I've maxed out a credit card paying rent so we don't lose our home, my son has been drinking watered down milk for weeks because it's so bloody expensive and my milk vouchers haven't come through yet.

We eat toast a lot. We eat rice a lot, and v v cheap meat. We eat onions and root veg but not much else green. We eat vast quantities of bananas every week because they are filling.

Today I went to the council to try and beg them to hurry up with my claim, and they wanted too see some more documents. I had £10 in my purse. £4 went on the bus fare, yes buses are expensive but that's because I live very rurally. I save money overall because the rural ness of my house means that it is twice the size of what my housing benefit would cover in towns or other villages and I have a long term let so don't need to move for next ten years. The appointment at the council fell at lunch time. I'd given DCs some food before we left but they weren't hungry yet. After appointment (where I was told I have to wait another 4 weeks to get my HB through meaning I will have to find another months rent from up my arsehole before then) my daughter was hungry. The next bus was an hour away. I bought the toothpaste, milk, bread, eggs we badly needed. And I bought one large sandwich. That sandwich was shared out between two DCs and me. My daughter didn't like it, wouldn't eat it. It was all they had and I knew when I bought it I was risking it but had no other options. She cried and refused to eat it. She isn't fussy, she's just a three year old with little understanding of out circs. I walked into pound land and I bought a pack of super chocolatey cadburys biscuits. DD and I sat and ate them.

Yes I could have gone and got some bananas, yes I could have dragged her home crying with hunger and then boiled chickpeas for hours but I chose unhealthy biscuits. Why? Because I'd had a fucking shit day, because I was trying to force my Dd yet again to eat something she doesn't like, like every morning this week where I have shovelled porridge into her as she cried because there literally is no other food. The biscuits were sugary carbs but for that hour until the bus came we smiled and played I spy and felt better.

I refuse to accept that because you happen to be poor, that I should be miserable. I refuse to accept that you up there with your millions can buy some biscuits because you are rich and yet I have to boil carrots because I am poor and if I fail to boil carrots I deserve to be told I am a bad mother. I am mother who is fighting for the best for my children against a system that seems intent in tripping me up just because, a system which has taken 2 months and is set to take another to process a housing benefit claim of someone who fled DV and has no savings or income save benefits. I am someone who wants my children to have as normal an upbringing as possible, who doesn't want them to suffer, to really feel the desperate ness of our current situation.

Some of you on this thread make me so bloody angry because you have disengaged from people like me. You make sweeping statements about this homogenous mass that is "the poor" and decree what food they should buy, and how many supermarkets they should walk to because you have absorbed all this media bollocks about scroungers and scum. It really has gone back to the undeserving and deserving poor in today's society, and yet, while you sit here debating how long these people should spend growing herbs in their toilet, real actual children and families and elderly, and disabled are scraping by on a pittance, facing sanctions, evictions. More and more are using food banks, more and more parents are eating little to ensure their kids can eat. Who gives a fuck if they buy some biscuits, can you not see the bigger picture here? The lack of empathy is the problem, the dehumanisation of the lower becoming the "other".

ashadow :( I hope you and your daughter enjoyed those biscuits. I agree with everything you've said and I hope you're situation is better soon

Blimey there are some moving and interesting posts on this thread. [GarlicMaybeNot] I thought you post was very moving - I hope things work out for you. Bloody MH problems

I don't know if it's already been mentioned but there is no need for fruit and veg to spoil. unless you don't have a freezer You can freeze everything, some things are better blanched or puréed and some things are better cooked first but there is no need for food to go to waste.

Pickling etc has gone out of fashion but there was a reason it used to be so popular.

AShadowStirsWithin
Your situation sounds very difficult, I really hope things work out for you.

I dont think anyone is talking about odd packets of biscuits or sweets I think its families where they never eat anything other than 'crap'.

Bravo, AShadow! I couldn't agree more.