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

we went berrying

You've just reminded me of something Last autumn there were loads of blackberries on the car park bushes ... I live in the country, but it's all fenced-off private land. I'm not up for scaling barbed wire fences for a bucolic blackberry pick. Anyway, I'd been keeping an eye on them berries and went early one day with a couple of carrier bags, to raid the car park There was half a dozen other people doing the same thing!! Most of them had brought children, so of course you have to let the kids pick a rewarding amount ... I picked a measly haul, then popped in the Co-op and they had apple & blackberry pie half price. So I bought one.

Ashadow, you say

Again, better support, better welfare system, security of housing and then, without the threat of benefits being stopped again, the bailiffs coming knocking again, then people can think about new life skills. It's priorities really

I think the priorities should be home-cooked nutricious food. I don't think achieving that should be a 'new life skill' I think it should be one taught from a young age so that it's as ingrained as bring potty trained.

Nobody thinks straight or makes sensible judgements when they have been eating crap for ages.

There has to be a way to break the vicious cycle, and I think education rather than throwing money at it, is a better place to start.

Who is going to teach that from a young age? We obviously would need to start somewhere so let's pick a generation. 8 year olds? Their parents don't have that life skill so they can't do it. Education then? Cooking is sporadic at primary level, secondary schools offer an hour a week. Is that enough? Especially if it isn't encouraged at home so they can't practice. Many won't have the ingredients at home to practice with. Some secondary aged kids from disadvantaged backgrounds will have suffered the effects of that upbringing. Behavioural issues, truancy, drugs. Youth centres may be a good base for those kinds of life skills but many areas don't have good youth centres of funding for them, or the volunteers to step forward and teach these life skills.

It's just so complex and each time a solution seems to beckon there will be an obstacle in the way. Short of setting up a nationwide charity organisation to get out there and work with young people and teach then these skills I don't know the answer. I know in specific situations the support is there, cooking, cleaning, budgeting were all offered as courses when I was in refuge but it was charity run. Children's centres occasionally run courses but these are few and far between. There just isn't the funding and volunteer numbers to tackle the whole nation.

It's a problem on a massive scale and unfortunately there isn't, and never will be the funding for it. Even if there was, I'm not sure everyone would be able to do it anyway.

Most Primary schools here have cooking and gardening clubs (London borough) but I don't think I know of any senior schools who do.

I imagine by the time they've grown up enough to grow food and cook it themselves, they would have forgotten most of what they learnt.

Plus they're voluntary clubs and not part of the curriculum.

Cooking in my school was a joke. I've never made a scone or a treacle tart since. Most days was just 'cook what you like'.

Yes I do know as an addiction counsellor that I'd be in a worse situation however that doesn't detract from my point about what unrelenting poverty is really like

People judge folk with addiction or big tv's or other shit but I'm damn sure if I was homeless with no kids I'd be trying to escape mentally as much as possible

That's why it's a life skill isn't it? It's something that was learnt from upbringing and watching family members. It's taken several generations of that not happening for that skill to become lost to many young people.

We all know how difficult children can be to feed too. That's another thing. If you have a young child who's a fussy eater you can't afford food waste, so buy what they will eat. Which is usually crap IME.

Addiction never helps and is no real escape from poverty. Even less money for food

iwantsun Can I ask, have you ever lived in poverty? Genuine question and please don't think you have to answer it. It's just because you seem to have a very closed view of it

That's interesting Tequila because there was a time when poor people simply couldn't afford to pander to fussy eating.

You ate what your were given or you had bread and butter/toast.

I wonder if some of the fussy eating developed during more prosperous times and now it's difficult for parents to do anything about it?

To remind everybody, One in six GPs has referred patients to a food bank in the past year. Starvation is a growing crisis in THIS country.

Evidence from GP surgeries is matched by hospital diagnoses of malnutrition, which have nearly doubled in the past five years.

Many GP practices now hold vouchers for their local food bank while others are linked with local social support services to whom they refer patients who cannot afford to eat.

This is an entirely new phenomenon in modern times. Doctors are trained to suspect malnutrition caused by certain illnesses, eg cancer, but have not been trained to consider starvation as the primary source of patients' illnesses. Five years ago, this was not seen in the UK. Now it's a public health emergency. Malnutrition doubles the cost to the NHS of treating each patient's illness.

15% of elderly Brits are critically malnourished.

Rising food poverty in the UK is driven by a combination of rising prices, stagnant wages, and reforms to welfare, according to GPs and the UK Faculty of Public Health.

But the Department of Work and Pensions said there was no "robust evidence that welfare reforms are linked to increased use of food banks" The Department wants you to believe the poor are all loaded, lazy twits who don't know how to cook mince. Meanwhile, 1.6 million children are starving thanks to its policies.

Independent article, Feb '14

I'm not sure worra I think you have a point, but there's not really much time for experimenting really is there. So if they've had those cheap chicken nuggets for their tea (dinner) one night because you couldn't do anything else and then they refuse to eat anything else, in that position I'd just carry on buying the nuggets. I know that probably sounds like shit parenting, but on a limited budget and just wanting them to eat... I dunno. I'm probably wrong.

TequilaMockingbirdy Fri 02-May-14 22:53:51

iwantsun Can I ask, have you ever lived in poverty? Genuine question and please don't think you have to answer it. It's just because you seem to have a very closed view of it

Despite volunteering at a food bank.

Do you think Oxfam, the Red Cross, Save The Children, et al would be mobilising in the UK if the problem was just about cookery?

Yes darkest I hope I never have to use her foodbank as I wouldn't like to be on the end of her judgement :(

I speak from my experience of volunteering at the food bank

Tequila I hope you never come to my foodbank for a variety of reasons

Ah okay iwantsun thankyou for answering. I do suspect though that your opinions may differ if you had to live it. I'm sorry if I sound patronising because I do feel you can offer an opinion without having done something, but truly it isn't the same until you've had to IYSWIM.

Fortunelty iwantsun I am now in the position, despite being on universal credit myself, to be able to donate to local foodbanks. So I doubt I'll ever have to.

sorry spelling there!

"Tequila I hope you never come to my foodbank for a variety of reasons"

Wow. That's a bit unprofessional, isn't it?

YY Garlic. I saw somewhere that its the first time those charities have had to mobilise in this country since WW2

Wow. That's a bit unprofessional, isn't it?

How? Have all your posts on mumsnet been professional?