To think stealing food isn’t wrong if you’re starving?

[ThatPinkHedgehog]

If someone is hungry and has no means to buy food, is it really immoral for them to take what they need to survive? AIBU to think there’s a moral grey area when it comes to stealing for survival?

Shocked 57% think stealing is OK
hoping the Honest ones just aren’t bothering to vote on what is blatantly obvious.

Do you want a badge?

I went to Morrisons last week, and at the entrance they had bags of food you could take for free if you need it. There really is no need to steal.

So if that very person who was starving with no money broke into your house and stole the food in your cupboards, you’d be 100% ok with this. yeah right..,

It’s so much harder to access food banks than I suspect most people realise. With the Trussell Trust, for example, there are so many hoops to jump through

The Trussell Trust in my area only allow three referrals per household to them per year. I used to volunteer with them and it sickened me with the things I witnessed. People also need a voucher to access them, how degrading is that?

I’m glad to see a few community larders and pantries springing up which I’d rather donate to than an organisation that limits food to anyone in need. The Trussell Trust foodbank that I volunteered in hoovered up food donations from massive supermarkets and sent those donations well outwith the area yet they would only allow people in the area a certain amount of food a year, it’s so wrong imo. The newly established pantries are free of charge and survive through food donations from the public and excess food from supermarkets which would otherwise go to waste.

Edited to add, if someone is stealing food to feed their family it’s completely different to shoplifting. I have never been in that situation thankfully but many are and I would assume anyone caught stealing food to feed themselves or their family should be treated with compassion.

Shoplifting affects the staff, though, doesn't it? People on minimum wage with zero/low hours contracts. It creates tensions in their lives. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

Yep.

How do you lot feel about looting? OK for the not haves to loot the homes of the haves after the LA fires?

That's disgusting!

They should have stolen butter, not marg!

If you are starving and have no means of feeding yourself and your children, would you steal? Is there anyone here who wouldn't?

I think it's okay if you're genuinely desperately in need and you've exhausted all other options, but how do you know if someone else is in that situation or not? Plenty of people stealing to order these days, or selling it door to door.

Our local supermarket has a turnover of about £1 million per week. There has been a recent upswing in theft from supermarkets (hence the sudden installation of barriers in many places) and the local supermarket now sees £100,000 in thefts each week. In other words, everyone is paying 10% more for their shopping every week just to cover what is being stolen,

What a silly comparison. An average person can’t
be compared to an enormous corporation like a supermarket. Lick those boots

I struggle to believe this TBH.

People steal food out of desperation because they've tried all the suggestions above. It's a failure of experience or imagination to not understand why.

The minimum wait for Universal Credit is 5 weeks. How are you supposed to manage for that amount of time with no or little money? If you were paid weekly that leaves you with no money for 4 week

Many foodbanks only give a few days worth of food. What do you do then"
What do you do if you can't afford the bus fare to get to a foodbank?
What do you do when you're sacked on Friday and the Food Bank doesn't open until Wednesday?
What do you do when you've been sacked, fired and rehired or can't get enough hours on a zero hours contract?
What do you do when you have been sanctioned for weeks or months ( no money given at all) because you couldn't make an appointment because you couldn't afford the fare?

You can get a loan from Social Security but it has to be paid back.
You can get a loan from Pay Day Loan companies at 45% APR, 91% APR, 1575% APR or more. Loan sharks are not nice people. They don't react well if you can't pay on time.

Many people are living very precariously - minimum wage, huge debts, big rents, 13% no savings at all just loans. When the family are feeling desperately cold as temperatures plummet you may be forced to put the little money you have in the meter etc.

I had this repeated by several people on the checkout who have all regularly seen people walking out quite blatantly with large amounts of shopping. (We got onto the topic when I asked why several local supermarkets had all just installed barriers and noted that those in our holiday destination now all had them too when they hadn’t two years ago - different companies).

This is what the starving poor used to look like. Not like the lardy arse shoplifters of 2025. Get a job and pay for what you need, you are insulting these people.

Those boys got jobs. Shit jobs. Working in coal mines. Foundries etc. Long hours. They served their country, they died and got maimed in the trenches. For the most part, they were honest because that's how people were back then. GET A FUCKING JOB SCROUNGERS, YOU HAVE NO NEED TO STEAL.

There are no jobs in 2025 that are anywhere near as unpleasant as the work these people had to do. People who steal are weak and pathetic, there is plenty of work out there. Don't steal, you can do better.

There's no such thing as objective right and wrong. It's completely contextal. So yea it's not wrong to steal if you are starving... what are you supposed to do, just starve? Even according to the law it would be taken into account in court.. you would get a lesser punishment for committing a crime that you were essentially forced to commit in order to stay alive.
For example if you killed someone who was directly threatening your or your family members/friends life..
Context dies indeed matter.
I think people who are black and white about it all are frankly either a bit stupid. Or just so oblivious to any situations that might occur that would merit doing something 'wrong' because they are privileged and sheltered.

And if you are one of those people who is 100% sure that their personal sense of right and wrong is some kind of universal objective and timeless fact... you need to give your head a wobble.

I personally just try to be as kind and considerate as possible whilst taking account of consent and people's rights over themselves.. but yes I'll put the survival of the people I really care about most and myself, first, if absolutely forced to. Obviously I'm not just going to lie down and die because 'stealing is wrong' No one would.

Nobody starves in 2025 UK. People starved in 1825. Starving people don't have enough strength to steal. Get a job, there is a load of work out there.

And I have myself stolen food. I left home at 16 and spent some time homeless. You just do what you have to do.
Yes I did get a job in the end but you can't just pull a job out of your arse.. at one point before I found work I signed on. But only for a few months because I actually found it more soul destroying than being homeless. So I just left the area. Lived in a tent on a beach. Went round hotels looking for work...
But the thing is I was young and reasonably intelligent... and yeah, reasonably attractive which I'm not saying to boast, but as a fairly pretty young girl I did eventually find a waitress job despite living in a tent iyswim. I'm also able bodied.. I had no kids at that point.
From this experience I completely understand how much harder some other people have it. It was hard enough for me. And I only got out of that situation really by trading on things which I had by luck. Some people do not have those things.
Some of you commenting have no idea what it's like to be completely absolutely alone with nothing to fall back on, no one to call and no where to go...
There's safety nets on this country but they don't kick in immediately and the state you sometimes havd to get in to merit that type of support... well let's just put it this way, I personally found it easier to live in a tent on some sand dunes and steal out of date bread.
I own my own home now, am happily married with 3 children and a job I love.
I don't regret stealing food to survive as a teen and young adult.. and I certainly don't judge anyone else for doing what they need to do to survive when it really comes down to it.

Something that really winds me up is that we actively celebrate that survival instinct in the rich when it's to do with money. You are a hustler if you manage to sell someone crap for 3 times what it cost you to make.. or fleece someone out of a bunch of money.. or make money from what is essentially financial gambling.
But if you are living in poverty and you steal some food from a supermarket chain so you dont starve to death, then you are filth.

Get a grip.

You only have to do a quick Google search to show you that yes, people have starved to death over the last decade, due to austerity. It's absolutely disgusting but it's true.

It depends on whether you get caught. If you don't get caught, who cares.

Nobody has starved to death due to austerity. What the fuck are you on about.