Healthy food for the food bank

[Pimpleminds]

DD's school want donations for the food bank for their harvest festival. I asked my friend who works there what they were short of and she said hot chocolate. Spurred on by this I picked up some instant hot choc and a box of coco pops but DD was horrified: 'no mum Mrs X (head) said it must be healthy food for people that don't have the money to buy things that are good for them'.
AIBU to think that if you are using a food bank you might want the odd treat as well?

We've just our box, using the list provided by the food bank. The DC put a lot of thought into how it would make up into meals, and I think they got the spirit of it. It included both biscuits and chocolate - as requested by the food bank We usually go round the supermarket and get as much as possible that's on offer. This time we put in:

Big bag of pasta, two jars sauce, two tins of fruit, pack of biscuits, chocolate, tea bags, shower gel, shampoo, tin of soup, tin of beans. I'm fairly confident it will be of use to someone because the food bank said so

I'm guessing this would be considered patronising by some. I think it's better to do it than not do it, and like any other donations to charity, it is well meant.

My local food bank positively welcomes value foods as they'd rather people buy what they would buy for themselves. No value snobbery here (Highly impoverished area).

Half of our list is 'treats' from the school, no its not essential but it can make life a bit varied.

Yes, some people are ungrateful, but most people genuinely seem to be thankful for whatever they receive, not label snobs thankfully!

This might out me but at my place of work, we choose a charity every year for bake sale proceedings etc to go to. We usually raise thousands. A charity team suggests candidates, three are selected, and then the rest of the employees vote to select the chosen charity for that year. A couple of years ago, the three choices were the Trussell Group, Shelter and Marie Curie Cancer Care. Someone was heard to complain that too many "poor people" charities had been short listed... Marie Curie won, in the end.

Oh God.

Message from MN - "Peace and love"

Now THAT I do find deeply patronising.

This is an interesting thread and has made me think about what I donate.

I tend to give mostly rice, pasta and breakfast cereal but from now on I'll be sure to add desert things and a bit more variety - include smellies and cleaning things too. I'm to say that I'd not thought about those type of things.

So hot chocolate is sweet and comforting but a bar of chocolate ( and only one person has actually mentioned tesco value chocolate!) isn't sweet or comforting and gives you the runs?

Has anybody else seen this?

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100242020/whats-fuelling-the-food-bank-frenzy-the-hunger-for-publicity-of-anti-poverty-activists/

It did give me food for thought, I must admit.

Just checked my local food bank shopping list. Cereal, tinned soup, rice pudding, coffee, tea and chocolate, snack bars.
They have a picture of pile of shopping, with a big bar of cadbury's dairy milk. So a selection of stuff really. Not just chocolate, but not just tinned carrots either.

hearts there is no dichotomy between the poor being fat and the poor needing food aid.

The poor are fat because cheap food is fattening. This is what they buy when they have money.

When they don't have money they can't buy any food at all.

Really simple.

Sorry, I thought it was quite a relevant link considering what the OP was talking about :)

Is instant hot chocolate such a luxury? A hot drink can warm you right through, and not everyone likes tea or coffee. My grandad used to drink cocoa made with half milk half water, or hot Ribena, or bovril.

That article seems to take a rather simplistic approach for me heart

'In the late 1950s, 33 per cent of household expenditure went on food; in more recent times it has been 15 per cent, creeping up to 16.6 per cent since the recession kicked in. Given that food is cheaper than it was for earlier generations, and that the welfare state provides money to more people today than it did in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the opening of so many food banks doesn't really make sense. '

Yes we get more welfare, and yes food is cheaper. But taking for example someone on a key meter for gas and electric, that's more expensive than a normal meter, rent is through the roof and although welfare is more generous it can be stopped at very short notice and it can take a while to receive it. Is it not possible that other factors are causing the need for foodbanks and that the need is genuine?

The benefit system is complex, and often families who have a liveable income usually can be blind-sided by a period of illness. Full wage one month, SSP the next and the full wage only covering living costs to the extent the family has no savings. The welfare system isn't really designed for short term or temporary hardship, you'll be back at work next month, there's no benefit for that. If you had no friends or family to help that's a scary situation to be in.

