To think if you rely on a food bank you may need to compromise your vegan principles?

[LondonUnited]

I’m a supporter of our local food bank and am on their mailing list. I received an email earlier to say that they were supporting a vegan family and were therefore asking for specific food donations, including Oatly oat milk, various nuts and seeds, specific types of beans, etc etc.

I may get flamed for this but I couldn’t help thinking that - allergies aside (and I have a milk allergic child so I do get it) - if you need a food bank to feed your family, you might need to compromise on diet slightly? For a start, Oatly Barista is lovely and all that, but Aldi or Asda oat milk is also ok and half the price. And that the odd bit of tinned fish may be easier to access from a food bank than Brazil nuts and chia seeds...

Oh. God. I would read dickhead behaviour as meaning that the people probably want something for nothing rather than genuinely needing help, personally. Otherwise why would they roll up behaving like dickheada?

This thread is typical MN. Give what you can but I don’t think giving a supermarket brand means you somehow don’t care or that people who use banks deserve less. I prefer to but many items rather than a few.

Dietary needs (and preferences) should definitely be catered for. Brand names, however, should be irrelevant.

For every family that’s just grateful to be given something, there’s another of complete dickheads.

Which goes to show you, shock! horror!, that the poor are human, too!

What's it matter if they are dickheads to the giver? If you feel that strongly about it, why give at all? Giving with strings attached isn't a gift, it's an obligation and it says far more about the so-called giver than the recipient.

"The only exception I'd make is if it was a medical requirement due to severe allergies, and then there is help available via the nhs."

Wondered if you have any family member with severe allergies. I have a ds with multiple food allergies, some are mild, some are fatal. We do get prescription for choice of either non wheat flour/bread/pasta and grateful, but that's it. Everything else we have to provide ourselves, and alternatives are very costly. And if we ever needed FB, I don't think he can have most of the things on the list.

"The only exception I'd make is if it was a medical requirement due to severe allergies, and then there is help available via the nhs."

Hahahahahaa!! Do you still believe there's such a thing as 'Family Allowance', too? The NHS has been strangleholded for funding, prescriptions for many, many things has been long gone.

This thread is typical MN
Still waiting for someone to be appalled they havent yet received a thank you card for the tin of spam they donated. It was from Waitrose after all.

Still waiting for someone to be appalled they havent yet received a thank you card for the tin of spam they donated. It was from Waitrose after all

Personally I think there should be a change.org petition to have velvet thrones outside each foodbank for saints like the OP to sit on whilst they receive the grateful thanks and cap doffing of the poor.

If you want others to avoid using inflammatory language such as “beggar”, and concentrate on the fact that they are just people, stop pretending that they are somehow perfect, principled specimens of humanity fallen on hard times. There will be posey vegans who are arseholes just as there are in the general population.

Bullshit. People don’t have to be perfect, principled specimens of humanity to be entitled not to be called beggars.

Also, if the food bank is funding this then that surely means they have less money available to feed other families?

This is a really good point

No it’s not. Tinned tuna is great deal more expensive than tinned vegetables but nobody is up in arms about the entitlement of omnivores expecting to be fed animal products.

Give what you can but I don’t think giving a supermarket brand means you somehow don’t care or that people who use banks deserve less.

Give what you can - believe me it will be gratefully accepted. Contrary to what has been asserted here, the vast majority of people are very grateful for food bank fare. If what you can provide is a supermarket brand then give that. But don't try to make some sort of a point by sticking to the equivalent of 'gruel for the paupers' when considering what you can give.

Just be thankful that you have the chance today to make someone's life a little better. The items you donate are gone out of your hands and out of your life once you donate them. Don't fret about gratitude or entitlement. You can't police anyone's response to your donation and you shouldn't want to. Generosity of heart and mind is important too.

