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?

You could a pasta - smart price pasta and a sauce made from a tin of tomatoes and a stick cube would be around that per portion.

but that’s not even the point, the point is in a civilised country should we be suggesting is on for people to live on 90p of food a day at a time food prices are also going through the roof?

it’s not can - it’s should. If it’s all you have you’ll do it because you have no choice.

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

Roadkill?
Anyone remember the badger thread?

30p per person per day was it?

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 🙄

Then he should invest in some second hand Tupperware, get up early and make one of these famed 30p meals he can bring to the office. If not why not?

While the energy use is high for a baked potato, if you batch baked a weeks worth in one go it would be the same oven time. Quick microwave daily wouldn't add much to the costs

He's right that you can buy an amount of food for 30p and cook it. He's a moron if he thinks that will be a healthy or sustainable way to eat.

You'd go for cheap carbs. Will keep you going in the short term but over the long term you're going to become malnourished (different from underfed, you can be overweight and malnourished if you lack the nutrients you need). Being malnourished leaves you open to all sorts of health problems.

Dahl and rice costs pennies to make and is delicious.

Very good point about the initial putlay @Organictangerine

*outlay

The electricity or gas to cook these meals would be more like 50p a time anyway. That MP is a ballbag.

Do baked potatoes keep for a week?

@Playplayaway There's a shop on our local High Street where you can buy herbs & spices loose (you take your own containers or use a paper bag). It's a really cheap way of buying them as you only buy what you need. I always refill my spice jars but even a full jar is so cheap I feel embarrassed that my bill comes to so little that I usually end up putting a bar of Tony's Chocoloney in my basket to up the bill and support the business
You can also buy cooking oil, flour, porridge etc and it's cheaper than supermarkets as you're not forced to buy large packets or pay for packaging. You just need to take old bottles/jars/bags to put things in.

It's true that people aren't taught to cook meals at school any more

my kids all did food tech at secondary school.

Yes, in a fridge that’s sufficiently cold.

This.

I saw a full interview with him and what he said made sense but of course the usual fixation on the 30p.

He actually works at the food bank , how many on here can say that whilst slinging insults .
He was talking of when he was a kid a his mum / grandma bought cheap meat cuts and veggies but because they could cook were turning them into healthy meals . He was saying that he sees lots of people who can't cook or budget so the food bank is giving lessons in these subjects to help people . The theory being that if you can cook you can buy your ingredients and put together healthy meals rather than trolleys of expensive ready meals .

Made sense to me.

Dahl with a slice of bread made over a dustbin fire?

@Organictangerine why? To prove a point? He said it's possible if you need to do it, he didn't say it's something we should all be aiming for

@bigbluebus it would cost me £2.95 or a 5 mile walk to get to my local high street. Do have an Aldi and a Tesco within 2 miles and other local shops but they are more expensive.

For expensive I think, if you were lucky, you might meet your energy budget for a meal or two (and you'll need more calories if you are walking for miles to buy food). But meeting your nutritional requirements? No fucking way.

Good point about MP's meal allowances. Maybe some parity is needed.

Gruel.

Following all the food programs where they go on about cuts of meat you'll probably find there aren't many cheap cuts these days.

Oxtail used to be cheap, same with a lot of offal, now there's very little that's 'cheap'.
Also if you don't have access to a decent local butcher then you're stuck with what the supermarket sells.

When I was a student my flatmates and I each put £10 into the food kitty each week. We ate ~15 meals each from that so averaged 67p per person per meal. Buying in bulk from Asda, meal planning and eating together meant we could eat well. But that was 30 years ago, how an MP thinks that less than half of that decades later would be sufficient to feed someon I have no idea.

I've been vegetarian for decades- well before fake meat or convenience veggie food was readily available. So I can cook lots of dishes based on dried pulses, grains and fresh vegetables. If the dried goods are bought in bulk from the right places they are incredibly cheap and veg in season can also be very cheap so I could easily make bulk quantities of a range of dishes that would work out at around 30p per serving.

BUT that requires:

• enough money to buy stuff in bulk


• space to store large quantities of ingredients


• A means of getting to the right places to buy in bulk or money to pay for delivery


• Time to research the best places to buy in bulk/best prices/what veg is in season (or even better space and time to grow your own)


• equipment/space to cook in bulk


• fuel to cook things slowly


• A freezer to store cooked food for another day (plus electricity to run it)


• Fuel to re-heat frozen portions


• Time to faff about soaking pulses, batch cooking etc (not easy if you are also working 2 jobs just to pay the bills)

So yes, given plenty of money and spare time there are plenty of ways to make really cheap meals. If you only have £5 for the week and are working/looking after DC for long hours it's pretty bloody impossible

Because heaven forbid that parents try and teach their own children something?

Brilliant!

Wouldn't that be great if MPs donated their meal expenses to those in need. Anyone have any idea how much they get?