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.

@HalfDivided can you please explain to me how? Of course I have been in debt myself. You cannot think of credit/debt as free money in which you can build large rates on. I got into debt at a young age and set aside a certain amount to pay off each time. Can you please tell me how you do not sign up to debt? Debt is something nobody is born with. It is something each one of us make a conscious decision to get into when starting a family or building a home or getting a car.

We have been in that situation once, for 3 weeks, and we could be again, as I stated upthread. DD would still only eat the foods she liked, luckily that's a huge range. She just doesn't like chickpeas, any form of potato apart from mash, and she used to have sensory issues with greasy food, but she's grown out of that now. Oh, and the only fruit she likes are apples, grapes and galia melon.

I love beans and pulses and luckily so do my kids. I say luckily because we have experienced the poverty you are talking about.
Difficult to make lentils tasty without veggie stock and spices. I remember trying to make lentil stew and my hands were too cold to hold the knife, because I couldn’t afford heating.
I used to sit in my local sure start when my kids were at school because it was warmer than home. Lentil stew became lentil crumble the next day and I used to have to drag my kids past all the others after school going to coop for sweets. I wish I’d thought about growing some veg then, or aubergines. Would’ve been a total lifesaver. 😂

Is this for real? I've got the money but wouldn't have a bloody clue how to cook chickpeas, aubergine or cous cous as I didn't have a middle class upbringing and was never shown. Yes I could look it up nowadays as I was fortunate enough to to complete my education to a high level but many people just dont come from that sort of background!

Okay Bimgy85

In my case it was pretty simple. I had a job, but I became seriously ill. I wasn’t classed as eligible for any benefits despite having a disability as it wasn’t considered to be affecting my mobility.

I had too much time off (a day or two here and there) due to my health, being in excruciating pain, unable to walk. My job didn’t give much sick pay and I ran out of it. I was under the hospital consultant having tests and investigations and often dragged myself into work off my face on morphine and ketamine I was prescribed for the pain but some days I physically couldn’t.

I had nobody to help me financially or practically and if I lost my rented flat I’d have become homeless so I took out an overdraft to pay my rent as I wasn’t getting any better. Then I couldn’t get any more, and so I got a credit card to pay for food and the journey to and from work. I couldn’t afford to pay either back as I was still earning way way less than I would have been if I’d been at work every day I was meant to.

As I only could pay the minimum payments I ended up spiralling with the interest payments and the debt grew and I had to rely on my credit card more and more for essentials. In the midst of it all my mum died, but she didn’t leave anything so I had to find the money to bury her. Council wouldn’t give her a paupers funeral so I paid the funeral (cheapest I could find) in instalments. Which was yet more expense.

It was a really terrible time. I did make the choice to get an overdraft and a credit card but if I didn’t I’d have been on the streets and I kept hoping I would get better if that makes sense. I made the choice to get into debt but I wouldn’t consider it a true freely made choice when it was that, or be homeless, if you see what I mean. It wasn’t like I took out a loan for a holiday. I was desperately scrabbling to keep a roof over my head and my bills paid while I was seriously ill and because there was no safety net from anyone in my life or the welfare system I was screwed.

I did really well to hold onto that job. I wanted to work badly. I’m a lot better nowadays and no debt anymore. But it can happen to anyone. X

I was 22 when all of this went down btw. Maybe I could have handled things differently, I don’t know. I just know it was so very hard to keep going, emotionally and physically, that I’m surprised I did. I was so ill and in so much pain. The days I made it into work I would sometimes fall asleep sat upright at my till because of the medication I was on. It really shocked me that there was no help available at all, nothing. I was denied disability benefits twice and have never received them. Despite every doctor advocating for me and it being a provable disability.

Trust me I really, really value my health now even though I’m never gonna be cured. If you don’t have your health you haven’t got anything.

Are we seriously trying to say it is okay to leave someone is a position where they can only afford to eat bread? In 2018? In the UK? In the 6th biggest economy in the world?

So sorry, Half, that must have been horrendous. 💐 Any more judgy nasty comments about debt, Bimgy?

I used to have to drag my kids past all the others after school going to coop for sweets. I wish I’d thought about growing some veg then, or aubergines. Would’ve been a total lifesaver

You should have picked up a couple of dead deer by the roadside, butchered them at home and stuffed the flesh into jam jars! Why didn't you?! Would have been delicious with the aubergines!

I got up at 6 this morning and got home from work at 8.00 this evening. Not sure when I'm supposed to fit in digging in community gardens and cooking for an hour like the sainted op.

What hours do you work op?