The poor are people who may well have enjoyed a lifestyle like yours a few years ago, maybe a few months ago. Maybe it makes those who remain employed feel more secure if they believe those who have fallen on hard times made some contribution to their misfortune and need a reminder to try harder in the form of baked beans on toast and supermarket brand spaghetti, but hundreds of thousands of people live paycheque to paycheque through no fault of their own, and pink slips are being dished out at a fair clip these days.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

As I have previously stated about working at a foodbank and how things are done and been ignored as actually listening would ruin people’s preconceived ideas, please remember it doesn’t take much for you to be in this position, about 70% of the people we have helped since March were families who had comfortable lifestyles & overnight faced huge decrease in income/ long wait for UC award.
Don’t sit in your nice homes smug because you have savings; you are the minority, most people get by month to month and nobody could ever have foreseen this situation and the devastating effect on millions.
If you resent £1.20 on a carton of milk to bring a small piece of happiness to someone then it’s time to have a long hard look at yourself, because I have a sneaky feeling if you did find yourself in this situation you’d be the one shouting the loudest for help and what you deem your entitlement.
Walk a mile in their shoes then you can bitch about a carton of milk.

Give what you can - believe me it will be gratefully accepted. Contrary to what has been asserted here, the vast majority of people are very grateful for food bank fare. If what you can provide is a supermarket brand then give that. But don't try to make some sort of a point by sticking to the equivalent of 'gruel for the paupers' when considering what you can give.

This is exactly how I feel about it. Any brand, supermarket or otherwise, will be gratefully received and made use of. It’s generous and a decent thing to do, and no one would suggest otherwise.

But, for example, I can afford to give more expensive brands. It makes no difference to my finances whether I donate napolina pasta and dolmio sauce, or the generic versions of both. So I donate the more expensive ones, because I can. If I had the means to donate those brands but explicitly made the decision to switch to cheaper ones simply because I don’t think poor people deserve the more expensive versions or might get uppity if they have something more expensive, it wouldn’t be a particularly pleasant impulse, would it?

I also regularly donate things like nice brands of shower gel, shampoo and conditioner, a few chocolate bars or a cake, etc, because while I know that the real need is for necessities that keep people clean and fed a nutritious meal, I can afford to donate treats as well. So why wouldn’t I?

Give what you can afford - absolutely. Nobody would criticise anyone for that. But if you can afford to give more expensive brands and the only reason you don’t is that you don’t think poor people deserve them, it’s not a nice attitude to take.

Also, if the food bank is funding this then that surely means they have less money available to feed other families? No... as those of us who work in food banks have tried to explain!

It might mean that one person donates less, it might not.

But we all have partnerships with supermarkets, local shops, we all also take cash donations and we all use these other avenues to fill any gaps we have.

If a bank asks for branded items it might be a request, it might be because that brand is easily recognisable, used as a guideline. Who knows? You could just contact them and ask!

And then, when you have drawn breath, have a think about SBTs post above!

Be thankful it isn't you and that you have never met yourself when in need!

As a shielded person I received the government food boxes - I didn’t need them so donated them straight to our local food bank. It was dire though, as such it seemed an absolute treat to see a branded item of food in there.
I am more than happy to continue to donate quality food to food banks.

@mathanxiety not sure if that was directed at me? I certainly give what I can, but I’d always choose to buy what was on offer for example, so I give more. I honestly don’t think this means I feel people deserve less if they are using a food bank. For perspective I but on offer oat milk/food for my family too !

@plus3

As a shielded person I received the government food boxes - I didn’t need them so donated them straight to our local food bank. It was dire though, as such it seemed an absolute treat to see a branded item of food in there. I am more than happy to continue to donate quality food to food banks.

Why did you not just tell the council you didnt need the box?!

Why did you not just tell the council you didnt need the box?!

My foodbank received a dozen of these a week. People tried to cancel but the boxes kept turning up, or they were told that if they cancelled the boxes they were “cancelling” their shielded status and eligibility to priority slots at the supermarkets.

I think the more nutritional the items are that are given to families in a food bank parcel, the better. Chances are people who need to use a FB are living in poverty or at least some degree of poverty. Why should they have to just eat crap with no nutritional value? As has been mentioned upthread, the branded versions of foods are often fortified with more vitamins than own brand versions.

Because I needed the priority access to the supermarket delivery slot - at the beginning the two went hand in hand, only later could you drop the box & keep the access to online delivery (which I then did)

When I did cancel, I received a further 3 boxes.

