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.

but that's a budgeting issue, not a lack of money issue

absolutely agree!

Wow, are you the Marie Antoinette reincarnation?
Bloody hell, I could give you examples of really really cheap meals too I can cook.
But I also know that our gardening is the result of being a middle-class relatively privileged people who have the time and the energy to look for information on gardening, because our minds are not occupied by thinking where to get the money to pay our last month's electricity bill.
I feel privileged because my Mom knew how to cook and how to cook from little and stretch a meal to last for two days or three. But that's once again, a privilege and I know that many people don't have it.
I also have the tools because I can afford going to a shop and buy some great pots.
Instead of standing there and naively wondering why people have to go to food banks, why don't you get engaged in activities that will help them? But without that bloody condescending and patronising tone you adopted in your initial post, OP?

glintandglide, cathf said there is no-one in this country so poor they cannot afford to buy food/sanitary products. You agreed with her.

We just couldn't afford to suddenly move house.

The other thing I hate about the attitudes shown here is it’s implying all poor people are stupid- too stupid to budget, too stupid to recognise which foods are cheap in the supermarket, too stupid to follow easily available recipes or to research.
Doesn’t it occur to you that poor people aren’t some homogeneous bunch with the same levels or intelligence, education etc?

I didn’t agree with her?

You said There's a lot of truth in this. My point is that we have been in food/period poverty, and I can see us being again. I had this row with cathf on the period poverty thread. 55p is still 55p I could make a meal out of.

I think there is something in the idea that better education about food would probably help some people make better meals nutritionally with less. But when you have no money for food or electricity, are in a situation like a refuge with limited cooking facilities or you have children and it’s the school holidays where you have to make another meal come for your children from somewhere - that’s a whole other kettle of fish. The problems are so much more extensive than just poor education.

Banana but they also have to be filling meals which all children will eat.

There is research to show that people only have a certain amount of bandwidth for decision making

@Wilhemenawonka the research I saw was something like being poor and having to make those constant decisions takes up the bandwitch equivalent to reducing your IQ by approx 30 IQ points.

I think the post by @Wilhemenawonka (it's long so I won't c+p) hits the nail on the head perfectly, and without the possibility of their situation changing, is the permanent reality of a lot of families. That post really hit me, and I know it isn't the worst case.

I'm not in that position right now but have been before and remember it so vividly my heart aches to hear anyone IS in it now.

And I know that if certain things were to fall apart tomorrow, over the course of a few months I would be there again. In fact it scares me so much even now i worry over buying a packet of cheap biscuits because it's a "luxury" not a necessity. So not only can it be hard to get out of, but it's hard to get to a place where you can actually save and ensure you have a good back up in case you head towards it again.

I hope the OP knows by now that it's just not as easy as their first post.

I think there is something to be said about the mental state of people who find themselves in the situation of food poverty. When you leave a home with kids, go to a refuge, leave refuge for a home if you are lucky and are still going through court regarding divorce/finances/child access etc the last thing you need is to be working out how to plant seeds - find the tools to garden with and have the knowledge to not waste seed etc or have no access to the internet to gain knowledge. I think you are ignorant of the truth of poverty in general and the state people are in when this happens.

cathf well said. I agree with a lot of your points, and I have been there (food banks, lost weight through not having enough food, etc etc).

Also, I don't think it's straight up "food poverty". It's just poverty. Nobody has everything they need except money for food, it doesn't work like that. Money gets portioned off to different things so other things go without as well, not just food. Would you start a thread for the "heating poverty"?

OP I think your heart is in the right place, and at face value, some of what you say is logical, However, as others have pointed out, there are so many variables to factor in, that some seeds and pots are just not a solution. Some things to consider are:

Many people living in poverty or close to it are overcrowded, e.g. a mum I know has her and her 3 kids in a bedsit awaiting permanent accommodation, they have been there 3 years. There is no space for pots of vegetables, or storage space for a slow cooker/big pots for batch cooking.

If you have zero spare money or indeed your outgoings are more than your income, you will be loathe to increase your water bill watering veg, or your gas/electric batch cooking for hours, when that money is needed to keep warm.

Time, when you are working multiple jobs trying to make ends meet, there is no time too batch cook/tend veg/forage.

Know-how - as you touched upon, many people just would not know where to start with it.

Practicality - let's face it if your kids have been used to iceland frozen chips, peas and waffles type meals because that is what is on offer and you can afford etc, presenting them with dahl or veg curry is highly likely to end badly, resulted in precious money being wasted.

The bare truth is, the endless cuts to benefits and assistance in this country has driven thousands into poverty; education, grow your own etc is all well and good but the root cause i.e. not enough money, needs addressing first.

