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 they don't think. It's like all this "better yourself and get a well paid job" crap. Where will all these privileged women get their childcare and cleaners? Who's going to empty the bins? Or sweep the streets? Who's going to work in care homes? Or dish up school dinners? Or delver their latest purchase from Net A Porter? Fucking idiots.

RangeRider Good point.

And the older you get, the harder it gets. I am paid less now than I used to be.

I fell for the better yourself go and get a degree.

Couldn’t get a job at the end of it that was any better paid than I was on as a 20-something with only school qualifications.

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!
Did you even read any posts?
Food banks want food that has a long life span. Can be eaten cold right out of the can or made with a kettle full of water (so noodles, smash etc)
Food banks do deliver in some circumstances.
Noodles don't need a pan, smash doesn't need a pan.
Tuna from a ringpull can doesn't need a pan.

X post with abacucat.

I can’t face porridge. Ever again. Or boiled eggs. Or pan fucking cakes.

Read the book Nickle and Dime. That explains the reality in a very readable manner.

And if you had nothing at all, I am sure a food bank would help you get at least a kettle and toaster.

I can’t face porridge. Ever again. Or boiled eggs. Or pan fucking cakes

In the same vein, I can't bare bananas, porridge, plain pasta ( oh god the nightmares) any eggs cooked in any way, fucking toast, tea without milk.

@Bluelady - believe me, many think. I already posted how lots of those "self-sufficient" things she claims should be used by the poor are actually a middle-class privilege.
I can cook frugally. But I have the means, the knowledge and, most important, the energy to cook frugally if I want to.
Worry about where the money to provide food, pay bills or clothe my family doesn't sap my energy.
I can go to the forest and forage for berries because I have a car that brings me there.
I have a garden and space in my house where I can put plants.
I can cook because my ancestors did and they taught me how to do it.

And I think that telling people going to food banks that they should go and pick blackberries instead and cook a cheap stew from chickpeas while sewing their own clothes is monstrous and worse than actually openly despise them.

When really poor I got a microwave on freecycle. Pretty easy to get on freecycle, unlike a cooker and its transportation.

I cook frugally with pulses, etc. It is very useful for people like me not poor enough to need food banks etc. But not rich enough to buy whatever food I want. Cooking frugally means we eat better quality food than we would otherwise.

There are quite a few people here not engaging their excuses for a brain for a second.

And I think simple sewing repairs are skills everyone should have.

ancestors ???

I think there are various different answers to this question.

First, there are vulnerable people, people who can't prepare food for themselves for whatever reason (there are loads of legit reasons e.g. mental illness, physical ill health, lack of ability, etc etc etc ). They will solve this in different ways, maybe including spending what money they do have on expensive food like takeaways. Or maybe not eating :-( They might eat an unhealthy diet. I think these people need and deserve support and help to ensure they can eat enough and healthily without worrying. It's a cruel society that doesn't help these people.

Then I think food poverty can also be a result of lack of support regarding how to use your money. I don't remember a single class at school teaching us about income, expenditure, how to budget etc. I imagine that using money is really difficult for some people, and they don't manage to make sure there's enough left for food. This could be because of low income or high costs they have in life etc I think these people also deserve help and support. Maybe there just isn't enough money coming in, or maybe they can be given tips to help. I imagine austerity has caused horrendous stress.

Saying people need to be more resourceful has two sides. On the one hand, there is some truth to it, although there needs to be somewhere to go to get tips and advice how to do that: a lot of people can't simply suddenly become resourceful, but they could learn and possibly find it very fulfiling and boost their self esteem. But on the other hand, it's one thing to be resourceful and grow food in your garden when you are lucky enough to have a garden - try growing food for your family when you live in a tower block. Try growing food in your garden when you have a chronic condition, or when you work full time and have children... sometimes it simply isn't possible.

Just in case nobody has replied to the comments about growing your own veg, I tried to this year. Again.

I live in a lovely rural area and all the rabbits ate the plants. Again.

It's quite easy to say grow your own veg. Reality is often wasted money.

As you were!

Yes I knew a bran damaged man who could not buy or cook his own food and got no help. A distant relative ran a takeaway and he went there every night to eat for free. I tried to get him help but everyone wanted him to go there at a time I could not take him - he would not remember him to go. I did write him a letter he could sign to give to a Dr, so that a benefits advisor could help him get DLA. Why on earth they did not write him the letter I have no idea as he was not capable. People loike this fall through the cracks. He had a house with rent paid and was not starving as he had a takeaway every night, but by god did he need help.

I live in a lovely rural area and all the rabbits ate the plants. Again.
Simple solution - kill the bunnies & eat them instead

I (sort of) get what you are saying OP and certainly the removal of domestic science from schools has impacted on our ability to cook from scratch generally. Likewise the obsession with food hygiene means that lots of people have a fear of handling raw food, keeping leftovers etc.
A thrifty approach to food is seen as odd (how many people laugh at the MN chicken) but then if someone does have the financial rug pulled from under them they may not have the skills to keep everything ticking over in the short/medium term.
At our local foodbank, alongside help to get a job, apply for benefits if necessary, counselling, we ran a thrifty cooking course. It was free and each participant was given a free (small) slow cooker. Several of us taught a session. Pulses are problematic for people on their uppers because they take long cooking (and a good boil first) which uses a lot of fuel. We used red lentils and tinned beans to save on cooking time. Some people loved it and learnt a lot. Some pointed out that their DC would not even try something with a wet consistency, or they could not eat the same thing 2 days running.
It really isn't as simple as not knowing how or not being bothered: personal limitations and personal tastes have to come into it.
Recipes we included in a 6 session course (I can't remember the last category):
soups: onion, lentil, pea and ham, cheese, tomato.
pasta: simple pasta sauce recipes to go with value pasta (carbonara, pomodoro, arrabiata...and some others I forget)
eggs: Spanish omelette (tortilla), Yorkshire pudding and batter pudding, pancakes, quiche
Indian: selection of simple/quick veggie dishes which could be mixed and matched/chilled and eaten over several days.
Mexican: as the indian menu.
The Italian, Indian and Mexican stuff was universally popular. Soup and eggs were not well received (ie not as many came) but at the tasting afterwards we did have some converts.
Foodbanks don't generally see the same people every week so I can't comment on how able or not the clients would have been at growing their own. I can say though that I found maintaining some veg bits in my garden an absolute pain, and certainly more expensive than buying from the supermarket .

Abacucat, yes, I think that sort of tragedy happens too often. How kind of the relative with the takeaway and of you to help him. What if he hadn't got family and friends like that :-(

Huntlybyelection, exactly, the reality is less idyllic.

Bit shocked as someone saying they couldn't eat same thing two days running. That is pretty normal for me.

If you struggle to keep things cold, using up leftovers can be a worry. Some things will keep but it's knowing which need to be eaten on the same day and which will be OK. Back to the food hygiene concerns.

magicroundabout Yes sometimes all the rules do not help people like this. I rang Headway for him and they would only make him an appointment a few weeks in advance. Was pretty angry with them. They should have let him just turn up. He really needed their help. I worked long hours so could not make appointments they could give him.
Go to ASDA or similar in a poor area and you will see people who can not cope with cooking buying the very reduced sandwiches. For some it may be a knowledge issue, but not for all.