To ask what you can actually cook for 30p/meal?

[Porcupineintherough]

Following on from the comments by MP Lee Anderson I was wondering what I could actually make for 30p/head. I'm a pretty good thrifty cook but all I could come up with were:

beans on toast (budget brands)
tinned tomatoes on toast (budget brands)
tinned mushrooms on toast (budget brands)
egg on toast
cheese on toast (ditto)
some kind of veggie stew/sauces w red lentils (if cooking for more than one) to eat w pasta
stir fry noodles w a few shreds of veg
bowl of basics cereal

I'm not counting things like baked potatoes where the ingredients are cheap but the energy costs to cook them are high.

So what am I missing? What skills and recipes are this food bank teaching? Wild foraging? Poaching? Shop-lifting 101?

Ideas for tv show title:
”Cook with Lee for (Almost) Free”

i think a Saturday morning spot on prime Tv.. there must be someone on mn who works at BBC (or is it more Ch4???!)

Maybe they could just go all out Charlie and the chocolate factory… cabbage soup for every meal and scrimping and saving for a chocolate bar once a year for your birthday.

The problem is, with rapidly rising bills, some people are left with pennies in their account by the middle of the month after the bills come out - you can’t buy any number of 20p items with that. The cheapest meal is the one you skip.

Also, I’d imagine that dear old Elsie riding the bus all day would be of the generation who remembers post war rationing and probably eats like a sparrow…. But is still only eating one meal a day. By all means teach people to cook and improve nutritional content of diets, as tv chefs and even fergie have tried before, but that isn’t the solution to abject poverty. It’s victim blaming to suggest that people wouldn’t be poor, hungry or cold if only they learned to cook lentils.

So much privilege on this thread and people really not understanding how some people live. No one has come up with a healthy, balanced, nutritious meal plan for 7 days that can be done for 30p a meal that will not cause some deficiency. Yes one off meals can be done when you have a store cupboard of stocks etc...... but if you literally have nothing in the cupboards you cannot put a bit of salt, spice, herbs etc..... in it. You need the money up front to buy these items. Yes they will last ages but you actually need the money first. People can not afford this!

This is all rather silly.

What he said AFAIK is that he could show a group of adults how to make a meal for £1.20 for 4 servings.

He didn't I assume say the budget was 30p per meal per person for 3 meals a day or the sum total of that per week.

No one said it was 30p a meal for every meal for the week.

Perhaps a soup as well.

Cheapest I can think of is root veg and lentils, which I do sometimes. Works out to about a pound a pan with 4 portions. With Aldi ingredients:

1 chicken stock cube- 3p
3 carrots- about 10p? 1.5kg bag is 45p
3 onions- about 20p if you use the ones from the bags rather than the pack of 3 which are dearer
Lentils about half of a 99p 250g bag, 50p
Salt, pepper, seasonings- pennies, but only of course if you have them in already and you can replace one every week or two.
Splash of veg oil- let's say 5p

Leaves enough over for some bread too, which is a reasonable lunch. Not the main meal of the day. Doesn't count cooking costs.

But the point is, in order for this to be a cheap and feasible meal, as it is for me, you need to have access to kitchen equipment. You need to be able to cook it, and seasonings to make this sort of thing palatable are much easier to manage when you're in a position where you already have them in and just have to top up, like I do. I probably buy something of that nature every other week or so. If you aren't within walking distance of Aldi or similar, it may cost more. Those are actually quite a few ducks that need to be lined up.

Basically, the existence of some 30p meals is only a small part of the point.

@DenbyChina
I have a Y8 child. She did no practical cookery in Y7 as they closed the kitchen due to Covid. Like many schools, Food Tech is given 1 term, rotating with other Design Technology subjects. She is only due to take Food Tech this term. The teacher has been absent all 3 weeks. Last lesson they had to draw a poster about recycling packaging - total filler activity, they’ve done the theory work on it already. If she does manage to cook in 2 years of secondary education, I know what the first recipe is, from her friend who was on Food Tech rotation last term. Chocolate muffins. So yeah, she’ll leave school equipped to make nutritious and filling choices on a budget 🙄 Because heaven forbid that parents try and teach their own children something?

You do understand don't you that some children don't have parents willing or able to teach them to cook? I've got a yr7 child in food tech right now, his first cook was muffins, his second will be flapjack. Neither have any particular nutritional value and it's much easier (and cheaper) to make a simple pasta dish. He's ok he's got an interested family who spend plenty of time in the kitchen with him but some children don't have that luxury. Making simple savoury dishes would be far better for them all instead of muffins and flapjack.

He could make a cheap 30p meal at home and take it to work in a thermos - he doesn't need to order a lunch on expenses.

Perhaps if they used the money claimed on expenses by all the MPs for things we all have to provide ourselves for work we could help feed families in poverty?

We are supposed to be a rich nation and we are supposed to be governed well so that we progress as a nation. Doesn't seem like that. It feels we are going backwards.
A genuine question. Why do you feel like being born into a rich nation should entitle one for more support than someone being born into a poor nation? A nation is made rich by people who contribute to it, right? Asking as someone born into an extremely poor nation... yet it never occurred to me to go and demand that my wealthier neighbour feeds me 5-a-day and 2-fish-a-week just because I deserve it by simply existing.

I've made batch cooked meals that made 10 portions for £3 but the ingredients would need to be bought first, so even though the spices work out cheap per meal, I'd need to have them in

Example meals are veg-based curries and stews, some with soya or lentils etc.