I for one am not feeling the 'thrill of pity' when I help.

If I ever had need to go to a food bank I would hope that I would be grateful at whatever I got not "disappointed" if it was value stuff! We live on a very tight budget and I would say that 70% of our shopping is budget food. Middleclass MN at its best

I think buying treats is great and I often give chocolate etc.

But I agree with blackberry that a foodbank cannot be 'in desperate need' of chocolate.

People have already said that things like chocolate go on the additional items table. If they aren't integral parts of the packages then how can a foodbank be in urgent need of them.

Nice extras - yes. Essentials - no.

I'm normally adverse to junk but recently I developed a taste for chocolate muffins and coco pops never having eaten either in my life, I only noticed this week that a horrible scalp problem I've had for the last couple of years has suddenly cleared up. I don't know if they're related but I did wonder..... I'd buy them for a food bank too, muffins are very filling and coco pops are delicious. I've even given them to my dd and she hasn't exploded or anything. I think that comfort foods are nice to have, more so for people who are so miserably poor that they have to use food banks.

Basics that are easy to make a meal from and use little electricity are probably best; bread, milk, butter, cheese, eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, chicken, tinned peas, beans, apples, pasta. Most people will eat those foods, most wouldn't have a clue what to do with quinoa, many veg are unappealing on their own and if you don't know how to cook them. Everybody can make toast or put a sandwich together, most can boil some pasta/potatoes/eggs, I think simple foods that everyone will recognise, know how to prepare and want to eat are the best.

I'd also put in tea bags, coffee and biscuits. It's the little things like having a neighbour over for a cup of tea that can help alleviate the misery and isolation of poverty.

Fair bit of zinc in chocolate/cocoa...zinc deficiency can cause skin/hair/nail problems...so probably coincidence, but might not be.

Round here, all the supermarkets now have collection points, with a list of requests for that week. Makes it easier.

I attended a talk by someone who set up and runs a foodbank.

He had some very moving stories. Including one about a woman crying when she found a pack of Mars Bars in her box, because she could now give her kids a bit of a treat for the first time in ages.

YANBU. I like to give muffin mixes to our food bank, the ones that don't require any other ingredients, just water. I see it as a treat that would be appreciated.

Everyone gives dried beans to our food bank because they are healthy. They sit on the shelves because: no one knows what to do with them; no one has time if they work to cook dried beans; they need lots of other ingredients that people may not have to make a good meal out if them.

I guess where I'm going is the 'obvious' food is not always the most practical. Lots of working poor go to our food bank and are looking for just add water noodle meals and the like. They may work two jobs or commute by bus and not have time or energy to cook from scratch. We are always in need of pasta sauces because they are quick.

I think your treat is lovely and will be appreciated! IMO no everything doesn't have to be healthy.

Have to add our (Anglican church) food bank is more of a 'store'. People choose what they like and need. Everyone gets two large grocery bags (no questions asked, unless they take like 10 jars of peanut butter), carton of soda, frozen beef, poultry, or pork (Their choosing), few gallons of milk if they would like, plus toiletries, etc.

I love that people get to shop with dignity.

thestreetstore.org/ You might like this then, Dark. A pop-up store for homeless people.

What a wonderful idea!!! Thanks for that!!

Did anyone actually say that foodbanks were in desperate need of chocolate?

That article in the Telegraph is vile. It's full of muddled thinking and it's just the result of a knee jerk refusal to believe that things are hard for some people. It conflates all sorts of issues and does the typical ugly poor/fat shaming that is the instant identifier of the rightwing stupid and hateful.

Ugh who gives dried beans to a food bank? People who think "let them eat pulses". They're poor so that's what they should be eating!

It's a terrible idea because 1. they take a million years to cook 2. you need onions and spices. On their own they are just taunting you, they're a gift that you could only be bothered to give half of, or less.
If you feel you must give pulses, give a tin of lentil soup. Or baked beans, which people in this country actually like.

(I love dhal btw and eat it all the time, but through choice and not because lady muck has decided that that is what I deserve. I also eat salmon and prawns)