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.

I HAD the practical skills. I still have them now.

Couldn’t chop veg well because I couldn’t afford a knife sharpener.

Couldn’t go to the butcher to get him to sharpen them for me because I couldn’t afford butcher meat.

Had limited income so tight budget. And that included for electric and heat. No gas so had to cook on electric.

I listened. I went to uni to improve my prospects. And it was the skintest I’ve ever been and I’ll be paying back the loans til I’m 100

I tried growing tomatoes on my window sill this summer. Inside so the slugs didn't get them. I watered them diligently and they produced 4 tomatoes...one of which was mouldy.
I tried growing pufballs....Nothing happened .
My courgettes got eaten by slugs as did my pumpkins. Not a great way to feed myself and I'm pretty green fingered.
I do think that everyone should have access to frugal cooking lessons and horticulture should be taught in schools.

I think everyone is being a bit harsh. I totally understand your point. I think there needs to be more education about healthy eating on a v v v strict budget. Of course SOME people have NO money but I'm sure a vast majority of the population have a spare £5 each week and could benefit from this sort of knowledge

Your food sounds rank

"OP have you tried making acorn flour? It’s a little bit of work but well worth it?"

@courtney555 I feel the same as you. I didn’t have a clue just how horrendous it was and I feel abysmal. I’m not virtue signalling here, but it did prompt me to go and look for volunteer opportunities, and they’re all full on that front where I live. I’m going to make regular donations instead.

I also had no idea period poverty was a thing. Not a fucking clue. I don’t know why this sort of stuff doesn’t get more column inches (well, I do, but it’s expasperating that it doesn’t)

If anybody has suggestions other than making regular donations/what to donate, please send a message or post on here.

It’s both surely ?

Yes it’s exists
And yes people don’t know how to cook . Hence obesity epidemic

I get so annoyed at people who talk about foraging and finding apples, etc as if everybody has access to these things..do you not realise that the vast majority of people just don't have these free fruits etc growing in a convenient, nearby, accessible place? You are lucky, and I'm happy for you..but to imagine it's the same for everyone is just silly, and a wee bit arrogant.

The obesity epidemic is not just a result of people not being able to cook. Hidden sugars/fats/calories in processed food, which is often cheaper and easier than home made (fried beans notwithstanding), especially if you’re working multiple jobs, etc.
Our weekly shopping bill has gone up significantly over the last few months. We’re relatively well off, I think, but we’ve had to change our buying/eating habits. God knows how people cope if they only have pennies (or worse) to spend.

What about those people who can't access places that sell lentils and aubergines. Some people will do the weekly shop at the local corner shop ( it costs money to get the bus to the supermarket. Even worse if your a single mum with kids, you have to pay for everyone to get to the shop). Corner shops don't sell couscous and lentils. It's multi bags of crisps, and burgers.
Not everyone has the equipment to batch cook. If your on the bare bones of your arse, you can't always afford to simmer stuff for 3 hours, you might not be able to afford a freezer. Some people might not even have a functioning fridge.
What about kids meals? You can't pack little Timmy of to school with a stew he needs to reheat, because they don't have access to a microwave. School lunches need to be something that's easy to consume cold.
Also your idea of an appetising meal, might be appeal to the tastebuds of everyone!

I read the OP and thought "my you are living in lala land." If only there was such a nice easy solution. I am lucky to have money to buy food, heat and run my house and have a choice not to work and some days even I don't have time or motivation to cook/forage the way you describe. Fortunately where I live I have access to and money available for healthy good food.
Some people only have the energy to get through the day let alone plan meals, go foraging, tend gardens or soak chickpeas.

It just feels like you have no idea how the other half live so maybe it's not those who live in food poverty that need educating OP.

In the nicest possible way OP, you have no fucking clue what food poverty means.

I have a huge allotment. To grow a tomato plant costs money. I need seeds, probably 3 size pots, compost, probably tomato feed. I need space and the weather to be good. Same for any veg you want to grow.

We are lucky if we break even with what we spend vs what we harvest. And that's on a decent sized plot.

Do you think people in food poverty have the money 3 months before they eat the food to invest and gamble on a nice healthy crop of tomatoes?

Food poverty means you have very little money. Possibly not enough to get through the day never mind the next 3 months. You won't have kit or equipment. You won't have enough gas or electric to cook low and slow all day. You might not even have a cooker. You might not have a fridge or a freezer. You might not have transport. You can't afford to bulkbuy, and even of you could, you can't get it home. Or store it.

Food poverty isn't not being able to grow your own, or turn a bag of lentils into a meal to last 4 days. Food povery is trying to feed your family when you have no money.

It's when you buy food that fills hungry bellies for as little as possible. And that you can carry home. And store. And actually prepare.

I am ok financially now. But have had times when I have very little money. I can cook, but I had the kit and equipment and the knowledge. Some people don't. Growing a bit of veg and salad won't take them out of poverty.

Not read the full thread, but what an ignorant attitude.

Get to rock bottom, no money no space no free fruits etc nearby, then come back and say is it real.

You said in your OP if you were less lazy you could grow more - why don’t you do so then donate it to those less fortunate around you - you know, just to boost that ego a little more.

I don't get how people can't grasp that some people are literally a pay check away from the

Poverty line*

Calm down everyone and stop swearing.

There are 6000 reasons why people have to use foodbanks and 3 or 4 posters who have come up with alternative suggestions to help. Fbs should be doing more to help prevent FB usage and looking at alternatives. Just handing out food isn't long term..

Whoever said growing your own tomatoes was more expensive than buying is having a laugh. We grew some in a hanging basket and had hundreds of little toms. Stop finding excuses and look for answers.

And whoever is buying cat food or cigarettes needs serious advice. If I couldn't feed my children I wouldn't be feeding my cats or having a fag. (and smoking cessation is free!!)

Yall are demonstrating how come we have this bastard government. FOTTFSOF Neshoma. F = fuck BTW.

I don’t smoke. Don’t drink. When I was skint we didn’t have pets.

I do put pet food in the food bank trolley now and again.

Still don’t smoke. Still don’t drink. My neighbours now think I’m a bit of a joyless fucker but the fear has never left me.

Where did the hanging basket come from?

The compost?

The tomato food?

Where did the bracket for the hanging basket come from?

The drill to drill the hole to hang the basket? Where’d it come from

Oh and what if landlord says no?

@Graphista Bravo 👏💐

From using my initiative, and no, I won't F off

The OP made some valid points. FB's should provide classes in budgeting and food preparation.

I agree too, some of this generation only know how to open a packet and pop it in the microwave.

My landlord at the time didn’t allow me to put anything like a ha going basket up.

I pen the summer I had tubs with cut and come again lettuce and rocket but that was all I had space for. Or the money or time for. I had to walk an hour each way carrying the compost (no bus).

Cut and come again lettuce with a side of rocket wouldn’t go far and it wouldn’t do me any good in the winter.

Classes in budgeting. Priceless.