I am not sure how you are interpreting my comments as a dig at Jack Munroe, but her recipes are not directed towards someone who only has access to a kettle and a microwave, or maybe a shared a kitchen, or is living on temporary accommodation or who do not have pots and pans or are living in fuel poverty. Or live 40 minutes walk from the nearest supermarket, or are knackered from working two jobs, or don't have the skills or confidence to cook.

And if you are in these circumstances you are not going to fuck around with cans of pulses, and (optional) teaspoons of chille, you just eat what is quick and fills you up.

So the op's original suggestions, although misguided, were no more daft than anyone who pipes up with 'Jack Munroe has got some good recipes' every time some says they can't afford to eat.

@Allergictoironing I am in the same position. I have a huge tumour, am having treatment and just not well. I can cook. I struggle to stand though and am currently living on a pittance and getting an hours help from the Red Cross a week.

When life is shit it's another kick. I hope things are better for you now. My job are trying to force me out under ' competency' but I am hoping to argue my case under disability discrimination.

@glintandglide - the ability to cook and to cook economically isn't about being smart or wise. To me, it's a privilege. I feel privileged because I actually learned how to cook from my Mum who learned it from hers etc. They came from a very poor background but they were also privileged in the sense that they came from a culture which was built on very poor people trying to use up everything to get fed.
I also feel privileged because they taught me foraging for berries which is a very old skill, very typical for the country I come from.
I can imagine that there are cultures where the poor were mainly from urban areas and over the generations they lost the knowledge of how to forage for food. I also don't believe that foraging for berries should be what the poor should resort to. In our society this should be a spare time hobby and not a skill needed to survive on a day to day basis.
I can also imagine, that the ability to cook could have lost somewhere alongside cheap rental places with barely a bed available, let alone a properly working oven.
So the ability cook and stretch low-cost meals has nothing to do with intelligence to me or the lack of it. It's about the skills you learned from your environment. And also options you have.
I wouldn't be able to cook without electricity and a working oven.

I do think the culture has changed for all kids in that kids are no longer expected to eat things they are not keen on - not talking about absolutely hate.

@abacucat - poverty has nothing to do with children being picky. That's just asinine.

Totally agree it hasn't and I have already posted reasons why the OP is totally wrong.

For all the "just get an allotment" posters

Rental chargesFull Plot (250m2) - £72 per annum
Half Plot (125m2) - £36 per annum
Quarter Plot (63m2) - £18 per annum
City controlled plots with water supply are an extra £18 per year for each full plot and £11.50 per year for each half plot. Water charges at allotment sites run by committees may be different to these charges.

So the cheapest plot (sounds quite large to me but I dunno if it would feed us) is £29.50 per year, well this year anyways. Then you need some kind of building to store your tools and seeds and seedlings and sacks of compost. Bet that even if you beg, steal and borrow as much as possible, it will end up costing a hundred quid a year. For what now?

People may well and fine know how to cook, I do, but in my worst 4 years of adult life, I had so little money for food, I would buy the cheapest ready meals and microwave them. Even for my children. Because they would eat it. I could have made a curry or artisanal bread, but the chances of the kids eating it were slim. And that would have been food and electric wasted.

I also had a fridge break down irreparably. It took 4 months to save up for a new one. What do you buy when your fridge is not working?
Well it just so happens I can tell you. A pint of milk every day (costs more but why buy a 4 pint when it will go off)
Porridge (to make with water) oats.
Crisps for crisp sandwiches.
The cheap shit tuna (flakes) and vinegar cos mayo is better kept in a fridge.

You can't buy cheese or yoghurt or fruit or veg unless it's just enough for one day, two max.

I have also in the same time period, had to wash clothes and bedding by hand, and use a ripped up sheet as sani pads.
I can't eat porridge now I got so sodding fed up of it.

This washing by hand and buying a day's worth of food is time consuming. If I had worked at the time too I probably would have run myself into the ground. I was ill a lot, permanent cold, always wheezing, aches etc.

Think before you post such pish.

Not having money to pay for electricity to cook food
Not having money to get to the shops
Living too rurally to walk to a shop
Not wanting to spend your last pence on ingredients your kids might not like and you’d rather you bought what you know they’ll eat
Not having enough pots and pans etc
Serious question - if someone can't afford to cook the food or to get to the shops, don't have enough pots and pans to cook, and don't want food that they don't know if their kids will eat, how is going to a food bank going to help them? They won't be able to get there in the first place, the food may not be what their kids like, and they won't be able to cook it!

I can remember when buying yoghurt was a luxury I could not afford.

And I got sick of bloody dry toast

Rangerider Most people still have access to a kettle, microwave and toaster. Foodbanks cater for these people.