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.

Times are very different to WW2. People looked out for each other back then, now they just trample over them

There were price fixes too, no restaurant could charge more than a certain amount for food although they could charge a service fee.

There were also 'British restaurants' which sold a meal for 9d. They were used by people working away from home living n 'digs', people who had been bombed out of home and people who had run out of rations.

There was no stigma to using one The meals were nutritionally balanced to provide 1/3 of daily calories and nutrients.

Imagine that a heap health meal almost anyone can afford.

Actually yes, why can't people take initiative and think of ways to make money if they're stuck at home with kids not being able to afford childcare? Or with an illness preventing them from being able to works

Rather than staying on job seekers sitting home complaining about it and wanting people to pity them

Yes ironing would be a good idea
As would cleaning, painting, baking child minding

Yes ironing would be a good idea
As would cleaning, painting, baking child minding

This is so infuriating.

It is not a case of simply doing a bit of childminding. You need to register with ofsted, have a suitable home, facilities for the children, a crb check, childcare qualifications, suitable insurance etc etc

As for baking, you need clients, previous work to show them, suitable equipment, a hygiene certificate etc. Most people who bake at home and sell aren't making a living from it...it's a bit of extra pocket money if you're lucky...an expensive hobby if you're not.

Ironing - needs skill, equipment and marketing
Cleaning - how do you get enough hours to live on?
Painting - see ironing
Baking - see ironing, plus cost of ingredients and fuel
Childminding - need a DRB check, Ofsted

Any more stupendous ideas, Bimgy?

FFS if my disability allowed me to iron and bake I'd be in work not sitting at home.

I can't keep my own home clean, how do you expect me to clean anyone else's place?

It is not a case of simply doing a bit of childminding. You need to register with ofsted, have a suitable home, facilities for the children, a crb check, childcare qualifications, suitable insurance etc etc

Yes, you are right. It's far too complicated and inconvenient to do. There's sooo much to think about. What a hassle! Best forget the whole thing.

Alternatively, one could do all these things, make money and come off benefits altogether.

Flooffloofa day of eating bread? Then surely you must have been fairly full? As a regular person would be. In which case a day of
eating bread surely you wouldn't need any more food? Food is fuel
ffs it's a luxury of course to turn it into a hobby and a luxury to eat different exciting nice tasty foods but come on if you eat bread every day for a bloody week so what, it only ever existed to give and
sustain energy so cry me a bloody river that you only got toEAT

bread for a week. Some do not eat full stop

Y,know I live in a first world country right?
I don't think I had to be grateful for 4 slices of dry toast a day, I had to walk kids to school and back, and while they were at school i had to walk to supermarkets to buy cheap food, carry it back. All on 300 calories.
Just because some child elsewhere is starving, doesn't lessen my life at that time.
I consider myself hugely lucky to have only had 4 years of it. There are people out there that still live like that, in 2018, in Britain. That's beyond terrible.

"Alternatively, one could do all these things, make money and come off benefits altogether."
WHat-magic up a suitable house and enough money to pay for qualifications and someone to look after your children while you study? Yes- easy as that. I assume you're taking the piss?

Bimgy85

Before you start saying I am shooting your idea down - I have myself done some of these things, in fact I am actually a cleaner!!

"Or with an illness preventing them from being able to work" , do you realise how silly that sounds?? If someone is not able to work, then what makes you think they can suddenly, you know, work as a cleaner, ironer etc. Or are these things not real 'work' then??

Ironing and Cleaning?? Yes one of the cheap businesses to set up if able bodied, with the upfront money for supplies, advertising and insurance. Not so if you are not.

Painting and Baking?? Nah, I am probably going to offend some here, but I don't think these things would be enough to make a living from that would justify the start up costs.