@HalfDivided I really sympathize with you. If you read the whole thread you would have seen I completely sympathize with those affected by a undue hardship such as disability or serious illness.

y?" Lentils are fine kept cool at room temperature (and I doubt people in abject poverty are heating their homes to such a level that food is going to spoil immediately) for a couple days"

During the heatwave my social housing flat got to 35 degrees for days on end. Its had cavity wall insulation put in twice at the insistence of the housing association. A lot of tenants didnt want it as we knew it would make the places too warm but we got no say.

Never takes long for these idiots to cycle back round to the race to the bottom and 'oh we didnt mean the disabled' posts.

The narrative needs to be changed in this country, instead of vilifying the poor and disabled we should be vilifying those making a comfortable living off the back of the poor whether its through rent, subsidised wages and so on, why should it seem acceptable to hoard so much property and wealth that people in this country are starving to death, people who are dying because they werent able to keep their fridge on for their insulin because of sanctions.

I hope each and every 1 of you naysayers end up in the position many people including myself have been, contemplating suicide because youre sitting in the dark because the kids are asleep to save electricity , huddled under a blanket because you cant afford to heat yourself and then when the kids get up and you tell them 'no i was going to have my breakfast after ive taken you to school', why should any 7 & 5 year old realise let alone worry that their parent isnt eating surely life cant always be this miserable but you struggle on, while knowing people judge you. Not only do I hope you end up in this position but fuck you, you can have my invisible disability then come back on the thread when you have the FUCKING right to opine about something you clearly know less than FUCK ALL about.....

Portiacastis. Thank you for the link.

I understood that Food Banks also asked for sanpro, toothpaste, etc. but maybe I've misunderstood. The talk of good nutrition made me think of multivitamins, that was all.

Sorry if it seemed dumb.

I don’t think it’s dumb Tidy a diet that was restricted would leave you vitamin deficient with no fresh fruit or vegetables being consumed. Not to mention lacking in energy.

formerbabe

Canned venison, also known as potted meat. No need to freeze.

"Well if you are getting 20k in benefits..." (Where the hell you getting that figure from?) And if they're getting NOTHING because they're in the middle of the MINIMUM 5 week wait for UC? And if they were previously on such a low wage that it was impossible to have savings, if they're waiting a month again MINIMUM for their first pay packet from a job - because most benefits stop AS SOON as you're working which you have to declare or risk being in trouble for benefit fraud. Even those benefits that are not supposed to stop immediately are 'suspended' while the agencies 'await evidence'. Food banks aren't open to EVERYONE people need referred and that only happens if they have NO money and no other means of obtaining food! It's NOT people getting regular benefit payments or decent wages!

Neshoma REPEATEDLY on this thread it's been CLEARLY EXPLAINED that food banks (unlike yourself) understand that the people they're helping may not even have a room they can call a kitchen let alone a cooker/microwave, money to power them, fridge or freezer, chopping board, knives, tin opener etc so they give them food which can be eaten cold or which they can prepare with minimal space and equipment - eg a bedsit and kettle! Ideas to 'actually help' have been anything from 'please volunteer at or donate to your local food bank' to posters like myself pointing out we need policy change and an ACTUAL living wage which ALL voters can campaign for. Tell your MP/msp, tell them you're more likely to vote for a party that genuinely recognises those in poverty in a RICH country and seeks to genuinely stop this being the case. Tell them if like me you disagree with massive pay rises for MP's that essential civil servants like nurses DON'T get. (I recently read that newly qualified nurses in 2018 are on £2k less than a newly qualified nurse earned in 2008).

I'm personally not in a position to donate much or volunteer. But I try on threads on here and elsewhere make practical suggestions, signpost those struggling to agencies which can help, if I get vouchers or codes, that either I can't use or in the case of codes can be used by more than one person, I pass that info on. When dd was younger I donated her outgrown clothes, toys and books to local charities. Statistically it's been shown repeatedly that it's those with little that tend to give the most!

"People need wages which reflect the cost of living or benefits which they can survive on." Exactly!

"I know there is the initial layout but..." But what?! Where is the initial layout coming from? You?!

What hasn't yet been mentioned that I can see is that most veg is very low calorie. Not only a problem in not being filling but contrary to popular belief calories ARE necessary ESPECIALLY for growing children and those in low paid jobs - which tend to be very physical! Also if you're this poor you're lacking money to heat where you're living too probably so your body uses more calories trying to keep your body warm and functioning!

Never mind cooking lessons there's a frightening lack of human biology knowledge on this thread - from the pps claiming to be better educated!

