On one of the forums where journalists look for case studies recently there was a call from one of the right-wing tabloids for 'savvy' mums who are able to feed a family of four for £10 a week. This got a few people's backs up (including mine) as I see this as normalising poverty - and the only way anyone can feed a family of four for a week is by using food banks. This isn't 'savvy', it's desperate - I have friends who run a food bank and the bank is on its knees and might actually have to close due to the massive pressure of increased demand, so it's immoral to normalise their use.
I also Googled a few of those 'I feed my family for a tenner/£20 a week' type articles and they're all highly disingenous, the portions are tiny (would at a stretch feed two adults and two babies but not two adults and two hungry teens), were really only one meal a day, poor nutrition and didn't include snacks or drinks. TBH I spend more than a tenner a week on food for my pets - as they don't just get the cheapest food out there as I care about their health - and that isn't weird or profligate. It boggles my mind that people think actual humans can be fed healthily for less than that.
Am I wrong? Can it be done without resorting to food banks/begging for food on local forums (something I am also seeing a lot now)? Is it OK to describe this as 'savvy' rather than a sign of the poverty that's now endemic in the fifth richest economy in the world?