Not to mention One or two small caveats to the plan -

That these jobs you mention - they couldn't be a way of making 'extra money' - otherwise the person would be committing ACTUAL FRAUD , and risk a criminal record (great for prospects) and fines. You need to actually register as self employed. And then unless you can make enough to sign off, then everything you make will just be deducted off your benefits, so you will end up in the exact same position. In fact, some on UC are actually much worse off working because there are higher deductions for those who work and they can't get certain loans from UC, get hit with pay cycle issues and have to pay childcare upfront.

Also the top ups for self-employed people have recently been severely cut. After a year self-employed, you are put down as earning 25xNMW (if you have children under 12) or 35xNMW (if not). Even if you are not earning this, your top ups are now calculated as if you were!! So we are in a much less stable environment for anyone wanting to start up as self employed. So any self employed people now claiming Tax Credit top ups child or working, or housing ben - be aware that this will happen to you. Also, in a couple with children, both parents are on this conditionality, whether employed or s.e.

I'm not saying people shouldn't take up work, I am saying that working low wage and insecure hours, is NOT a good solution to Food Poverty.

Especially considering the fact a significant percentage of people having to use foodbank are actually working.

Between 1st April 2017 and 31st March 2018, The Trussell Trust’s foodbank network distributed 1,332,952 three day emergency food supplies to people in crisis, a 13% increase on the previous year. 484,026 of these went to children. This is a higher increase than the previous financial year, when foodbank use was up by 6.64%.

^That this has happened to nearly half a million children in one of the world's richest countries is a fucking scandal. I can't believe some of the ignorance, denial and insouciance displayed by some posters on this thread. Fucking shame on you!

Yes, you are right. It's far too complicated and inconvenient to do. There's sooo much to think about. What a hassle! Best forget the whole thing

My point was if you suddenly found yourself in financial difficulty, becoming a childminder is not a quick fix solution...you'd potentially have to study for a while...what if you're home is unsuitable? How would you afford the initial cost of equipment? These are practical problems...quite often you need money to make money.

Do you also realise that many people in poverty are in employment?

Yes, you are right. It's far too complicated and inconvenient to do. There'ssooomuch to think about. What a hassle! Best forget the whole thing.

Alternatively, one could do all these things, make money and come
off benefits altogether.

You assume they have any benefits, sanctions, waiting weeks for benefits to start, not eligible.

Ok take childminding
You need a big enough house.
You need permission to run a business from your house from 'LL or mortgage holder
You need toys, many toys.
Insurance.
Safety gates, fire extinguisher etc.
DBS check £53
Paediatric first aid certificate.
OFSTED registration £35, or £103
Training at about £100
GP fee around £30 ish
And then any fences fixed, ponds filled in and whatever else OFSTED say.
Yeah I can do that on the £3.50 a week I had for food.

All these things you suggest have already been thought of by poor people.
Imagine if a load of really poor people suddenly started an ironing business? Where would all the customers come from?
I have never sent ironing out, always used OFSTED childminders, never used a cleaner.
So where are all the customers to get these people of benefits.?

And even assuming you do all that @Flooffloof you would rhen need clients childminding in my area at least is quite competative and people like to go off recommendations, so its not a quick fix solution, as for ironing as i said before most poor people tend to live near other poor people who cant afgord to have their uroning done, so it wouldnt just be a case of just pooping a few leaflets through your neighbours letter boxes.

Yes, you are right. It's far too complicated and inconvenient to do. There's sooo much to think about. What a hassle! Best forget the whole thing.

Alternatively, one could do all these things, make money and come off benefits altogether.

The glaikit is strong with this one.

And even assuming you do all that@Flooffloofyou would rhen need clients childminding in my area at least is quite competative and people like to go off recommendations, so its not a quick fix solution, as for ironing as i said before most poor people tend to live near other poor people who cant afgord to have their uroning done, so it wouldnt just be a case of just pooping a few leaflets through your neighbours letter boxes.
Indeed, I did live (still do) surrounded by poor people. If I couldn't afford to send ironing out or have a cleaner, they sure as eggs couldn't. So now you get into needing a car for transporting ironed clothes to the better off places. Sure on my £3.50 food money I could have afforded a iron, board, insurance, extra leccy, and a fookin car.

