Is food poverty real?

[Leapfrog44]

Provocative title, sorry I know food poverty is real. I'm just not convinced about the extent of it.

I've cooked half a packet of dried chickpeas 50p which we eat fried with garlic, salt and olive oil. They're also delicious with pasta or with potatoes as a curry. Braised Puy lentils (60p) cooked with onions, celery and the bendy carrots left in the fridge.

And to really push the boat out an aubergine stew with onions and tomatoes. The 3 big aubergines cost £1.50. Tomatoes and parsley came from the garden.

I spent an hour cooking today including making a loaf of bread. With some rice or couscous, and some salad, what I've made will feed us for 4 nights.

We have apples too, foraged at the weekend. The windfall ones I cut the bad off and stewed them, the rest are good for eating. There are also elderberries, plums and a few late blackberries dotted around the margins of the city for anyone who can be bothered to go out and pick them.

I know not everyone has a garden but a very small space can be used to grow quite a lot. In pots I grew enough tomatoes, green beans and lettuce to feed us all summer. If I was less lazy or more skint, I'd also seed save, to ensure I can grow them for free next year. Many allotment holders would totally give up some produce in exchange for labour too.

So I guess I'm wondering if the increasing number of people who are in financial dire staits and find themselves needing to use food banks are in fact suffering from a lack of food education as much as lack of money? Our grandparents in the same situation would have cultivated every bit of earth with home grown vegetables and I'm sure would have been more resourceful and more capable of making do on very little.

Obviously there are very vulnerable people without the means to cook or to grow but surely not everyone experiencing 'food poverty' is in this category? I often wonder why at food banks they don't ask if recipients have access to a bit of ground (or a few pots) and give them seeds? Pulses and in season veggies are incredibly cheap and with a few quid you can feed your family really well if you know how to cook them. It's far better to cook a simple vegetable curry or dhal and eat it all week than have to exist on the pot noodles, tinned sludge, sugary cereals and biscuits that they're giving out.

Times are going to get MUCH tougher. Climate change and environmental destruction will soon jeopardise our food security and food banks will not be able to help everyone.

So AIBU? As a society are we actually getting poorer and hungrier or have we just raised a couple of generations lacking general resourcefulness, cooking skills and horticultural know how? Times are tough for increasing numbers but I can't help feeling that many of these people just don't have a clue how to help themselves.

40% of food bank customers are in full time work. Main reason they go to food banks is debt and lack of money management skills. It’s an education issue as well as purely having no money.

@Benjaminbuttonschild and I'm sorry to say it but anyone I have ever seen seriously struggling is someone who was either unemployed or didn't have a decent education, which they could have always got, yes it was hard and yes terrible at times but the rewards are being able to afford to live later on.

Obviously disabled/mental health/ other facts are exempt from this and those people I do sympathize with. However someone who didn't push themselves to get a better paying career in order to facilitate their life then no, I don't sympathize as it's their choice to either work their arse off harder to live a better life later on or not

There are people living in tents in the woods in my town. They’re not doing it for the foraging opportunities, I can fucking tell you that for free OP.

Bimgy... you didn't meet me then.

In regards to the growing things. We live in a flat with no garden. I've been on the waiting list for an allotment for years.

@Bimgy85 you are aware uni fees are now approx £9k per year. That's before accommodation and living expenses right?

And you're making massive assumptions about people having "many children" in one go. Many people have none, or one or maybe two. Hardly the "many" that you speak of. Even people with no kids can be made redundant and struggle to find employment for months afterwards.

Or is that a weird concept to you. As I said early "there by the grace of god"

Bumpy- there are families who work very hard and still find themselves not making ends meet. How hard is this for people to understand?
Do you have any idea how judgmental you sound right now?

There are so many reasons (not just because people decide to have children early or not get good education) why people go hungry. Life is so unpredictable. I’ve known hard working people become homeless due to a series of unfortunate events in their life. Life is hard. Not everyone has a full proof plan like you.

Hmmm, I have an allotment - I'm very lucky to have the time/money/opportunity to frankly piss about with what is essentially a very expensive hobby. Yes, oh yum! Lovely fresh produce.... We would have literally starved to death if we were reliant on it as our main food source.

@JustHereForThePooStories if I was dependant on my garden I'd have starved too and if I was dependant on foraging I'd probably poison myself. But it did give me access to some vegetables and fruit for almost nothing and if I'm out of work for much longer you can bet I'll be trying to grow and forage more. Most of us in the west are pretty useless at doing anything to feed ourselves cheaply and healthily and apparently I'm the only person who thinks this is a massive problem. Kids growing up poor now are going to be practically helpless when the state and charity sector completely run out of money to help.

I'm not from the UK so we do not have those huge college fees where I live. However we are a more expensive country I suppose - in Ireland, so may even out.