Healthy and nutritious.

I've been poor and am familiar with going to the supermarket and greengrocers at yellow sticker time, on foot.

Let's be realistic. No one lives on £27.30 a month.

Jacob Rees-Mogg on Peston

twitter.com/itvpeston/status/1524477158495772674

I've made batch cooked meals that made 10 portions for £3 but the ingredients would need to be bought first, so even though the spices work out cheap per meal, I'd need to have them in

Exactly. It's one of those situations where being poor is expensive. You can be too low income for a cheap but nutritious and filling diet to be affordable.

Yes but you can learn to find food cheaply. Like not shop in supermarkets for things that are cheaper elsewhere.

Some foods keep better than others, some are more nutritious, some are things you might not have even thought of.

I think it is one thing teaching people to cook and budget and offering that, encouraging that for people who are using food banks. But as people point out it does not automatically follow that because you use a food bank you can do nether of these things. And even if you aren’t cooking from scratch there are many other factors that mean it is difficult for people (such a long working days, multiple jobs etc).
so making it conditional or compulsory is just patronising, superficial or misguided. Encourage, persuade yes …not compulsory
but the MOST offensive issue here is that you can feed yourself a healthy meal for 30p. Maybe one meal. But not day after day and not end up malnourished. For 30p you are talking about very slim pickings or batch cooking and making economies of scale. BUT, and this is something I’ve heard jack monroe talk about, those economies of scale involve buying large quantities up front of stuff like rice, frozen veg, protein multipacks etc. People who are using food banks have not got the money to buy food in that sort of way. They literally are buying maybe a few days or a weeks worth of food with no money to spare for buying “stocks” of basic ingredients that’ll be cheaper overall but over some weeks. Add to that many people on the breadline live in small accommodation, with limited space and maybe even a shared kitchen- storing food is not an option.

yes, I have days when I feed myself easily for 30p. I am retried and have comfortable pension. I also have a large kitchen, a very good size freezer. I bulk buy and have a store cupboard pantry full of dry goods. If I see a good offer on one of my stapes I can afford to buy 2 and store. I can afford the fuel to cook cheap cuts as stews in the oven for long periods of time. I have the time to batch cook. I can easily freeze my own fresh food. I never buy just enough mince say for 1 portion of a spag Bol - I will buy a bigger pack, and make m4 portions and freeze the rest. Off course that works out cheaper. I have time to search for recipes to use up my remaining food at the end of the week to use every bit of it. But even then I could not eat consistently for 30p a day and be properly nourished let alone happy with it.

basically he is being really thick if he thinks you can actually do this consistently or for a single person, or even a single mum with a kid. Oh, but that’s ok- single mums need to be punished as they are clearly undeserving etc and therefore deserve nothing from society ( in accordance to Tory mindset)

You could not be more wrong. He is speaking from bitter experience.

Sorry, quote fail.

Yes because everyone 'poor' wants to eat a week old baked potato.

I’d love to see this!

Great post @EmilyBolton

So, 30p a meal, 3 meals a day: 90p - day. For 7 days a week... £6.30

so, I think we should challenge him to live on £6.30 for food for a week: hell let’s round it up to a tenner.

bet he wouldn’t last past breakfast

Because we aren't just a wealthy nation, we are suppose to be civilised and compassionate. Everyone having a basic and very reasonable standard of food to eat is just that

I don't care if their choosing not to work, I don't care if they are in debt through their own spends. At the bare minimum, people should be fed properly

A few years ago there was a great thread on this very thing - I think it started off as a ‘ready meals vs batch cooking’ thread. And over many many posts the consensus became that to get the most calories, with a vague nutritional balance, ready meals were the best option. That fresh fruit and veg made things very expensive, and that batch cooking was great and cooking from scratch was better nutritionally but more expensive.

And to echo what has been said before, 1 meal, or a days meals, or maybe even a few days, could be done cheaply. But that is not at all the same as a menu for week after week that gives the right nutritional balance.

Actually some of the Jack Monroe meals sound quite good if really cooking on a very tight budget. I've saved a few to try out - and I'm not on a tight budget- one thing I don't think some factor in is it's far easier if it's just you to cater for!! regardless of if your DH or kids know things are tight , some of the suggestions on this thread would definitely have thrown up - 'er I don't want that, WTF is that' kind of comments in my house- my H for instance hates lentils or dhal - call it ungrateful yes but I don't think I'm the only one on here who would get that reaction.

I think Lee Anderson has an awful lot more real life experience than many MPs, and worked at CAB for several years. I believe he's an ex-miner from a mining family so assume he grew up during the strike. I think we can assume he understands some of these issues more than more privileged MPs.

I can also imagine that he is speaking from some frustration as cooking skills really can make it easier to make better, cheaper food, and if you're seeing lots of people who lack those skills and are suffering as a consequence, you would speak up.

But (a) his comments have been taken up by a lot of people who lack that understanding and are using it as a stick to beat poor people with, along with the fact that people on low income also have the temerity to own TVs and smart phones, (b) he is a member of a government whose policies have led to this situation in many ways, both food banks and lack of skills, and (c) he appears to have some rather eyebrow raising views about people in general. Also (d) grinding enduring poverty saps reserves, resources and will, all of which are needed to carry on making and eating very cheap meals, which is perhaps not the position of some food bank users that he's meeting.