"I'm sorry but poverty isn't top of my list" wow! Somehow I don't believe the apology! I guess at least it's honest!

Is that because you think it doesn't and never will affect you? (If so you could be in for a rude awakening at some point in your life! You never know what's around the corner).

Do you think it doesn't affect you now indirectly? Because more poverty means more strain on nhs, social services, emergency services, schools, more crime etc etc you don't even care about any of that? Your community WILL include people in poverty.

"They could get a job if they tried hard enough" 🙄 where I live there's an average of 180 people applying for each job. Think I mentioned this before, but even according to govts own figs there's 3.5 times more jobseekers (so that fig doesn't include anyone not on jsa, so doesn't inc sahm looking to get back into the workplace either supported by partners/husbands or on income support rather than jsa, doesn't inc people on ESA who are gradually becoming well enough to work and wanting to ease back into work, adult children living at home supported by parents...) than there are jobs available (and that's ALL jobs not just full time but even 4 hour a week 'Saturday' jobs).

"As would cleaning, painting, baking child minding"

ALL of these require an initial outlay for work materials, advertising, insurance, possibly hygiene certification - if someone has NO INCOME where is that supposed to come from? Re ironing - if they haven't even the money to heat food where is the money to power the iron coming from?

Child minding - which I and many mners have done - you are legally required to have X sq ft of space per child, everything has to be baby/childproofed, you have to have a disclosure (police background) check (crb in England?), you have to have food hygiene, health & safety and first aid qualifications AS A MINIMUM, some councils also require an early years education qualification, you have to provide toys, books and equipment which must meet certain standards and be appropriate to the age and background of the child/ren you're minding, you have to have public liability insurance, there's registration fees... And if someone is living in ONE ROOM there's no way they could do this safely or legally! And that's just based on how it was when I did it almost 20 years ago, I understand there are more requirements/legislation now?

If you're suggesting people on benefits do these for "extra money" that would be benefit fraud which is illegal and could well lead to them having NO INCOME for years!

Clearly there's also people posting with NO experience whatsoever of the benefits system.

Under the 'old' system that's being phased out as soon as you took on ANY work you were legally bound to declare it. IMMEDIATELY upon declaring what usually happens/happened is all benefits were 'suspended' until they were satisfied what you were telling them was true. Even if you weren't earning enough to make you ineligible for those benefits. SOME of those benefits when reinstated would be backdated, but not all, and even so what are people supposed to live on in the time where the benefits are suspended but they've not yet had a payday? Conversely if you somehow manage to find work but it's temporary or the business goes bust (which as we've seen in recent years can happen even to the biggest high street names) it takes several weeks for benefits to be reinstated - sometimes months. That's one reason why under that system people were so reluctant to take temporary jobs, or jobs with new businesses that hadn't yet established themselves.

Under the 'new' UC system these issues were SUPPOSED to be eradicated - instead they're being compounded by others. Eg on UC system there's little direct contact with dwp, it's mainly done online (that rather stuffs those of you claiming tech is a luxury doesn't it? Especially when library cuts are also considered) on a 'journal' where in theory a claimant stays in touch with their adviser with a sort of private messaging system. Except advisers aren't checking people's journals regularly, aren't sending messages accurately (sometimes resulting in claimants missing essential appointments and getting sanctioned. They're then trying to deny stating wrong day/time. It's so bad agencies like cab are now advising claimants to screenshot these messages), the phone lines for claimants were premium rate numbers, that's recently been changed but it takes little imagination how that could be problematic! Especially when it can take up to 3 hours to get answered! UC was SUPPOSED to be able to cope with varying hours worked, temp contracts, people working more than one job - it isn't! Even in a 'normal' job with a monthly salary in months where you get 2 payments falling within the UC 'month' that means claimants getting NOTHING even though they are eligible. There's copious miscalculations occurring, the supposed transfer protection isn't happening as it should - it's a fucking farce!

