To ask why there is such food poverty.

[Helendee]

Please no flaming as I genuinely am seeking answers as to why so many children are going to school hungry these days.
This is not a critical or inflammatory post, I just want to know what’s gone wrong.
Obviously many of us are struggling financially because of Covid but food poverty was a huge problem before that.
Is it that benefit levels are too low to adequately feed our children?
What can we do to ameliorate the situation?

Food poverty is a result of apathy.
Apathy on the part of government to introduce a living wage and not the paltry minimum wage that people are subjected to.

There needs to be more information on cheap healthy food.
Healthy food doesn't have to cost more.

Porridge made with rolled oats and hot water is cheap and filling.
Loose veg is fairly cheap, or the stuff I buy is.

Scandinavian countries have high taxes.

All the other expenses like rent get paid first, to keep a roof over your head. food is bought with what is left over after everything else is paid. I can remember a time - thankfully very brief - where if I could buy the food it was a problem topping up the gas and electricity to cook it.

@Toddlerteaplease

I *did GCSEs in 2000, one of my subjects was food technology. We spent 2 years designing, branding, labelling and packaging a sandwich of our creation based on Moroccan cuisine. Completely useless in terms of teaching me to cook.

14 and under we made something every week but it was generally cakes, trifles, tarts, fruit pies. Whereas my mum who left school late 70s learned how to cook full meals, shepherds pie, lasagna and so on.*

Yes. Me too. My cooking amounts to shoving something a baking sheet in the oven.

My mum kept her recipe book from home economics, they had a notebook and had to hand write the recipes they had cooked each lesson. The final exam was a full day home ec exam where they had to shop for and cook a 3 course meal. They had to produce a time plan to ensure everything would be ready at the right time and allow time for handwashing, drying and ironing a tablecloth. Their workstation had to be kept tidy and all washing up done within the time limit.

My final project was a nice photo of a vacuum packed, chicken and couscous sarnie with a nutritional values label printed and stuck on. All presented in an A3 portfolio.

Which of us do you think would be able to make a meal out of a cheap cut of meat, the veg on sale at the end of the day and whatever dry goods were in the cupboard.

My daughter was on benefit 2 children no money from fathers, feed kids
payed her rent ran a car and had a horse so if she could do it why can't other people

Healthy food being more expensive is a myth. It’s just that getting raw veg means people have to cook from scratch, and don’t want to do that. Can’t believe the comment upthread that people just don’t have the time to cook food, so have to buy in convenience food and takeaways which are more expensive. I work full time and am often too tired to cook, but I do it because I can’t afford to eat convenience food and takeaways, and want the family to eat healthily. That’s a naff excuse to use for food poverty.

Food poverty is a thing for working families too. I work in the community and the families on benefits get FSM and over the lockdown got vouchers. Working families got nothing even if they are just treading water so they are often worse off sadly.. especially the way UC can leave a family without money if they are paid by their job twice in a period as Uc is monthly as opposed to 4 weekly

@Lepetitpiggy

Some people will go to their graves denying that there is food poverty ,or that it's all down to lazy poor parenting, not knowing how to cook lentils or feckless families having loads of children they can't afford. These people need to open their fucking eyes

Here here. There's a really nasty tone to these threads. Posters in good suggest factors which contribute to food poverty and goady fuckers make disingenuous head tilty remarks about cooking skills and pet insurance

Sometimes TVs, mobiles and cigs take priority. I always thought benefits were generous. My friend's dad used to deliver food bank goods but stopped when he saw this smoker guy's 50 inch TV with Sky Sports. He then asked for a second parcel for his mate.

Massive amount is due to wages not increasing in line with cost of living, and housing costs increasing way ahead of wages. Huge pay gaps between what top management and standard ‘workers’ earn.

Decent Food is soo expensive/ housing is so expensive- both non negotiable to a degree so people go hungry.
Looking at our local Asda is a disgrace, food shop for 4 costing c.70-100 quid and no one on the tills. All self service. These giant corporations are so greedy and take and take and don’t even supply jobs to the community

@scubadive

I think benefits are enough to cover children’s food. I’ve known friends be much better off on benefits than working and if they work part time then definitely not worth them working full time as they would then lose benefits. I know there are issues with the new UC but there is still enough for basic food.

I think things are getting crazy with how much the government is having to pay out with Covid and everything else. It’s our children who will be burdened with repaying all this debt during their lifetimes and yet people are constantly demanding the govt pay out more and more.

The future looks bleak for the next generation.

@scubadive I agree. My friend gets more than me on benefits and I work full time! It's also baffling where the money is coming from...

Like people who suggest buying "stewing steak and veg and casseroling for 5 hours - these are people who've never had to add up their food as they put things in the basket or eke out the gas and electricity on their prepayment cards

for some people (again a minority) children are a commodity. Have a child and you get housing and income for 16 years. I have lost count of the number of times that mothers have told me that I am an idiot for working and I should just give up work and claim benefits.