Cathf (not seen you for a while, using Nc elsewhere? Not surprised you're on this thread) not only are there a wealth of facts and figures contradicting you, but there are posters like me, like others I've read posting on this thread, who actually HAVE been in the circumstances described. Who've been homeless, who've gone without eating themselves in order to feed DC, who've gone to bed early in several layers of clothes in order to save money on heating, who've scrabbled around under sofa cushions for pennies to buy a cut price loaf... WE are speaking from ACTUAL lived experience. WE haven't had to imagine what it's like we KNOW.

"There is no-one in this country so poor they cannot afford to buy food/sanitary products." YES there are! You're downright wrong to say otherwise. And you've used ONE example of someone you didn't even know in real life to try and support your mistaken belief. There ARE people with NO income NO resources. Are you really so ignorant to think women living on the streets have money for food and sanitary products?

Bluelady - like the rest of your post especially

"Some of the comments on this thread are a fucking disgrace."

but disagree with this

"stop universal free school meals" not only is it cheaper to not administrate means testing there are children who's parents are too proud to claim these, or are unaware they're eligible when it has been means tested or due to learning disabilities or mental illness struggle to complete the forms etc which means children in desperate need missing out.

Personally I'd also ban prepay meters and renationalise energy provision.

"never imagined that people working a full week would face food poverty" oh it gets better! There's people working full time that are not only homeless but roofless! Yep people working in shops and cafes who when they've finished work are sleeping on the streets.

"Why is it not being spoken about on a wide scale basis?" Have you seen none of the threads on here about it? Seen none of the ads by manufacturers where they're telling consumers that they're donating to schools etc? Not heard of the red box project?

redboxproject.org

As for 'why didn't I know?' I suspect you're existing in a somewhat privileged bubble but I'd also question do you not have any friends that are teachers? Doctors? Because they usually know. Do you not watch the news? Programmes like question time? Or panorama? Or dispatches? Even the newspapers will contain some info (even if they are claiming that the people they're discussing have only themselves to blame!).

"The other thing I hate about the attitudes shown here is it’s implying all poor people are stupid" agree! I have 2 degrees. That hasn't stopped me from ending up disabled and mentally ill! If anything I suspect the poor are by necessity far more thoughtful and resourceful than people who've never had to be! Can you imagine someone like David Cameron trying to manage on £30 a week to feed a family of 4? He wouldn't have a clue!

The constant decision making/stews is bloody exhausting too!

"And can you see why this would be a stupid choice? With a bag of lentils (admittedly also an onion, and some spices)" and as has been REPEATEDLY pointed out on the thread people in poverty HAVEN'T GOT the upfront money for spices! OR possibly for the pans, cooker or fuel needed to cook those 15 meals! The aubergine stew - the point being made was that's £1.50 for ONE meal when that £1.50 would go much further on other 'junk' food. And where and how are you storing those 15 meals if you can't even afford a plastic box let alone a fridge! So now who's 'stupid'?!

"but once you divide that cost by the number of meals..." FFS! People in poverty HAVEN'T GOT the upfront money to buy oil and spices!! How many times has that got to be said?! The chips and biscuits don't require any fuel or additional ingredients!

And if you believe the bollocks on benefit bashing programmes or in the DM there's no helping you!

@sharingtheload supremely arrogant ESPECIALLY on a thread like this up post without reading - even the op has backtracked to a degree and apologised for their display of ignorance.

"This saving of 3p only applies if you have a full storecupboard. If you have to buy a block of cheese, a bag of flour, a jar of mustard that sauce is looking upwards of £3.00" exactly!

Reality:
Cost of
sauce mix: 50p, - actually 59p
milk 50p
Total for cheese sauce £1 - actually £1.09
Cost of
cheese (50g), 23p (won't be very cheesy but what can you do?) - actually £1.20 is cheapest I can find locally
milk, 50p,
flour, 5p - 50p for smallest cheapest bag
butter, 13p - cheapest spread 75p
mustard 6p - frankly a luxury if poor and making cheese sauce but let's go with it - cheapest 55p

So ACTUAL INITIAL OUTLAY - £3.50! If you've only GOT £1.50 you're gonna get value pasta (20p) and get the mix and milk, maybe try not to use all the milk in the sauce and keep it by for cereal next day or cuppa, and then only spend £1.29! I can remember making cheese sauce for pasta for dd and I at one point and only using half the packet mix at a time!

"ordinary medium curry powder is fine" - cheapest £1 - again if you've £1.50 to feed your family the pasta and mix is cheaper short term.