Boodapoo yes cause only children in poverty living on council estates are criminals ?

@Bimgy85 do you even live in the real world?

Imagine going to a food bank because you are starving and being given a packet of seeds.

Do you really think this is the solution? Are you someone who thinks there shouldn't be biscuits given out either?

It's lovely that you've spent an hour today doing some lovely home cooking. Probably in your lovely kitchen with all your lovely appliances. I bet you feel very virtuous.

Some people in this country are starving. They barely have somewhere to live. Giving them seeds is not going to address this issue.

Sorry my post was for bimgy

Hi OP. While I do agree that education around nutrition and food production can be helpful, it doesn’t solve an immediate need.

I’m financially secure. I don’t need to worry about bills, or water/electricity usage. I have a car and a choice of supermarkets close to me.

I also have a greenhouse and grow a lot of my own produce, not out of necessity, but as a hobby.

Here is one of my tomato plants. Thanks to living in an area impacted by a hose pipe ban, almost all of them failed. That was on a greenhouse, where I was even able to use the contents of my water butt to keep everything irrigated for as long as possible. Out of all of plants, this one fared the best.

Luckily, I wasn’t dependent on the tomatoes to feed me and my family throughout the summer. What would you propose I would do if I needed to?

I knew the whole "shouldn't have had kids" argument would be trotted out as if people don't lose jobs, don't lose homes, relationships don't break down, long term illnesses don't happen. And if they do happen, those are minority situations obviously because "benefit scroungers" 🙄
I know people who have had kids in less than ideal situations, with less than ideal financial circumstances. None of those people to my knowledge experienced poverty because struggling and poverty are not the same thing

I'm not from the UK so we do not have those huge college fees where I live

Ahh right so you chat shit based on your world view where uni fees are low to non-existent! Makes sense now.

Also, the uk population in general has developed a dependence on “someone else doing the cooking” whether that is take away, ready meals or eating canned and processed whatever. This has led in some respects to this dependence on food banks. People have lost the ability to cook up and use very basic ingredients. It’s true. Ready meals are the norm for millions in this country. They never , ever , ever cook. My neighbours, both of who don’t work, are like this. It’s take out or ready meals. When there’s no money for them, people don’t have a clue what to do. That’s poverty in education as much as anything.

I suppose it's very unfortunate to know there are many living like this, and also that I fail to see it from a different perspective. We will have to agree to disagree. It's good to see a range of opinion anyway.

@Benjaminbuttonschild yes but standard of living is double the price of the uk as is housing and people manage, but again, suppose it's just perspective.

Jamie Oliver and Hugh F-W took a real kicking on here when they gave evidence to the select health committee about childhood obesity. The headlines were about the sugar tax etc but actually if you watched the session or read the transcript there was a lot more to it - including things like 'fresh food deserts' - where a housing estate in an area of multiple deprivation had no shops within walking distance that sold any fresh fruit or vegetables. So if you have a vvv limited budget (including working families) - perhaps paying the bedroom tax, struggling to eat, heat and clothe then are you really going to spend money on transport to find fresh fruit and veg which would collectively blow your budget. It doesn't make "sense" to buy cheap filling fast food unless the other options are unaffordable.

That said, there are organic movements starting up to try to counteract this - community pantrys, food co-operatives etc but they will be small in scale and have limited impact both at scale but also in terms of penetration because the price differential still might not work.

But OP you are also right that there is a need to support people through education etc but education is useless unless there is an opportunity to practice it - to do that we may need "heavy handed" intervention that says all local precinct shops should include fruit/veg or that for every 4 sausage rolls for a £1 deal that Greggs does, it should do a '2 sausage rolls, 2 apples and 2 bananas for a £1". The problem then is we are getting dangerously close to the sugar tax and everyone hates the nanny state and Jamie Oliver.....

I suppose it's very unfortunate to know there are many living like this, and also that I fail to see it from a different perspective.

Yep, quite unfortunate on both accounts.

I bet you don't even know anyone living hand to mouth. You've probably got all your 'facts' about benefit scrounges from the daily fail or the Irish Sun. Shame.

No we don't have have to agree to disagree

Oh nevermind, I forgot Ireland has one of the best education systems in the world. This is why I have this view then. In Ireland you avoid poverty by getting the best education you can leading to a decent paying career. Thus why I cannot understand a full time worker being in 'poverty's

@Dorkdiary if you found out there was a community garden operating near you would you go along? If you had a couple of hours per week you could spend digging beds in exchange for a share of courgettes and potatoes would you go? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would do this. Fuck I'd like to see everyone have access to something like this but I guess I'll only be showered with a million reasons why it wouldn't work and jelly crystals from the food bank makes more sense.