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?

@Crikeymaccrikey I get what you're saying, but 'knuckle down and accept whatever is thrown at you' is not how I want to live. There should be state intervention if people are unable to feed themselves and their children.

People managed with less before, and do in many parts of the world. It's true but there is also the problem of malnutrition. Going for cheap carbs like pasta and cous cous will fill tummies but not provide all the nutrients people need.

It's fine for a while but (taking the human suffering out of it for a moment) in the long run it costs more because people have worse health and therefore cost more in lost productivity, health costs, potential not realised. You also often increase obesity when people can afford cheap carbs/preserved foods but not fresh fruit and veg.

Dogtooth .we get round the cheap carb thing by combing cous cous with lentils and a sauce.
Rice n lentils
. Frozen fruit and veg is also used and nutritious
Yes , its hard work, i get that, but it is possible . When i was younger i traveled and saw vast populations eating well v v cheaply and i brought these ideas home.
I do not wish to eat this way, but it enables us to support our dc, both of which have been educated on how to manage and live frugally . For eg our dc is eating with us this eve, dhall and rice and chutney will be enjoyed ,not tolerted and it is v v v cheap. Its not great but i need and want to feel positive.

Generations of people only had meat occasionally. Whats so special about us that we cant also manage ( extreme circs aside of course) . We have had it very easy. Other generations had to cope.

Don't accept these lies.
We should NOT need to ' make do '
We are NOT at war......being invaded by foreign armies. Despite lies your Govt & media are telling you.
We did NOT need to lock the country down, close businesses & wreck the economy. That was orders from Johnson & his rich elite cronies....after all, THEY didn't stop the partying !
Multiple so called " vaccines " put up to £100 per person , direct into GPS private pockets.
Big corporates profits have soared.
House prices have soared & the holiday/ rent to buy market are in profit heaven.

It's not a recession....it's a ' take the money & run ' coup, by the rich, for the rich.

You must stand up & say " No "
Or they will have you on as spoonful of rice....! And freezing...
Please wake up ....

@Crikeymaccrikey once again you're assuming that people can afford to run a freezer - many can't.

And we should not have to accept things being this much worse - we didn't have to have the obscenely hard Brexit that the government has saddled us with, which has added considerably to food costs. We don't have to have the obscenely high fuel and energy costs - this government has chosen not to put in more help, and meanwhile their mates have pocketed billions for dodgy PPE. We aren't where we are because there's a war on, we're where we are because our own government is robbing us blind.

pointythings i thought rhat most fridges had a little freezer inside. Sorry

@Crikeymaccrikey very many don't. Even if they do, the freezerspace is tiny and won't store enough for bulk buying of anything. Too many people don't realise - or don't want to realise - just how hard some people in the UK have it. That's what the Tories trade on.

People must wake up ....We are caught in so much detail - red tape...debating symptoms not causes. Lost in our desperate " me & mine " petty worlds of ' saving ourselves '......so much so that few are seeing what's happening.

Economic growth is down, does not mean " economic growth is going backwards "

Economic growth is down, does not mean " economic growth is going backwards "

Typed twice so you can contemplate those words.

Oh yes, I forgot, " Brexit "...whatever that means or ever meant ?!!

We're being screwed over by the rich, it's that simple.
Assuming you have enough assets to keep you & yours ' safe ' will not protect you !

If ever we needed solidarity & togetherness, it is Now !

To repeat....the economy is still growing , just not as fast as they want ! So there is NO reason for austerity & suffering .

Oh....& Bribing homeowners by " eeh look how much our house has gone up in value "....well, that's just to keep you quiet ...bribed & numb.

Agree that wealth distribution in way off in this country

The rich get richer

Liz truss has basically said she wants us to be more like India
I read that as she would like

Most people scrabbling for scraps whilst the rich live protected lives , destroying the planet for everyone else as they enjoy themselves

Mine doesnt

All my meals cost about this, though not estimated fuel.

I am not poor. We are high income. I am Indian and don't eat meat, so am used to eating this way. Even wealthy people in India eat this way. It is not as miserable as people on MN think! DH occ eats meat but uses very little. A chicken can feed 10 when he cooks his chicken palak curry.

I have to say I am astonished by Jack Monroe's awful and unappetising recipes with disguised vegetables. Buy an Asian cookbook: any of Indian, Sri Lanka, Thai, Malaysian, Chinese....Yes it will cost to buy in spices, but they last for years. Go to Asian supermarkets.

I don't suggest accepting what this awful Tory government is doing. I just think there are ways to eat differently. Even if you eat meat and fish.

Not even a tiny little ice compartment? That's how fridges were when I was growing up, in the Dark Ages, when many British people hadn't had one all that long (I don't think they were common in the UK until well after WW2). Typically, ours contained an ice cube tray, a small packet of frozen peas and either a rectangular block of Wall's ice cream, either Cornish or Neapolitan, or a packet of fish fingers. You couldn't have fitted anything else in.

Freezers started appearing in ordinary homes in the 1970s, I think - both chest freezers for those with the cash and the space, often living rurally, and fridge freezers, which were a marvellous development for families where both parents worked, like mine, and couldn't shop every day or several times a week, as women used to in earlier times.

@JanisMoplin , JM's recipes are aimed at someone with no spare money.
Someone relying on a foodbank is unlikely to have spare cash to nip out and buy books, lots of veg and stock a spice rack, and probably unlikely to have things like a pestle and mortar.

Am not talking about the tin can one. Am talking about the other stuff. But all these recipes are available for free on line

Also India is dirt poor and there are no food banks there. People still eat better than JM's fan following.

You'd be surprised, @JanisMoplin , but some people can't afford to be online.
I'm not disagreeing with your point that there are plenty of recipes to make vegetables tasty and appealing. The JM recipes look quite unappealing to me.
I'd be much more likely to make something cheap but using spices, but I can't say I have tried any of her recipes

@JanisMoplin
Any books or writers you'd recommend as a basic type of starting point?

A very old fashioned view of India!

JanisMoplin would you mind sharing any veggie recipies please. They sound healthy abd great .

@MaryAndHerNet and @Crikeymaccrikey This is quite an easy site with videos, and has both vegetarian as well as meat dishes.

I also use Tarla Dalal's veggie recipes. www.tarladalal.com and Sanjeev Kapoor's recipes. www.sanjeevkapoor.com

None of these sites are known for evocative writing:)Strictly utilitarian. But if you are a little more experienced, Madhur Jaffrey's cookbooks are lovely reading.

I cook a lot of dishes from memory really, rather than using a recipe. But if you like paneer, one of the really easy dishes I cook a lot is paneer bhurji, which is a paneer scramble, which we eat on toast or with rotis. Very cheap and healthy.

I can see the point you're making but many people in poverty can't afford the outlay for spices and books. More importantly, lots of them can't afford the risk of it. If you have £10 and you know your family/kids will definitely eat pasta bake or pizza or battered chicken but you dint know if they'd eat paneer bhurji, why would you gamble your food budget on it?

Fair enough.

@Whereismybike, agreed - especially in winter I make a lot of extremely cheap meals from largely seasonal U.K. grown veg, red lentils, pearl barley, etc. - because we like them, not because I need to.

But that assumes existing basics like stock cubes, oil and condiments, fuel for cooking, and a fridge for storing ‘cut and come again’ veg like swede and celery, some varieties of cabbage, etc. And a freezer for e.g. frozen spinach to add to a veg curry.

Oops name change fail. Me formerly known as Janis.