"They just want more money thrown at the problem." That IS a big part of the solution and clearly a comment made dismissively by people who are LUCKY enough that it isn't a problem for them!

Abacucat think I'm in similar circumstances to you. Money very tight but have an equipped kitchen and can afford the fuel to cook, have the knowledge and just enough money to get basic ingredients for cheese sauce or a tomato sauce. But yes the people living in bedsits, visiting food banks AREN'T even this lucky.

more rose-tinted nonsense about WWII - crime was rife! Families were going without and were malnourished, homeless and without eg shoes that fit! Not just in London either.

"I wander how many of the people in so called food poverty spend a large proportion of the money they have on drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, do they get asked this at the food bank?" ODFOD!

"Fuel poverty is not relevant." What?? Of course it's relevant!

"Are we seriously trying to say it is okay to leave someone is a position where they can only afford to eat bread? In 2018? In the UK? In the 6th biggest economy in the world?" Not only that, apparently supposed to be grateful for it too!

"we should be vilifying those making a comfortable living off the back of the poor" hear hear! Just what I was saying, but then it's easy to attack those without the power or energy to fight back!

We ran out of electricity this morning. My teenager sobbed buckets because, at 6 am, it was too dark to do her make-up without lights. The younger child whined incessantly about her porridge. At first she was fine about having no power, she thought it was a great adventure. Then she realised the gas oven needed electricity for the clicker to light the hob so she joined her sister and wailed outside my room.

Fortunately is ran out due to lack of time not money but I can just imagine their faces if I said, "Sorry, kids, power is not necessary. It's irrelevant."

if anything this thread helps cement the concept that it takes money to make money. for the poorest of poor they don't even have the basics to make any headway on savings.

My DH and our family live a life that's pretty close to the idea of "the Good Life" in that I'm in the garden every evening, to gather the veg for that night's dinner.

We make our own bread too. And eat a lot of curries and cheap, home grown foods or foods which we've traded locally for...our own eggs too.

BUT I am well aware that far from being poor, we're in an incredibly privileged position. To have the land needed and the time needed to grow the veg in the first place isn't something everyone has. Not everyone can do that.

I do think though that there's something to be said about the need for nutritional and cooking lessons for the underprivileged.

I do think though that there's something to be said about the need for nutritional and cooking lessons for the underprivileged.

Sometimes you may as well hammer your head on the ground.

I am all for cooking lessons for those that cannot cook, and have a secure kitchen with some actual pots and pans, fridge, freezer and a fair certainty that the fuel bill will somehow be paid.
Not a lot of use when your waiting 5 weeks for benefits, live in a bedsit, just been sanctioned for 2 years ( yes shockingly you can actually get no job seekers for up to 2 years)
I can cook, really well, yet back when I was eating dry toast I didn't think, "well here let's make a tasty Bolognese today, if I make enough I can freeze it and we can eat another day"
I didn't have a definite supply of fuel to keep the freezer running.
As said previously my fridge broke in this period, and then your eating food that can be cooked by a kettle, microwave, eaten cold.

Floof I am aware of how people live. My own brother lives in a House of multiple occupation full of other men with addiction problems.

What really need fixing is the shite benefit situation.

@Graphista you came name call all you like, but as someone on benefits who has been too ill to work I am acutely aware of poverty and how perilous the system is.
Just because I agree that education in schools would help doesn't mean I'm
ignorant to the situation. I merely think it would help. Not that it would suddenly solve food poverty.

Leaving the EU will bring even short term food shortages. Bad situation made worse.

As with most things, I think the truth is somewhere in between.
There are many people living in shared accommodation with no garden and not enough access to cooking facilities. When I was starting out, I lived in a horrible HMO where there was a shared kitchen where the men living there were sitting around in the kitchen smoking dope and drinking, and I felt too intimidated to go into the and cook. So I bought a microwave for my room and lived on junk. Not everyone has gardens, big cupboards to store food bought in bulk or enough money for gas to cook stews and baked potatoes for ages in the oven.

On the other hand, there are very few people (apart from the severely disabled) who have NO power at all to change their circumstances, at least a little. Most people DO have the power to do at least one of the following - work more hours, go for promotions, get more qualifications, move to a cheaper property/share/cheaper area, take in some ironing or do some cleaning on the side/cut down on luxuries. People can and do climb out of hardship, and some people do need to take a bit more responsibility. And, when I taught in the state sector, there certainly a lot of families who struggled to pay their basic bills where the kids did have stupid stuff like new mobile phones, branded trainers, holidays etc. If you can't afford food or electric, clearly you need to get your priorities right and you shouldn't be borrowing to buy things like that.