Page 6 | To think food banks aren’t fit for purpose

Greenlittecat · 25/06/2024 08:29

PollyPeachum · 25/06/2024 08:13

Don't worry everyone, In a few weeks time the Labour Government will make them redundant with high wages and generous allowances so we can all buy fresh nutritious food.
Sir Keir and his colleagues tell us.

Thats a relief! The state of the country after 14 years of Tory leadership is shambolic. Although clearly, with your thinky veiled sarcasm you disgaree.

It's a shame you can't see past your own self importance.

Greenlittecat · 25/06/2024 08:30

soupfiend · 25/06/2024 08:25

Theres nothing wrong with tinned food, Ive just said this on another thread, its not fashionable, seen as old school and boring but its cheap, convenient and filling. A tin of soup is a convenient lunch, ideally with something else but not necessarily

Soup isn't particularly filling or hearty when you're chronically hungry though.

SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice · 25/06/2024 08:38

Greenlittecat · 25/06/2024 08:30

Soup isn't particularly filling or hearty when you're chronically hungry though.

Show quote history

Yes, it’s a low calorie diet food and hideous to eat cold, which many who need a food bank will have no choice but to eat it cold straight out the tin.

Creamcakes99 · 25/06/2024 08:39

malachitegreen · 25/06/2024 06:49

Actually I have a friend dealing with this right now, mum starved to death in hospital

Show quote history

has She starved to death or is she malnourished via eating the wrong foods?
surely the press would be all over this. It’s prime propaganda for the left

Moonmelodies · 25/06/2024 08:40

Creamcakes99 · 25/06/2024 08:39

has She starved to death or is she malnourished via eating the wrong foods?
surely the press would be all over this. It’s prime propaganda for the left

Show quote history

Not if she's in Wales.

Mrsjayy · 25/06/2024 08:41

SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice · 25/06/2024 08:38

Yes, it’s a low calorie diet food and hideous to eat cold, which many who need a food bank will have no choice but to eat it cold straight out the tin.

Show quote history

People usually in general have microwaves or a pot to heat things up quickly,

DanielGault · 25/06/2024 08:45

Creamcakes99 · 25/06/2024 08:39

has She starved to death or is she malnourished via eating the wrong foods?
surely the press would be all over this. It’s prime propaganda for the left

Show quote history

Surely that would be prime news for both sides of the aisle?

Fizbosshoes · 25/06/2024 08:54

Frequency · 25/06/2024 08:08

I've had to use one once, around 5 years ago, I think it was. I was grateful for the help, we had literally nothing but I agree with OP in that what we did get wasn't anything we could do much with. The kids were pleased that biscuits and sweets were included (as extras - the staff said they get a lot of biscuits).

The rest was stuff you couldn't/wouldn't usually make a full meal from eg a Fray Bentos pie, tinned potatoes, tinned pasta. We did also get some milk and cereal but there wasn't any bread. The kids got a couple of lunches from it. I went hungry as there just wasn't enough or anything of any quality.

I don't blame the food bank, I understand they can only give what they get but for families who have to rely on them, it is not enough, not even near, although I live in quite a deprived area where most people don't have anything left to give. I don't know what the answer is, other than to increase wages and benefits so they are not needed anymore. You can't force people to donate and if the government funded them I'd rather see that money be given to people as cold, hard cash so they have a choice over what they eat and can cater to allergies and preferences.

Ever since I've always made a point to donate what I would have liked to have whenever I have any spare money eg pasta, tinned toms, kidney beans, tinned fruit and custard, bread, etc. things you can actually put together in a halfway decent meal.

You say in paragraph 2 you couldn't make a full meal out of what you received in your parcel, and yet without knowing how your own donation was split, the recipients of that might have the same problem with theirs?
I think the point is that the services are fairly stretched between more people and maybe its not possible to provide a full range of food from whsts been donated.
I put in instant noodles because that's what the food bank specifically asked for....and yet OP doesn't find that a suitable or filling meal. I also buy tins of meatballs in sauce because there always seems to be loads of pasta donated, together that would make a meal.....but not everyone would have the means of cooking or heating that.....(if they even got pasta + tinned meatballs in the same package)
Like you say, money (or maybe a supermarket voucher) would potentially be better

sashh · 25/06/2024 09:00

Can I just divert this thread for a moment.

THANK YOU to all of you who volunteer. Thank you also to the people who donate.

OK back tot he thread.