All went to our local food bank & were very gratefully received.

Also, even though the Oatley milk is more expensive than cows milk or own brand oat milk, other vegan staples are pretty low cost, so I'm sure the Vegan family's amount of food bank funding used will not exceed the amount of funds used to give food to a non vegan family.

For those who don't understand about the shielding boxes given out, they were far more about keeping the catering supplies industry running than really supporting the individuals shielding. Money was given to large catering companies that usually supplied to pubs and cafe, to put together boxes. Hence single pensioners finding themselves with huge catering tins of tomatoes and similar. For many people the bulk contained a lot of tomatoes, tomato soup, tomato sauce and baked beans in tomato sauce, which for some medical conditions couldn't be eaten.
There were a couple of notable companies who were considerate and gave shielding people a really good deal, but many swapped the cash injection for the cheapest stuff on their shelves.

Some councils topped up the boxes, some didn't. Some people received just dried goods and others received veg on top, but after the first week there was a big problem for some with slimy liquidized potatoes leaked all over the box, and rotting onions in particular. It was because the veg was taken out of cold storage, (normally cooked within a day or two) packed into boxes and then sat in warehouses after that for up to several weeks until delivery. Recipients were told that if they were allergic or things were substandard to chuck out the rotten stuff and give the rest to the food bank to keep their priority shopping slots.
As pp above have said, no box delivered no supermarket shopping slot.

I didn't know that about the sheilding boxes and sheilding status seemed such a faff and waste, I suppose it was just a weird time that everybody just got them as a marker.

I think the more nutritional the items are that are given to families in a food bank parcel, the better. Chances are people who need to use a FB are living in poverty or at least some degree of poverty. Why should they have to just eat crap with no nutritional value? As has been mentioned upthread, the branded versions of foods are often fortified with more vitamins than own brand versions. Please accept that ALL foodbanks take direct advice from dieticians who design a basic 3-day food bag that meets all nitritional needs, for any dietary preference.

There is usually no nutritional difference at all between branded and unbranded foods, unless there is a specific claim on the tin - and often not even then!

Sweet treats may be added as and when available.

But NO FOOD BANK MAKES IT UP AS THEY GO ALONG! What do you think they are? Well meaning middle class, middle aged women 'doing good'?

And yes to the difference in quality of those shielding boxes. A local pub did wonderful ones, tins and fresh foods all packed well and delivered with a smile and offer of other help. We never got any of their boxes donated to us. But we did get a lot from a certain catering company, we actually sent one van full back to the company with a stiff note about the inappropriate content, much as Yoholyolo outlined. Didn't get a response and the boxes kept coming. We diverted them to the local food kitchen who could at least use the catering sized tins and had large food waste bins for the rotting crap!

I used to help out at my local food bank. They stressed that it was far better to buy basic brands and get more of it. They would much rather receive three tins of Tesco brand beans than one Heinz. There is a lot of good intent from donors saying that they want to donate what they themselves would like to eat but, and I mean this kindly, I don’t think many of those donors have been on the breadline the way people using food banks are. The message I got from the managers was that bluntly, people needed food and as much of it as possible, the clients were grateful for what they got and a lot would never have had premium brands and were highly unlikely to have preferences. Most donors in supermarkets have an approximate amount they will spend so please buy as much with it as you can and don’t feel like you’re being unkind not to buy the best brands. Far better to help more people than ‘treat’ one person to high end brands

Another good point.

@Xenia

Yoho, I don't think I said a single thing that was anti foodbank user though did I? You just seem to be assuming I did. I even said not to use the word beggars for those asking for food.

So I don't agree that I am "unable to value the most basic humanity and decency". My personal values which are essentially Roman Catholic are very much to value human decency. I essentially have nothing but my house and my career because of precisely that. However I do think the nation would do a lot better if we only drank tap water - in fact for babies beyond breastmilk it is sugary drinks that most damages children's health. Moving all children to drinking only tap water would really really help rich and poor children.

Your personal values is that you look down on anyone worse off than yourself. You've made that perfectly clear over the years.