As for 'you could get a little extra money by...' Under UC for each £1 you earn you lose 63p UC so you're actually only earning 37p per £1 your customer pays you!

But yea, blame the people struggling under these conditions not the people creating them who are NOT missing out on ANYTHING!

Some people really do live in cloud cuckoo land!

That THIS is happening in a country where there's MORE than enough money to go around is utterly shameful!

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/20/working-homeless-britain-economy-minimum-wage-zero-hours

Again. What about people who can't just be a childminder? Maybe they aren't very intelligent, have addictions, mental health, undiagnosed SEN etc etc etc Do we just leave them to rot? Many people go under the radar, issues not bad enough to get help but too bad to make them function.

On a thread about food poverty, bimgy85 suggest 'baking'

There must be people struggling at the moment who think 'I'll just do some research' and find this thread to help me out this situation.

And all they find is this, they think it's negative I won't bother. There's little inspiration, aspiration or incentive. All this thread does is frighten people into thinking 'there's no hope'.

If you want to do ironing you'll never find client
If you want to do ironing you have to find £50 for leaftets first.
If you want to child mind you'll need to do x,w,and z first. It will cost sooo much money.
No one ever eats aubergines or chickpeas.
Your children will never eat aubergines or chickpeas.
Don't try to build up a cupboard of spices, just buy oven chips.
Don't sow seeds there could be bad weather, they won't grow. you have to wait forever.

What a shame as MN could offer so much help and advice. MN has a reputation to help the needy, but don't come on this thread. It's doom and gloom.

To those discussing poor pay in the NHS: I disagree vehemently! Even before the new pay deal that’s just come into force, have you actually ever looked at the NHS pay scales? By the time someone is at the top of their band and is static (and complaining that they aren’t getting a pay rise) they’ve already received a hefty pay rise every single year for the eight or so years prior. I don’t know many jobs in other sectors that come with a guaranteed pay rise each year.

Under the new pay deal (which has seen a huge increase in a lot of bandings, my own role has been given a THIRTY PERCENT pay rise) a qualified nurse starts on £23k and over seven years that rises to almost £30k. I don’t understand NHS staff complaining about poor pay and being ‘worse off’. It’s one of the best employers out there for renumerating employees fairly. You’re guaranteed to increase your earnings year on year when you join, and by the time you’ve hit the top of your banding you’ve already had substantial annual increases.

I find it difficult to hear NHS staff complaining about this stuff. Actually check out the agenda for change pay scales, they’re out there for anyone to see. Even prior to the pay deal that came in this April, things were good. Now they’re fantastic!

It’s especially difficult to hear NHS staff claim they’re badly paid and have a ‘pay freeze’ when so many people in England are living on minimum wage or shitty zero hours contracts with no hope of any pay rise, ever, unless the government increases the NMW. Those people would kill for a job that gives you a guaranteed annual pay rise.

You couldn't make it up hihotoffee

www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/working-health/working-nhs/nhs-pay-and-benefits/agenda-change-pay-rates

I know it’s unfashionable to state you’re happy with your salary and feel your employer pays you well but it’s true. The dissatisfied NHS staff make the news, but I’d say the majority are well aware how fortunate they are.

Spot on, Graphista. To be honest though trying to get through to people with this level of sanctimonious complacency is a waste of time. The walls of their bubble are so thick and so opaque that no amount of reasoned argument will ever penetrate.

No one ever eats aubergines or chickpeas

An aubgerine costs 70p in shops near me. A bag of oven chips costs less than that...hence if I was advising someone in need, I'd tell them to buy the chips.

Don't try to build up a cupboard of spices, just buy oven chips

A cupboard of spices is useful if you're on a budget but not if you're at food bank level of poverty unless you're planning on serving up a bowl of paprika or cumin to your children for dinner?

nesh we are not talking about people a bit short who need suggestions, all of yours are fine for some but we are meaning absolute poverty, no money, no food and people in this category need outside help. They usually ime have lots of issues and are vulnerable.