Foodbanks! Did I just hear Julia Hartley Brewer correctly?

[fUNNYfACE36]

Am I being unreasonable to be disgusted by Julia Hartley Brewer's comment this morning, tha t in the course of her work she has visited many foodbanks, and the people who use them are not that thin!!
So until you are emaciated you should just not eat?

I work full time, and have had to use food banks. I’m a single mum of 3, one with additional needs (but no funding) and work 40 hours a week - plus another 10-15 in overtime. (Childcare costs are just crazy and take 75% of my income)

I’m fatter now than ever. Because I can’t afford the healthy meals we used to eat! In fact I’ve gone from size 12 to a size 16 - look 6 months pregnant half the time as I can’t afford gluten free foods. My kids have the healthy stuff I can afford, I have the ‘junk’.

these people really don’t have a clue do they! Like I don’t judge myself enough. I do go hungry but at the end of the day, a 40p bag of biscuits will keep me going more than 40p worth of a meal.

What an unpleasant woman, when she’s on question time, she’s so full of herself, smug. She should be made to volunteer at a fb.

But nobody is getting fat through replacing a meal with a packet of crisps. If anything you’ll lose weight doing that. It’s too much food and usually the wrong kind. They could make their food stretch twice as far by halving the portions 🤷🏼‍♀️

I did not say this, I was pointing out that fraud and deceit is a human trait

That's a dreadful comment. I'm comfortably off and was obese at one point due to my thyroid being removed and the levothyroxine I was given not working. People can have all sorts of health conditions causing weight gain and also on a very low budget, high calorie, nutrient lacking foods tend to be the cheapest.

I would be more shocked to hear that Julia Hartley Brewer supported food banks and was concerned that this country has so many of them. She is just a hate fueled contrarian who makes her living from spouting sound bites of spite

Just thought I'd mention that Fray Bentos pies are £1.50 with clubcard at Tesco at the moment if anyone is in a position to donate to Foodbank

Both sides of the debate have a point. I'd say it was cheaper to eat 'healthy' as long as you're not eating too much meat, than it is to buy a lot of branded sugary goods or fast food.

However, if you want to do it properly you're going to have to spend a lot of time on meal prep and learn how to cook as well. A lot of healthy supermarket food comes in the form of them packaging it up as a healthy option and pre prepping it, and these products tend to cost a premium. It was certainly easier to eat healthier before the cost of living went up, now you'd have to prepare a lot more food from scratch which takes more time/know how which many people won't have.

The Tory MPs make these points but want to deflect from the fact that its got harder under their watch.

I wouldn’t have expected anything better from her 🤷‍♀️

Just a point on lentils, which are raised every time.

Lentils are shit. Unless you add oil or ghee, onion and garlic, chillies, ginger, turmeric, garam marsala, coconut milk, cumin, salt, lime... I mean you get my point.

All of which, BTW, I have in my house. Because I'm not poor, I'm not fleeing abuse, I haven't been kicked out of care or prison.

However, I do remember my rage when my full olive oil (a gift) got used in a shared house and I had no way to replace it.

Just eating lentils boiled in water is not way to live. Poor or not. And people who think they could live like that haven't done it for very long.

I haven't seen anyone suggest you just eat lentils boiled in water. However, they can be added to soups and stews to bulk them out and add protein. They can fully replace or partially replace meat in dishes such as spaghetti bolognaise or moussaka. They're a very cheap protein source and I love them!

@SallyWD but how are people affording the fuel to cook those meals?

Oh yes I have bipolar and the amount if times someone has ya look fine or you don't seem depressed is astronomical. Like hello its called an invisible disability for a reason

I haven't seen anyone suggest you just eat lentils boiled in water. However, they can be added to soups and stews to bulk them out and add protein. They can fully replace or partially replace meat in dishes such as spaghetti bolognaise or moussaka. They're a very cheap protein source and I love them!

You still need additional ingredients to make soups, stews, etc. I can see why someone would choose shitty convenience food over lentils.

You think she is usually sensible? Wow just wow!!! She is vile, disgusting excuse for a human being, she even defended that Andrew Tate rapist, think ya need to give yersel a good shake like

Bolognese or chilli takes half an hour in my cheap stovetop pressure cooker. Soups 15 minutes. I don't think the gas hob uses much as we eat similarly year round and our summer gas bill is very low for cooking and hot water. We are a low income family, not in poverty so able to buy a pressure cooker, of course not everyone can put that money aside.

A local community foodbank type charity fundraised for slow cookers for families in need at the beginning of winter, and provided recipes.

Just the point about apples being cheap in Sainsburys assumes people can get to big supermarkets - round here, without a car it's minimum £4 bus trip to Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Asda, Aldi - but plenty of Spas - with hugely inflated prices and limited choices within walking distance

There is now at last an Aldi within walking distance but not everyone in the poorest areas has access to supermarkets and cheaper food

Ya don't know what it means to be skint do you? Many people using food banks are in full time employment but low wages. Or on such a minimum amount of money they genuinely have no spare cash for fruit and veg. Spoke to this single Mum one day and before col and she was feeding herself and her child for £30 a month, that doesn't allow for buying fruit etc, they basically lived on pasta. Until you have been there don't judge

£15.90 for a return trip to the nearest supermarket on the bus here. It's a 2 hour round trip as the bus goes the "scenic route" and not the most direct route.....it doesn't run at the weekends and if you miss it it's a 2 hour wait until the next one. Those 84p apples much lauded on here turn out to be very expensive.

Lentils are not shit.

And if you are encouraging very poor people to spend the time and effort growing their own veg then why not also encourage spending the time making a dhal with onions garlic and curry powder.