Sweetvalleyhigh1234 · 25/06/2024 09:02

ForFirmBiscuit · 24/06/2024 22:35

I don’t need to use a food bank but when I did they gave me tins of soup, a small tin of meat pie, a litre of UHT and a small bag of oats, nothing fresh. I didn’t get much and I was really hungry as there wasn’t enough calories and it was insubstantial. It gave me loads of anxiety to be so hungry. It’s always been like that.
I think food banks should be supplied by the council and given proper budgets for good food, even if they made batches of soup themselves to give out it would be more filling than a tin of soup

Some might argue if you were hungry, the tins of soup was better then nothing. Just ask the starving across the world who don't even know when any meal is coming let alone one from a food bank. The food banks in this country do their very best. If you think they need improvement why don't you approach the one that served you with your ideas to see if they are able to change anything. I donate often to my local food bank and there's an online list which they publish of the things they need or short on.

SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice · 25/06/2024 09:07

Creamcakes99 · 25/06/2024 06:30

It’s clearly not an intelligent solution
plus I don’t buy that ppl are going hungry
find me an example of someone in hospital who has starved to death through having no money to buy food
too many ppl are over weight and could do with skipping a meal or 10 a week.
kids don’t eat breakfast because they don’t have pushy parents who are prepared to get up in a morning and feed their children.

Show quote history

There have been several deaths.
Errol Graham- The disabled 57-year-old weighed just 4.5 stone when his emaciated body was discovered by bailiffs who broke down his door to evict him after DWP wrongly cut his benefits.

We average a few hundred deaths from malnutrition/starvation every year
”In 2022, there were 436 deaths involving malnutrition registered in England and Wales...”
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/deathsfrommalnutrition

anonhop · 25/06/2024 09:27

Frequency · 25/06/2024 08:08

I've had to use one once, around 5 years ago, I think it was. I was grateful for the help, we had literally nothing but I agree with OP in that what we did get wasn't anything we could do much with. The kids were pleased that biscuits and sweets were included (as extras - the staff said they get a lot of biscuits).

The rest was stuff you couldn't/wouldn't usually make a full meal from eg a Fray Bentos pie, tinned potatoes, tinned pasta. We did also get some milk and cereal but there wasn't any bread. The kids got a couple of lunches from it. I went hungry as there just wasn't enough or anything of any quality.

I don't blame the food bank, I understand they can only give what they get but for families who have to rely on them, it is not enough, not even near, although I live in quite a deprived area where most people don't have anything left to give. I don't know what the answer is, other than to increase wages and benefits so they are not needed anymore. You can't force people to donate and if the government funded them I'd rather see that money be given to people as cold, hard cash so they have a choice over what they eat and can cater to allergies and preferences.

Ever since I've always made a point to donate what I would have liked to have whenever I have any spare money eg pasta, tinned toms, kidney beans, tinned fruit and custard, bread, etc. things you can actually put together in a halfway decent meal.

With respect, all the stuff you suggest is stuff you can make a meal out of.

A tinned pie is a meal...bonus if you can put some tinned veg on the side but not essential. Same with other posters moaning about pot noodles. That's definitely a meal (ask any student ever!)

Saying there's nothing of any quality so you went hungry is fine- that's your choice, but if you were starving you'd eat low quality food?

Most tinned FB stuff isn't low quality in terms of nutrition, but it is bland.

At the end of the day, the FB meant you & your kids didn't go hungry. I understand it'd be great if they could provide more fresh/popular foods, but they're doing what they can + it's a charity reliant on donations, not a government scheme.

Mrsjayy · 25/06/2024 09:32

Yes tinned pie is a dinner I mean it might not be the tastiest but it will fill a space I don't understand how you can't make a meal out if it .

BrownTroutBluesAgain · 25/06/2024 09:32

Noras · 25/06/2024 06:53

Someone I knew worked with the council to help people with less cook more effectively and make simple nutritional meals for less. She felt despair as the general feel was why bother when you can get it in a packet. The reality is the low budgets don’t stretch to ready made pizza or ready made meals. However with large bags of lentils, onions and spices you can make Dahl for weeks. Cooking from scratch is cheaper if you have time but it does not take much. Im lucky as my mother spent her childhood starving during the end of the war in Italy and generally if you come originally from peasant stock you have the ability to cook for not much money etc. with so much larger bags of pulses, rice etc in larger supermarkets there is no real need to starve.Any peasant descent person knows how to make a great nutritious soup with 3 carrots, one onion,2 leeks, cabbage 2 tins of tomatoes, 2 tins of of cannellini beans and stock that can feed them for 2 - 3 evening meals with some bread or individual bread rolls. Life won’t be great but it’s not exactly the work house era of the 1920’s - my dad was born in one of those. He had 7 schools by the age of 14 when he left to work as a delivery boy in Liptons on a bike. They fled from rent to rent to avoid paying when he was a child. My mother lived on dug out roots and general foraging in end war Italy even as a child I recall her foraging nettles and making soup ( good for iron). She knew her fungi etc. As a child although we were affluent I had my share of nettles soup, peculiar green soups etc. Nothing was wasted, the bones from the Sunday roast were used to make a risotto on Monday, left over meat was put in a stew. even the fat from the frying pan was re used. Sometimes it smelt gross.

