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?

Well yes, this government is shit, but Labour governments always overspend so lord knows how bad our finances would've been with that twat Corbyn in charge.

@poshme finally. Someone else who actually gets how parliamentary expenses work.

This cunt will want to reintroduce the hand cranks that didn't do anything in his fucking workhouses next. What a weapons-grade bellend.

@ivykaty44 I blame Dickens. Totally one sided proto-woke pseudo-reportage without the progress made in Victorian Britain being emphasised. Obviously a Labour Scallywag. A Liberal Scallywag as Labour hadn't been incorporated in Dicken's time? Just goes to show how lazy Labour are, couldn't even be bothered to exist on time.

@daimbarsatemydogsbone he might take that as a compliment about his prowess then get fast-tracked by CCO for greatness.

Well yes, this government is shit, but Labour governments always overspend so lord knows how bad our finances would've been with that twat Corbyn in charge.

This is the only thing you Tories have left, isn't it? Oh, but Corbyn would have been so much worse. No better arguments available. After 12 years of this shit can you really not do better?

When the Liberals introduced state pensions (means tested and for selected over 70s only), the Tories objected and Lord Northcliffe, the owner of The Daily Mail and The Times, disliked the idea of paying higher taxes in order to help provide old age pensions and used all of his newspapers to criticize the measures in the budget. Nothing changes.

Good grief, do people actually believe this utter shit?

Thank you, I don't really know any history and didn't know Northcliffe owned the Thunderer too. Just goes to show those Labour scallywags stole their spendthrift ways from the Liberals. Lazy Labour, stalling coming into existence for decades then light fingered Labour stealing their spend-thrift ways from other political parties.

I volunteer once a week in a food bank. It's bad enough that people have to use them but to then tell him that 'they can't budget' and to get their food parcel they must take a cookery course is really beyond the pale. There's nothing like knocking people when they're down.

I must admit I was surprised and hope 'Lee and his 30p' was mis-reporting the food bank's policy. I could imagine a couple of Churches wanting to try to tie such provision and other activities into the offering but would expect at worst 99% to offer but not make such provision mandatory.

Let's hope the MP is as firmly committed to increasing worker's wages and child maintenance contributions from non-contributing parents and similar measures ...

"But Corbyn...." is a total cop-out. Corbyn and Labour are not in government, the Conservatives are and reviewing their effectiveness against a yardstick of "we're the least shit" is not the ringing endorsement that their supporters seem to think it is. No one knows what Corbyn would or wouldn't have done or what the UK would look like under him because we don't have a magic what-if machine.

The facts of it are that the Conservatoves have been inngovernment for twelve years. They keep bleating on that they want an opportunity to get on with the job at hand, a job they have had over a decade to get started on yet never seem to be able to manage to get past the initial soundbites. If they wanted to address the glaring inequalities and divisions within our society and if they had any interest at all in helping people... sorry, levelling up.... then they'd have fucking done it by now. Instead they offer with one hand while taking away with the other and come up with ever inventive ways to punish poor people for the crime of being poor.

The Conservative government wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire although they would probably figure out a way to charge you for the heat generated.

@JinglingHellsBells your description of your domestic science is exactly what my Dd has just done for food preparation GCSE.

Plenty of posters do.

I couldn't do it for long. As PP have said batch cooking is good to learn about but requires a freezer, the time and a big enough oven (cost) and utensils. Slow cooking is great (good on the food bank upthread who sourced some to give away) but I don't know about expense of dumping stuff in and leaving it on. And as other PP have said, making basic food tasty requires basic stock and storage. I've seen flats where you couldn't put in a large bag of rice without it going mouldy or attracting vermin though I guess you could use it as a bean bag (Joke) if you had the means of buying it and getting it up the stairs. Some housing coops work well but it requires volunteers and storage.

I do think the MP in question who serves at the food bank should be tasked with living on it - hopefully in a food desert where he has to walk to get the food with children and carry it back. I'm sure he'd find some nettles and berries on the way. PS nettles are great - I tell my family it's spinach and only collect away from roads and dogs (hard to do). Liver is still cheap.

This is not new. It came home to me as a reporter covering a crime case in Liverpool to see young mums on a high rise estate way outside the city centre clustering round a grocery van with their kids. It only offered bread, margarine and cans of stuff - all at elevated prices. The "fresh" veg were mouldy.

@crosstalk, I batchcook and only use the hob, and don't freeze it.
but i am someone who can eat the same meal every day

Is his shopping bill a £1 a day 😂 what a cunt.

Nailed it .
Should nail him ?( Upside down, to a cross )

It's psychological intimation toake poorer folk feel useless.
And his type, feel they can insult poorer folk more than they already do.

Unless he's on about cannibalism & offering his body to poor people?
Tho at 30 p a portion, he has an highly overrated opinion of his own worth...which is zero .

Isn’t rice a potential source of food poisoning if it’s made this way? I wouldn’t want to risk it.

I’m fucking knackered and streSsed reading that. And I’m not having to actually live through it

I really, REALLY wish people like you would stop defending these arrogant, clueless, privileged individuals. Nothing that he said has been taken out of context. Stop trying to justify the words and actions of people who should know better and should be putting measures in place to support the most vulnerable people in our society.

I do love a bit of satire.

Spuds in microwave?
Rice - with half rice to water, bring to boil, simmer for 3 mins. Turn off heat and leave under lid for 5 mins. Perfect.

Sorry, haven't read the full thread (cardinal sin), but I do think that people who go 'well I could make a meal for 30p', often have well stocked pantries and fridges with herbs etc, and decent cooking facilities. And don't factor in cost of cooking in terms of fuel.

Also, they are often thinking in terms of one meal, or short term. They're not thinking about the misery and nutritional deficiencies of what they deem an adequate 30p meal day in, day out. They're not thinking about children that need good food, fruit, veges, meat, about women that need calcium and iron, or men that are doing manual labour (and women) and need a good feed.

I checked that Atomic Shrimp youtube guy mentioned upthread and his £1/day menu looks more wholesome and appetising than mine on £20.

Interesting that all his challenges have a clear non-proportional effect. £1 for 1 day was much much difficult than £5 for 5 days, where all the dishes looked very appetising. And he managed to achieve well in excess of 5 fruit and veg a day, reached protein and calorie targets.

Did you eat it from the pkt/tin, 3 times a day for 3 years?
People are not just skint for a week or two, they are living in poverty week in and week out.
There is no comparison, nor is there a way to actually live on 30p.