I live on an estate with a lot of families in poverty, myself included in that. And there's lots of reasons people are struggling round here, some of them are as follows;

Unstable jobs or work contracts. This is not necessarily due to COVID either but a lot of people round here are either on zero hour contracts or are self employed (often they should be classed as employed but it's a sneaky way for companies to use them and get rid when it suits)

Money is just that tight that it only takes one problem to cause long lasting effects on the household. Like the car breaking down, a household repair (if own house), a device, laptop or printer needed for hone study needing to be bought, a fridge or cooker needing replacing. This can also cause a family to fall into a debt trap that just spirals out of control.

The benefit cap meaning you have to use your other benefits to top up your rent (this is a big problem for me) as housing benefit isn't allowed to cover it

The 2 child limit cap

The cost of living going up much higher and faster than wage or benefit increases.

Food prices have definitely gone up, I have noticed my bills rise.

Food is often bought with whatever is left after all rent and bills have been paid

Some people don’t know how to cook, their parents don’t know how to cook so there becomes a whole family who have no idea how to make a meal unless it comes out of a packet.
So yes I can easily rustle up a meal of pasta with whatever I have in the fridge and cupboards, can turn leftovers into something different etc but so many people would get flustered cooking a jacket potatoe if it doesn’t come with instructions, wouldn’t know how to tell if it’s cooked or needed another 10 minutes. They are either not confident with cooking or don’t have the patience etc or just that it’s easier to open a packet.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

Decent Food is soo expensive/ housing is so expensive- both non negotiable to a degree so people go hungry. Looking at our local Asda is a disgrace, food shop for 4 costing c.70-100 quid and no one on the tills. All self service. These giant corporations are so greedy and take and take and don’t even supply jobs to the community

Decent food isn't expensive! You just need to make cheaper choices

Food is cheaper now than it was 30 years ago. In the 1950s people spent a third of their income on food, this has gone down over the decades and last year people spent just over 10% of their income on food.

Etinox - I mentioned pet insurance, what's goady about that, I'm just explaining how things have changed over the years. People do have more outgoings now.

@MikeUniformMike

There needs to be more information on cheap healthy food. Healthy food doesn't have to cost more.

Porridge made with rolled oats and hot water is cheap and filling.
Loose veg is fairly cheap, or the stuff I buy is.

Scandinavian countries have high taxes.

Variety is key to a healthy diet (for good mental as well as physical health).

From the WHO.
Eat a variety of foods
www.who.int/nutrition/topics/5keys_healthydiet/en/

Yes good on the Scandinavian countries. Higher taxes and healthier population with good healthcare systems. Better for society as a whole.

I think the problem is chaotic households, inability to cook and budget and possibly parents with difficulties coping/ mental health issues etc. Porridge oats are as cheap as anything and if you can shop around then you can get loaves of bread for 20p reduced which is fine for toast with an egg or something. However poor people often don't have access to a large supermarket, or they have multiple kids, they rely on corner shops costing more or don't have the cash flow to do a bigger shop and buy in bulk. Child element of Uc is £280 a month for an eldest child plus child benefit on top so approx £300 for eldest child or single child if born before April 2017. This should be more than enough in theory to feed, clothe and entertain a child but in reality it probably gets spent on paying debts, topping up extortionate rent that isn't covered by rent element or paying utility bills.

I worked out that if my circumstances were same today as when my DD was little, and I was a single parent, I'd be £30 a week worse off. That was almost 30 years ago and doesn't include inflation. I was barely keeping my head above water then, I've absolutely no idea how people get through a week now.

Food is artificially cheap. We dont pay the true price of labour because the benefits system tops up a minimum wage and the benefit system promotes under deployment (people have an unrealistic view of what working full time is)

The system is broken.

Isn't it odd how people on here always know someone who's better off not working. When in reality it just isn't true.

I've been a sahm to preschoolers with a partner on a low income and top up benefits.
I've been a single parent to preschoolers on benefits.
I've worked part time and claimed tc.
I've worked full time and claimed tc.
I've been 1 of a 2 adult house, both working full time.

Now I'm a single parent on uc.

I've always had more money working. And the more hours I've worked the better off I've been. Every. Single. Time.

@Grapewrath

Food poverty is a thing for working families too. I work in the community and the families on benefits get FSM and over the lockdown got vouchers. Working families got nothing even if they are just treading water so they are often worse off sadly.. especially the way UC can leave a family without money if they are paid by their job twice in a period as Uc is monthly as opposed to 4 weekly

People paid four weekly get more Uc for the other eleven months and less in the month where two pay days fall in their assessment period. The problem is people aren't made aware when they claim Uc that this is going to happen so can't prepare for it.