My mother also used ‘used’ cooking fat for face cream and had amazing unlined face.

The last time I visited my family in Italy 2 years ago, the first meal I had was mushroom pasta made from mushrooms foraged freely from the hillside. It’s a different way of thinking

Also as someone around in the 1970s people did starve and I recall someone crying outside the shops saying ‘ I have not got enough money to feed my kids’ it was Christmas Eve. There are lots of programmes on you tube about poverty in the 1960 and 1970’s. However it does not fit the narrative that likes to envisage poverty arising from the Thatcher era onwards. People probably just kept it hidden. Houses were often unheated with ice on the inside etc. My parents once had to burn a piece of furniture as they had no heat. To make matters worse, when my dad was in the army they automatically docked his pay to support his alcoholic dad and mum - yes that system of having pay docked to support parents existed in the 1950s.

So saying, the huge gulf between extraordinarily rich and poor is obscene and needs to be looked at.

OP has not explained their weekly budget.

Real poverty in the 1960 there was no tv, no fridge, no phone, no car. Even middle class families did not have cars in the 1970 or 1980s. My school friend got married in 1983 and her parents had to hire a normal car for the wedding. She never had a phone. She felt ashamed and embarrassed by it all . I recall visiting someone’s grandparents in the 1980s and they stil used a mangle to wring out clothes.

I was privileged and lucky as my parents worked hard to give me a great life but so saying my mother even refused to buy medicine and would strip bark off a willow tree etc and give me this gross green gunk. My childhood was unusual but even now I can feed myself for very little funds. Even though we were wealthy by the time I was about 10 my parents made me wear my older brother’s old trousers/ jumpers when I was about 5 or 7 when aged 14 onwards I raided my mother’s clothes or charity shops, This was long before it was trendy to do so. From an early age I learnt to hang around supermarkets at certain times to get the marked down food or the bargain veg to quickly cook into something nutritious that would last. When I went to university my dad gave me less than the full grant ( I did consider disowning my parents to get a full grant as it was desperate) so I had to work continuously even working at my faculty ball ( we got free food and got to see all the ents). I ring him once when a student and said ‘ I have £1 to last me 3 days and 3 old potatoes and a can of tomatoes. ‘ He responded ‘That will make life interesting for you ‘ and put down the phone.’ (1983) The room I had in the flat we rented was condemned by the council it had one external wall only onto the road, built as an extension in the 1970s and was so cold the cooking oil I had froze. We had running damp and mould.

Even now, I don’t eat meat and actually find beans, lentils and other pulses really nutritious,

I just wanted to explain as many of you have never experienced things like that.

What an excellent post.
It had to be said!

Swap Italy for Ireland and you’ve got my family right there
Although I was lucky to get a full grant in the 80s for Uni.
We still cook with lentils and beans and my kids have been brought up like that.

inigomontoyahwillcox · 25/06/2024 09:33

For those who have no cooking facilities at all, we provide some self-heating meals as well as items that can be eaten cold - they cost a fortune though.

With the best will in the world, we aren't going to keep everyone happy. As much as we want to replicate a standard trolley of food to feed a family, we just can't, and adjustments have to be made to make the service feasible and cover as many eventualities as possible.

Fresh food is incredibly important in a balanced diet. But we are here to get people through times of crisis, we are not meant to be a long-term solution, and we work our local and national partners to support our clients out of the crisis. Not quite so simple in the current climate when people are stuck in cycles of debt and benefits do not stretch to cover the basics, I appreciate, and we're seeing people return to us far more often than a couple of years ago.

Leah5678 · 25/06/2024 09:37

Fresh food goes out of date a lot quicker so it would be a lot more expensive to do that plus the council would have to raise tax for the funds which would make more people poorer and needing the food bank so kinda a vicious cycle

foodybanky · 25/06/2024 09:56

Mrsjayy · 25/06/2024 08:15

@foodybanky I think you have to accept the good with the bad you are always going to get ungratefuls or people just taking advantage. I'm sorry your service is tapering off there just isn't the resources sanymore is there ?

It's not tapering off - just trying serving more people.

We're trying to get back to an emergency food bank as we originally were rather than just becoming a food service for weekly/fortnightly regulars.

There are other banks in town. (As well a debt counselling, cookery lessons, daily hot food etc.)

Mrsjayy · 25/06/2024 10:00

foodybanky · 25/06/2024 09:56

It's not tapering off - just trying serving more people.

We're trying to get back to an emergency food bank as we originally were rather than just becoming a food service for weekly/fortnightly regulars.

There are other banks in town. (As well a debt counselling, cookery lessons, daily hot food etc.)

Show quote history

Ah fair enough I misread your post sorry.

MessageOnAWall · 25/06/2024 10:03

This thread makes me feel really old, and I'm not yet 40!
I was at my personal poorest pre- Tory government. I saw and experienced what benefits were like (as an under 25yr old, so lower benefits than other adults). Also experienced what services were like (homelessness, NHS).
It IS worse now. Every now and then something reminds me of what things were like then and it's shocking how much worse things have got (even if I personally am now in a better position).

The comments about people taking when they are not in the greatest need are interesting. I don't disagree, but usually people taking the piss is seen as a reason to slash benefits, whereas in this example it would actually be a good reason to make sure they are fit for purpose. If there was a realistic minimum for people to live on then you could turn them away if they are entitled to/receiving benefits, knowing they have enough.

sashh · 25/06/2024 10:20

The comments about people taking when they are not in the greatest need are interesting. I don't disagree, but usually people taking the piss is seen as a reason to slash benefits, whereas in this example it would actually be a good reason to make sure they are fit for purpose. If there was a realistic minimum for people to live on then you could turn them away if they are entitled to/receiving benefits, knowing they have enough.

I think my local community shop (see upthread) has it about right. You have to get a referral to get free food, but anyone can use the shop, well you have to pay £5 to join, but they give you £5 worth of food when you join.

They sometimes put food outside. It's only open Mon - Fri but volunteers are in on a Saturday so they will leave a pallet out of donations that won't last over the weekend and put on facebook there is free bread or whatever.

They also accept donations of food that is past its sell by date and anyone can take that for free, It's usually crips donated by the vape shop.

I don't know if it is because I live in one of the most deprived wards

OrwellianTimes · 25/06/2024 10:58

Meetingofminds · 25/06/2024 07:33

I look forward to most of them closing down then under Labour. Labour will pay for all fresh food for the whole nation from the magic money tree they have hidden according to their supporters. Oh except they won’t and can’t. Oh well nothing to do with conservatives and everything to do with food banks gaining traction and less shame around using them.

Edited

Show quote history

I’ve never said I didn’t think there’s been a massive boom of food banks under Tory government- it’s clear there has. I’m saying I do t believe there were only 34 in 2010.

TheWayTheLightFalls · 25/06/2024 11:26

I run a food bank in a deprived corner of London. We partner with Fareshare and a few food markets, so always have fresh stuff in (though July is better than February when it comes to fruit and most veg). And generally most of our beneficiaries have some buying power - just not enough to eat well or enough, that’s where we come in.

The short answer, OP, is that food banks aren’t one homogeneous entity. Some are “chains” like Trussell Trust, but even then we have limited control over our stock/donations, limited purchasing power, high demand, and many are predominantly volunteer led. And volunteers aren’t allowed best placed to understand what people need or want to eat.

I’m due to sort out food for 700 people this week. I’ve spent the morning whether the four crates of bananas we have should go to schoolchildren or pensioners whose bad teeth means that lots of other fruit is off limits, whether the 40 mangoes we have will be better at a teenage after school club or offered to the Carribean ladies who will call in tomorrow. Who gets fresh bread? Who gets milk? Should I spend the £10 spare I have on gluten free and halal stuff for those who need it, or 60 packs of instant noodles?

Get angry at the government that has allowed this to be the norm.

Original poster

ForFirmBiscuit · 25/06/2024 12:16

TheWayTheLightFalls · 25/06/2024 11:26

I run a food bank in a deprived corner of London. We partner with Fareshare and a few food markets, so always have fresh stuff in (though July is better than February when it comes to fruit and most veg). And generally most of our beneficiaries have some buying power - just not enough to eat well or enough, that’s where we come in.

The short answer, OP, is that food banks aren’t one homogeneous entity. Some are “chains” like Trussell Trust, but even then we have limited control over our stock/donations, limited purchasing power, high demand, and many are predominantly volunteer led. And volunteers aren’t allowed best placed to understand what people need or want to eat.

I’m due to sort out food for 700 people this week. I’ve spent the morning whether the four crates of bananas we have should go to schoolchildren or pensioners whose bad teeth means that lots of other fruit is off limits, whether the 40 mangoes we have will be better at a teenage after school club or offered to the Carribean ladies who will call in tomorrow. Who gets fresh bread? Who gets milk? Should I spend the £10 spare I have on gluten free and halal stuff for those who need it, or 60 packs of instant noodles?

Get angry at the government that has allowed this to be the norm.

Make batches of food to hand out like soup, it’s more filling and nutritious and has more calories than a tin

OP posts:

Lifesucks2024 · 25/06/2024 12:21

It's meant to be a temporary solution though OP. It shouldn't be about improving food banks - it should be about the government working towards never needing them at all.

Alwaysthesun24 · 25/06/2024 12:23

We shouldn't NEED foodbanks at all